Remembrance by Rita Woods is a breakout historical debut with modern resonance, perfect for the many fans of The Underground Railroad and Orphan Train.
Remembrance...it’s a rumor, a whisper passed in the fields and veiled behind sheets of laundry. A hidden stop on the underground road to freedom, a safe haven protected by more than secrecy...if you can make it there.
Ohio, present day. An elderly woman who is more than she seems warns against rising racism as a young woman grapples with her life.
Haiti, 1791, on the brink of revolution. When the slave Abigail is forced from her children to take her mistress to safety, she discovers New Orleans has its own powers.
1857 New Orleans—a city of unrest: Following tragedy, house girl Margot is sold just before her 18th birthday and her promised freedom. Desperate, she escapes and chases a whisper.... Remembrance.
Release date:
January 21, 2020
Publisher:
Tom Doherty Associates
Print pages:
352
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Margot caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she passed and stopped to peer at her reflection. Her sandy-colored hair had worked itself loose from its bun and lay damp and heavy against her neck. Her face shone with sweat.
The house had been closed up since the fall, and in the mid-July heat, the air was stale, the rooms like an oven. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at her forehead, her cheek, then leaned forward to study herself in the glass. Though the heavy drapes were still pulled closed, enough light leaked into the big room for her to clearly see the freckles scattered across her nose and cheekbones.
She sighed and shifted the heavy linens in her arms. Mistress Hannigan and her three children would be coming down from New Orleans in less than a week, and the house needed to be in perfect order. There was only Margot, her younger sister, and their grandmother to set the house to rights before they arrived … and it was a big house.
If only the heat would break.
Something—a movement reflected in the mirror—caught her eye. She turned, but there was nothing in the massive dining room except the mounds of sheet-covered furniture … and her.
She laughed nervously. She’d been on edge ever since they’d arrived the night before. Chewing her lip, she scanned the room, squinting uneasily at the odd shadows cast against the walls.
The feeling of dread that seemed to be following her from room to room made no sense. She loved this place—had spent every summer since her birth here: wandering the gardens, reading beneath the old hickory out near the creek whenever she found a spare moment. Every year, from July until mid-October, the Hannigans closed down the mansion in the city and came here—bringing their house slaves with them—to escape the disease-ridden air of the New Orleans summers: malaria, cholera, yellow fever. Here, the air was fresh, the water clear.
But ever since they’d stepped from the carriage, Margot had been unable to shake the feeling that some dark, infected cloud had followed them out of New Orleans and was settling itself all around Far Water.
Far Water.
Named for some plantation in Haiti, lost long before Haiti had been known by that name, the estate had been in the mistress’s family for over a half century.
Catherine Hannigan was French Creole but had married James Hannigan, an American. Her family might have been far more scandalized had Monsieur Hannigan had far less money.
Margot brushed aside her unease. There was furniture to be uncovered, windows to be washed, and the half-dozen fireplaces all needed to be swept clean of last season’s ash. And where was Veronique?
She moved to the window and pushed aside the thick drape. The manicured lawn swept down toward the road, where it disappeared from view beyond two magnolia trees. Her little sister was supposed to be helping to clean, but Margot hadn’t seen even so much as her shadow since their morning coffee, hours before.
Something rustled behind her and she spun, the hairs on her neck standing up.
“Veronique?” she called. She cocked her head and listened, but the only sound was that of the old clock out in the hallway.
“Idiot, fille,” she muttered.
She straightened and ran a hand across the gritty mantle. Never mind the vague threat she felt oozing from every corner. There was real work to be done and the very real Grandmere to fear.
In less than six months’ time Margot would be eighteen. The Hannigans had promised her her freedom on her birthday, but until then, her grandmother could still pinch her arms until they turned blue if she caught her daydreaming instead of working. Margot smiled as she stepped into the hallway.
“Boo!”
Margot yelped and dropped the bundled sheets as her sister danced gleefully in the hallway.
“I scared you, didn’t I?” crowed Veronique. “Admit it! I scared you. Did you think I was a ghost?”
Margot glared at her younger sister as she bent to pick the linens up from the floor. “I was not frightened.… And where have you been?”
Veronique simply laughed and grabbed her from behind in a tight embrace.
“What mischief have you been up to, ma petite?” Margot laughed in spite of herself, pulling away to face her sister. “Sweet Virgin, you are a mess.”
She ran a thumb across the dirt smudged along Veronique’s cheek, tried to smooth down the wild hair, the same sandy color as her own, except that her sister’s stood in a wild tangle about her face and was matted with straw and feathers.
“I was collecting eggs.”
Margot eyed the feathers. “Collecting eggs or playing with the baby chicks?”
Veronique threw out her arms and laughed. “I do one and then the other is easier, oui?”
Margot smiled and shook her head. She thrust a handful of the sheets at her sister to carry. “Come, silly girl. There is real work to be done.”
* * *
All night she’d tossed and turned in a fitful sleep, and now, just before dawn, she lay wide awake. Groaning softly, Margot sat up. Yesterday had seemed to last forever—endless hours of scrubbing floors, beating half a year’s worth of dust from the carpets, airing out the bedding. The heavy work—mending the coop, taking the shutters from the windows—that would be left to Girard when he brought the Hannigans from the city, though their work had been hard enough and Margot’s body ached with fatigue.
Pale light seeped through the window of the small cabin she shared with her sister and grandmother. Wincing, she pushed herself out of bed. Veronique was still asleep, curled in a tight ball at the edge of their bed. Margot glanced across the narrow room toward the cot where their grandmother slept, and groaned softly. Grandmere was not there. The small sitting area off their bedroom was empty as well. Margot pulled a thin shawl from the hook by the door and stepped onto the porch.
“Non, Grandmere,” she muttered. “Not again.”
The day was still just beyond the horizon but the predawn air was already thick with heat. Across the damp grass, fireflies flickered in the shadows of the cypress trees.
“Grandmere?” Margot hissed into the darkness. “Grandmere, es tu ici?”
From somewhere deep in the gloom, where the grass dissolved into bayou, a cougar screamed. Margot flinched.
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