A Light to My Path by Lynn Austin

home, and he felt as though he was losing himself as much as his family. But he wouldn’t cry—and he wouldn’t pray. He would let his unshed tears and his unanswered prayers turn to gall in his belly, fueling his rage.
    By afternoon the sea had grown rough, the air in the hold stifling. Some of the others started to vomit. Grady might have, too, if there had been any food in his stomach to lose. Massa Coop had loaded plenty of smoked meat and cornmeal in the hold for them to eat. They would be well fed. But Grady shook his head when Amos offered him some.
    “Won’t do you no good to starve yourself, boy,” he said.
    Grady shrugged. “I ain’t hungry.” He swallowed painfully, his throat still sore from screaming earlier that morning. The slave who had been chained to Amos leaned toward Grady and spoke for the first time since they’d boarded.
    “You’re right, boy. May as well die now than die slowly down there.”
    A shiver passed through Grady. “Down where?” He hoped they weren’t going to send him deeper into the bowels of this awful ship.
    “Down south. They’re taking us to the Deep South. Know what that means?”
    Grady shook his head.
    “Heat and fever and swamps and snakes. Hard, hard work chopping cotton, planting rice, or working in the sugar cane and hemp fields. Barely giving us enough food to stay alive. Whips flying across our backs all day long.”
    Grady looked up at Amos. “That true?”
    He nodded silently, his face like stone.
    Grady drew a deep breath, then let it out slowly. He wouldn’t cry. He wouldn’t. Snatches of scriptures that Eli had once taught him tried to float through his mind, but Grady angrily pushed them away. None of them were true. Massa Jesus didn’t have His eye on Grady. He didn’t love him. And for sure He wasn’t here with him on this ship. Maybe Jesus wasn’t strong enough to help him, or maybe He just didn’t care. Either way, Grady was all finished with Massa Jesus. All the things Eli had taught him were a bunch of lies.
    By evening the motion of the ship and the terrible smells in the airless hold had made Grady so nauseated that he began to vomit, too. There was nothing in his stomach to lose but he heaved over a bucket just the same, then lay curled up on the deck in misery between bouts of dizziness and vomiting. Amos tried to make him drink some water, but it wouldn’t stay down. Grady couldn’t remember ever feeling so sick. His head pounded and his insides ached until he felt so wretched he wanted to die.
    He had no idea how many days and nights he spent that way. He was too sick to care. But eventually the ship docked in Wilmington, North Carolina, and Massa Coop came for his slaves. William, who had been locked in the hold with them all that time, fastened the shackles and chains onto everyone’s wrists and ankles again before Coop finally opened the door to the hold.
    As Grady went out the door, William grabbed his arm, squeezing it until it ached. “I ain’t letting go of you,” he said. “You open that big mouth of yours and I’ll knock your teeth down your throat. Understand?”
    Grady nodded. He was much too sick to holler, let alone try to run away. Coop led them ashore, marched them to a slave pen similar to the one in Richmond, and locked them inside. But at least there was fresh air and sunshine in this one. At least the terrible motion sickness would end.
    It took two days on dry land for Grady to feel well enough to eat. His strength slowly returned. Massa Coop had added a few more slaves to the group and had sold several others to the white men who crowded around the gate of the slave pen every day, looking them over. Then they boarded another ship. Coop repeated this routine as they traveled down the coast, stopping in port cities like Charleston and Beaufort and Savannah, spending a few days in each one. Wealthy planters who were in the market for slaves would call on Coop, and he and William would escort them to the slave