River Sing Me Home

by Eleanor Shearer

“Perhaps you are wondering how I came by my unusual name?” A little embarrassed, Rachel averted her gaze, but he did not seem displeased. “Well, I will tell you. On my old master’s plantation in Antigua, a woman was accused of witchcraft. They claimed she had been burying things in the corners of the field to cast a spell—the heart of a goat, the berries of a poisoned bush and the afterbirth of one of the slave women, still wet with blood. Rather than denying the accusation, she accepted it proudly. She told the master that she had cursed the land, and that nobody would be born on his plantation again. “The master’s wife was at that time with child. A week later, the baby was born too soon—misshapen and dead. For many years, the curse appeared true—the slave women were barren and the master’s wife bore him two more dead children. But one day, I was born. And so my master told my mother to name me Nobody. For it was true that Nobody was born on his plantation.”