Mosana - Part IX

EPISODE 9

WITH my heart in my mouth and thunder in my ears, I ran. I didn’t know where I was running to, I just ran. I looked back once, but no one chased after me. I didn’t realise I had run all the way to Lily’s salon until I was right in front of it. Instead of going in through the front where I knew a lot of customers would be alarmed at my appearance, I went instead through the back entrance, into Lily’s office. Thankfully, the window was not locked and I hurled myself through it. Putting my head through the door that connected the main salon, I waited there trying to catch Lily’s eyes. She was attending to a customer at the far end of the salon, but one of her girls noticed me and signaled her.

Immediately she saw me, she appointed someone else to the customer she had been attending to, and came to meet me.

‘Mo?’ she called out, most likely wondering why I was hiding out in her office.

When she saw the gun in my hand, she put her hand up with a wary look in her eyes. I quickly put down the gun and raised my hands too, letting her know I wasn’t there to hurt her.

‘I need your help,’ I said.

‘What happened?’ she asked, concern all over her face once she understood I wasn’t going to shoot her. It was when she touched me I realised I was shivering. Or trembling. Maybe both.

I began to babble about what happened, but it was incoherent to Lily. She stopped me, made me sit in her chair and offered me water to calm my nerves. I drank it all, not leaving a drop. When I finished, I was calmer. Then she ordered me to start from the beginning, slowly. I did as she said and told her all that had happened. She took a few moments to think and said to me finally, ‘You need to leave the country.’

‘What?’ I exclaimed. Leave the country? I almost laughed. I didn’t know my way around England, much less outside the country.

But Lily wasn’t done yet. ‘Yes, Mo, you heard what I said. I can’t hide you here forever, and who knows whether the Pickles aren’t already on your trail. You’ll be wanted for murder, girl!’

‘But I didn’t do it.’ Tears threatened to fall my eyes, but I used all my willpower to swallow them back. I needed to think; now was not the time to cry.

Lily looked at me like I had grown two heads. ‘I know you didn’t do it. But that’s just the problem. I’m the only one who believes you. What do you think the judge will think, hmm? That’s if you even make it to the courtroom alive. If the Pickles get their hands on you, you might not live to give your own account of the story. So by all indications, you need to move.’

I thought over everything she had said in three seconds and realised she was right. By virtue of her profession, Lily knew almost everybody in the neighbourhood, as long as you stepped into her shop. She was like a retainer, but for gossip. That was why she had believed me without question. She knew of the relationship between Daren and his father and knew I couldn’t have killed the old man. But even though she was right, I still didn’t see how I was going to flee the country. I had no money, I had no family here or there; I was utterly alone. I couldn’t even contact Ed or Sarah.

Lily had stood up to go to a chest of drawers nearby and had opened it with a key. She got out some shillings and began to scribble something on a sheet of paper. She turned to me and thrust the money and paper into my hands.

‘Take this,’ she said. ‘It’s for a steerage ticket. You’ll have to go to Liverpool first to board a ship from there. Take the ship going to Philadelphia in Pennsylvania.’

I didn’t let her finish. ‘America?’ I had heard of the place, but hadn’t formed my opinions about it yet. They were as deep in slave trade as Britain. That was because they were a former colony.

‘Yes, America. Now listen to me and don’t interrupt till I finish. You don’t have to worry about being a slave there because Pennsylvania is a free state. You’ll be free.’ She smiled at me and I couldn’t believe my ears.

Free? Could it really be possible?

‘Go to Liverpool and take the ship, Mo. When you get there, ask for Marc at the docks. He’s an old acquaintance of mine and he’ll set you up, get you started. I’ve asked him on this paper to find you a nice factory job where you can earn your living, alright? Even if you’ll be free, you’ll still have to work for your pay and he’ll likely take something from you for the trouble, understand?’

I nodded.

‘I’ll need to pay him?’

‘Just a little for house and boarding. You can pay him a little something out of your paycheck each month till you can stand on your own two feet, okay? The two of you can work something out. Tell him I sent you so he can give you a discount.’

‘Okay.’ My mind raced a million miles a minute.

‘Now get going.’ She got out a medium-sized carry-all bag and began to pack supplies for me. She put in biscuits, fruits, soda and half pie she had left. Finally, she added a blanket. ‘You’ll need a stronger bedding on the ship,but this should do.’

She handed over the bag to me and looked me in the eye. ‘Good luck, Mo’

Swallowing my tears for the tenth time that day, I hugged her and left her salon through the back door.

At Liverpool, the ticketeer couldn’t care less if I was black or a lone female buying a one-way ticket. All he cared about was increasing sales for that day so he looked the other way and took my money. I even left him a tip. But I had to evade the security at the port before boarding the ship. Had I been seen, I would have been held for questioning and detained unnecessarily. It would have been suspicious to see a black girl, a slave by every indication, wandering around at the docks, not to talk of trying to board a ship bound for another country. So even though I had a ticket, I sneaked into the ship and secured a space at the far end.

I received a few stares from the people around me, but I ignored them. From the look of things, I was the only black passenger. But they were mostly poor emigrants too, from what I could tell. Those who had more money would be in the cabins above us. We were all the same here, so I didn’t bother much about whether I looked suspicious or not.

I doubled the blanket Lily had given me and spread it on my bed space. Then I used my bag as a pillow. I was not letting it out of my sight. As I lay down, I thought about my life from Aimatu till then. I rarely thought about about my old village, but there in that shiphold, I did. I thought about my mother. I thought about Dajnu and what might have been if the white man hadn’t raided our village. I thought about Ed and Sarah. I thought about what my life might have been if I had given Daren what he wanted. I thought about what might have been if I had been born a boy. Or if I had been born white.

But I couldn’t focus on the might-have-been’s. My life was about to take a new shape.

I was going to America.

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Hey you!

It's that time of the week again! And we forge ahead in Mosana's tale...

Okay, two things:

1. I found out Mosana is actually someone's name. I made it up in my head when I wanted to write this story, but wonder of wonders, it actually exists! Cool, if you ask me. You can Google "Mosana" to see what I'm talking about.

2. I invented another word of my own: TICKETEER. Definition: A person who sells tickets. The actual word for it in the dictionary is "Ticket Agent!. But I'm stubborn. I prefer "Ticketeer"!  :D

Till next Sunday, 

xoxo,

Ava.