crack a rotten one with you arse, Pallas say and everybody laugh except Lilith. The laughing bring back the morning and lock Lilith out. Lilith spirited from the day she first play with the other pickneys and call herself princess. This was Tantalus’ fault for he used to show her the page from the backra storybook whenever she behave like a good little girl. She didn’t know her head was high until other womens say so. But now her head hang low and the only thing that lift her up is the early, early morning when owl going home and nobody awake. That be the time she up and waiting for two riders to come back to Montpelier. And when Massa Humphrey ride up to the kitchen and fling himself into a chair and he and Robert Quinn ask for tea she ready already. She like even more when Robert Quinn not with him and he make conversation with her, even if that be about the damn sun that rise too fast or why Don Juan is lost on a whore and other things that she can only say yes massa to and wish she didn’t have a slow nigger mind. When he laugh, she giggle like an agreeable girl even if she don’t know what she laughing for. Lilith want him to take her up in the house and out of common negro life. Lilith hear about massas and they chère amie and she know she prettier than any other negro in the field or in the house. But she wish there was a nigger to teach her woman things. Lilith peeling potato and pondering in a way that negro girl not supposed to ponder. She set her sight for the mistress at first but then her behaviour get uncanny and she call Lilith a big piece of black poo. But when the massa drunk and sprawl out and laughing to himself in the kitchen, Lilith start to see him in a new way. Just a drop more sugar, darling, is all he need to say and she carry that one last word for the whole morning, never mind that he call her a backward nigger cunt when she take too long and the tea too hot. Lilith watch him from the kitchen window as he rein him black horse (white horse on a Sunday) and get dirt on him breeches when he lie down under the tree to the side of the conservatory, talking white people affairs with Robert Quinn. Lilith watch him taking him shirt off all the time. Him chest rise and fall when he laugh and him nipples surround by delicious pink the way a nigger own surround by nasty black. Lilith see him smile and think nothing evil could come out of that mouth. Lilith don’t see that while he and Robert Quinn talking they have a negro whipping a slave girl hard for thieving out sugar to sell in Sunday market. The girl gagged so that she wouldn’t disturb nobody with her screaming. Lilith see the road that goin’ take her out of hard life but not sure what to do. Circe in the past would read her face and slap that stray thinking out but that woman dead. Lilith close her eye, shutting out the cellar darkness for her own and breathe in deep and try to remember what Massa Humphrey smell like. Then a quick thought run past her head. It run again and again until her heart beat fast and her temple kicking her ears. A nigger smart enough to know that any yes must be follow quick with a no. But this morning no gone on trip and not coming back. She thinking crazy-like and the crazy run through her. She wait for when Homer not looking and dash off to the hallway. Three doors down on the left be the linen closet. The New Year’s Eve ball was coming in ten weeks. Lilith not suppose to be upstairs but she grab bed linen from the closet. Lilith make it all the way upstairs to where the massa bedroom be, only to hear the dogs outside barking like they never bark before. Lilith keep on she gait and see a room door open and look in just as Massa Humphrey jump out of bed and dash to the window. Him body lean and dark on the limbs but white like porcelain in the chest, waist and hips. He turn and grab for him breeches and him penis swing and swing like it want to go back to the window. Massa member swing low like it hanging