by Veronica Henry

I smell them before I see them. It took nearly two hundred years for me to smell anything but the smothering stink of blood and sweat. There was the blood of a recent kill in the jungle and there was the other–the one you could only smell if you set your mind to it. That blood was centuries old.

But the others taught me. All I needed was patience — something I couldn’t muster in them early decades. I had to be still, to feel what was around me. Down here, so far back in this hole in the side of the mountain, the wind visits, faint and wan and deadened, but it comes. In time, those gentle wisps of essence seemed more like heavy bouquets of drift and I was as good as any of them that taught me.

In this dark, my eyes only just make out the curve of the flat earthen walls, there ain’t nothing else to see, but I hear the varmints and little jungle creatures that care to venture this deep. My nose and my memory help me see everything else, even outside. Carried along with the swirl of the ocean breeze, I know a monkey peed, some ways back from the opening to this place, that monkey pregnant too. It rained last night, the earth still carrying that moldy dankness. Them people — they can’t take this heat, they sweatin something terrible, salt mixed with must.

There are probably ten or so in this group. The guide, Ibrahim, he bring them closer. I stopped getting too worked up after fifty or sixty of these groups had come and gone. I would cry my dry tears for months after they left. Still, every time Ibrahim comes, my heart leaps a little and I don’t try to stop it.

They have passed through the outer wall, stumbling and coughing their way through the chambers. I ease back into a corner where I can get a good look at them when they come into my hold. I can’t remember when I started to think of this place as mine. I don’t want it to be.

What was mine is so muddy now. I was only thirteen when they come. My father had just put on a new roof of freshly chopped palm leaves. I was promised to Komba, and with all the visiting we would have with the wedding, he didn’t want rain falling on anybody’s head. But they took my Komba and I never seen him again.

I wonder why they come. I know some of them come because they hear our call. But them others . . . Do they search for a spectacle? Do they not believe what happened here? I wonder if they feel proud or shamed. I hope they feel something for us that suffered.

They close now—they almost here. I blink in the dark, my eyes adjusting to the light Ibrahim shines here and there for them.

She came!

Yes, one of mine finally came home and I am free. She tall like a Mandika, but the poor thing got my bony legs and thick ankles. Her skin is a shade too light for my liking though, but I shouldn’t complain. She got a kind face. She did not sob and holler like some of the other kin—no, she just look around, taking it all in, listening, but not listening to Ibrahim drone on.

Her eyes keep shifting my way. Does she see me? Or does she just have a wandering eye? My aunty Salleh had a wandering eye. She had a club foot too, but this kin does not.

“They came in chains from all along the west coast,” Ibrahim drawled in his Krio accented English. “Here in Sierra Leone, they came from as far east as Kenema, as far north as Fadugu . . .” That old fool Ibrahim just make up something different for every group. They never bought people from Fadugu to this castle. They were closer to the border and the Portuguese took them through Guinea. He is right about them chains though. My wrist never did heal up right.

My kin look over here again, she got my daddy’s eyes. At least I think she does, so many centuries, so many people, sometimes they all run together and I can’t make out one face from the next.

Her hair is nice enough, not all ironed and flattened like the rest of those lost souls. They return here, looking for something, some part of them they know is missing. But they lost. They souls is in another place, they not here. I may be stuck but I ain’t lost.

I’m the last one here and I’m ready to go.

I blow out a tired, decayed breath, it rustles up the dust and as usual, the people get a little jumpy, twitchy. My kin though, she just stares. She is lonely. There is a sadness in her eyes I recognize. You see, I been lonely too. It took my kin four hundred years to come get me.

I been calling . . . calling my line since the wind told me they was free. My last companion left maybe eighty years ago. We were the last of us — the souls that died in the slave castle. I been alone since, though sometimes I still hear the wails of them that died in the ocean. Sometimes I join in with them, my soul howling for the babies I never had, for my family, scattered, for my village — gone.

Now she come. I wonder where she live. I wonder what her people—my people, like in that place. Whatever and wherever it is I don’t care. I’ll settle in and make myself comfortable. I won’t bother them too much if they let me alone. I just need to be free. I been cooped up in this place for too long.

I slide over, kick a chain with my crusty old foot. That skittish one scream then. Ibrahim ain’t trying to be hurried though. He know the longer he talk, the more he can bleed these folk for that tip money he spend on the liquor that oozes outta his pores. I think I should be paid for my part too. This place sure took enough from me.

Finally, they shuffle towards the door — more like a round hole in the wall. I follow. I’ve come to this door before but could never pass through. I would just stand here, peering out at more walls. The people stoop down and pass through in a line.

I’m gone walk right through this door. It is finally my turn. All these centuries past, all the other souls left me here. I remember when Brima left. He really felt bad, we hoped our kin would come at the same time. But we should have known better. He got to the doorway, right where I’m standing now and he just stared out. I told him to go on, don’t worry bout me. He glanced back once and darned if that old soul didn’t run out of here. I wasn’t mad at him though, I understand.

I can go now, but I’m still standing here. Maybe I should set those chains right for the next group. Maybe this old fool won’t be able to sell his tours anymore without me here to rustle up a little mischief.

My feet shuffle forward two steps and then I jump back like the new air was gone burn me. I can’t go no further. I tell my feet–my feet that haven’t shuffled further than these few steps in hundreds of years, to move.

The little group is moving farther away from me. And I stand here with my legs frozen like tree stumps. I had cursed others who acted like they couldn’t leave this place, now here I am, standing here scared like them. Only a true slave don’t know how to leave when he set free.

My kin — she don’t know why, but she look back this way. She tilt her head and walk back over. She stand right in front of me, looking over my head — she so tall. Slowly, her eyes move downward. At first I don’t know what she looking at, but she looking right in my eyes. She reach out her hand and I move back.

Ibrahim call out to her. “Ms. Ellis, time to go now,” he say. Ellis, that ain’t her name. That don’t even roll off my tongue the right way. Our people real name is Kamara — a proud Mende name. Now that I can say.

My kin — I will not call her Ms. Ellis. I think I call her Khadija, after my baby sister, she look past me again and turn to go. And I have to go with her.

I poke out my hand first and the air don’t burn me. I lift up my right foot — starting out on the left would be bad luck. Something in me break. I stumble forward and fall on my face like a newly dead soul, don’t know how to move around yet. But I get up. I take another step, then another. I won’t look back. I feel proud, being the last to hold the fort. But my time is here. My kin, Khadija is a good soul to go home with. I hope she got kids. I like kids. I want my line to go on.

I’m outside now and shards of bright light stab at my eyes. I squeeze them shut, but open them bit by bit. When I can see again, Bunce Island is mostly the same as I saw on my way in here, except the castle walls have crumbled. Vines and trees and shrubs crowd what remains. The jungle reclaiming its space. Them black cannons still sitting there. I remember hearing them go off, I think them Portuguese was fighting the English over us. I can’t help it, I look back at the hole that I came from. I can’t see inside, it is just black, small, round, forever.

I turn from that place, I won’t look back again. I guess the centuries have softened me up some because I ain’t mad. They didn’t know any better.

Khadija is crying, so I put my hand on her shoulder and she jump. She not used to me yet. But she will be. She just need time to get used to this old soul.

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