A New Beginning: My Journey with Addy

The slave catcher hoists us both up into the back of the cart, and rough, splintered wood scrapes my palms as I scramble for balance. Addy folds herself into the corner, knees drawn to her chest, and I copy her without thinking. The horse jerks forward, and the whole cart lurches so hard that I have to grab the side rail to keep from tumbling into her lap.

I keep waiting for someone to stop this. A grown man is hauling two girls through the middle of Philadelphia in broad daylight, and nobody so much as slows down. For the first time, I truly understand that losing your freedom is nothing like being grounded. It’s losing every choice you have, one at a time, until nothing is left that’s actually yours to decide.

“Where’s he taking us?” I whisper, my voice smaller than I mean it to sound.

Addy’s jaw goes tight before she can answer. She’s heard of a place downtown that she’s never laid eyes on herself, one folks call the Slave Market. I reach for her hand, and she squeezes back so hard it nearly hurts, and neither of us lets go for the rest of the ride.

We bump along for what feels like forever, the streets around us growing stranger and stranger, until the cart finally stops in front of a squat brick building squeezed between a bank and a hat shop. Gold letters curl across the front window, and my stomach drops before I even finish reading them. “Negroes for Sale.”

The slave catcher pulls us down from the cart and pushes us through the door ahead of him. Addy and I don’t loosen our grip on each other for even a second. Inside, a tall counter runs the length of the room, with several desks lined up behind it, and it looks unsettlingly like the office where Mom works downtown. A white-haired man with wire spectacles glances up, frowning, as the slave catcher crosses the room to speak with him in a voice too low for me to catch. Neither man looks away from us for more than a moment at a time.

“Stand over there,” the slave catcher orders, pointing toward a wall plastered edge to edge with flyers and notices. I don’t want to know what’s printed on them, so I keep my eyes down.

Addy’s face has gone strangely still, like she’s folded all her fear away somewhere I can’t see it anymore. That stillness scares me more than crying would have. I whisper to ask if we should try running again. Addy just shakes her head.