Let Us Descend

Annis recalls having a vision during her time in the hole. In this vision, her body floats above the plantation, looking down at her fellow enslaved men and women below. When she awakens from these dreams, she is weak and is brought back to the house. When Mary wakes her on the morning after her release, she feels battered and bruised. Esther tells her that everyone has been ordered into the cane fields. Annis cuts off all her hair and burns it as an offering. While she is working, two memories of her mother resurface. In the first, a man courting her mother brought her an animal heart. She and her mother cooked it, and she recalls the muscle as being chewy. Her mother entertained the man’s advances until he tried to interfere with her parenting, and then she coldly told him to “get.” In the second memory, Annis and her mother were running toward the Great Swamp, pursued by enslavers. The men were accompanied by dogs, and when they finally overtook Annis and her mother, her mother fought back with all of the strength that she could muster. It was to no avail, and the two were recaptured. Her mother was taken away and beaten brutally for days before she was returned to their cabin.

Back in the present moment, Esther and Annis talk while they work in the cane fields, speaking quietly out of the sides of their mouths so as to avoid punishment. Esther asks Annis why she cut her hair and tells her that the spot where she burned it is an important place for the enslaved people on the plantation and for their friends and relatives who have escaped and lived in the swamps. Esther and those on the plantation leave food and supplies at that location, and the formerly enslaved community in the woods leaves wild-caught food and items that might be useful to those still on the plantation. Annis tells Esther about the Great Dismal Swamp, and the two swap stories about communities of self-freed men and women, many of whom are known to Esther and were eventually caught.

Annis and the rest of the enslaved men and women on the plantation work all day in the heat, pulling weeds and tending to the fields. Later that night, Annis sits outside in the moonlight. Aza returns to her, and in an accusatory tone, Annis asks Aza why she did not help her and her mother to make it to the swamp years ago. Aza tells her that the distance was too great, and Annis was too young to run: “My mama deserved saving” (180) is the reply that Annis gives before walking slowly away from Aza. Aza returns and tries to explain to Annis why she was not able to help the two reach the Great Dismal Swamp. She also tells her more about the many spirits who populate her world. The two converse at length, and afterward, Annis feels that Aza wants “a kind of worship” (185) that she is not sure she can give. Like her mother before her, she is not entirely sure that she can place her trust in Aza. 

As the seasons change, Annis gets to know the women on the plantation better, and they all swap stories of their lives, of their stolen mothers and daughters, and their ruptured families. One morning, their enslaver falls ill, and his wife orders the women in the house to prepare a sick room for him. As Esther and Annis add logs to the fire in their enslavers’ bedroom and the woman who sent Annis to the hole barks orders at them, Annis thinks she sees in Esther’s movements an anxiety borne out of memories of having been sexually assaulted by their enslaver. Annis is ordered to find a medicinal cure for fever and leaves the house to fulfill the task.

Annis hunts for mushrooms, some of which grow out of the bodies of insects that have been infected by airborne spores. Annis knows how to tell the medicinal mushrooms from the deadly fungi. Gathering both, she wonders which to bring to her enslaver. She asks Safi and her mother to guide her. While she is digging, she comes across the bodies of recently killed, skinned, and cleaned rabbits. A man half-hidden in the woods speaks to her from the shadows. He is Esther’s brother, and he asks her to bring the rabbits to his sister. He cautions her about the mushrooms, noting that some are edible, some are poisonous, and some will cause hallucinatory visions. Annis is guarded and refuses to tell him her name, but she agrees to bring the rabbits back to Esther.

When she returns to the house, Cora tells her that she has been asked after, and she prepares a healing tonic from the medicinal mushrooms for her enslaver. She gives some edible mushrooms to Cora to prepare for the women for their dinner, and Cora tells her about the yellow fever that she thinks their enslaver has contracted. It is a devastating illness. When Annis brings her tonic up to the sick room, her enslaver’s wife slaps her, and she wishes that she had slipped the poisonous mushroom into the healing tonic. Later, the women share their meal of rabbit and mushrooms in the kitchen, and Annis learns about their families’ histories with yellow fever. They all go to sleep in their pantry with full stomachs for once but are woken in the night to the sound of wailing. They run upstairs to a gruesome, bloody scene in their enslavers’ room. The man has succumbed to his fever, and his wife is howling with grief, his head in her hands.