The Prodigy Slave, Book Two: The Old World: (Revised Edition 2020)

by Londyn Skye

  “I think it started with an S. Smith … Spenca’. Umm, no, it was Simpson, I think.”

  “Sampson?!” James finally recalled.

  “Yes! That’s it!”

  “Thanks!” James said as he mounted his horse. He then gazed down on Julia. “I owe you for this.”

  “Gettin’ Lily outta there is payment enough for me,” Julia replied. “Slave or not, I neva’ thought it was right to be sellin’ folks’ babies. Ain’t nothin’ more cruel than lettin’ a woman carry a baby for nine months just to snatch it outta her arms the minute it’s born. So, I’m prayin’ to God you’ll be able to find Lily.”

  “Me too,” James replied, putting his Stetson back on. “I truly appreciate all your help. You’re a good woman, Julia.”

  “Thank you,” she blushed after receiving a compliment from someone she found so attractive.

  James tipped his hat and prompted his horse into a full gallop.

  Having never been to the Sampson plantation, James had to waste valuable time stopping to ask someone in town where to find the place. He got conflicting directions from two gentlemen at a tavern, who ended up in an argument over the matter. James asked a few other patrons but came up empty, leaving him to explore the two options given by the arguing men at the bar. The only thing James was certain of by the time he left was that he was in for a long ride. The place was nowhere near where he currently was. James feared that his search would become even longer if he chose the wrong destination or, worse yet, found that neither place was accurate. No matter what obstacles James had to face, though, there was not a muscle in his body, or his stallion’s, that was going to rest until he found Lily. James pushed his horse to top speed as he rode out of town, wondering what the hell had transpired in just a matter of twenty-four hours that now had him on a wild goose chase.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Slave Code

  Article X Section VII

  No contract between a white person and a Negro for labor or service for a longer period than two months shall be binding on such Negro without a license obtained in writing, signed by a white person before a court justice.

  Hours after disappearing from her faux engagement party, Mary Jo was tossing and turning in her bed, angry over the fact that James had not submitted to all of her demands. She had lain there with the wheels spinning in her scrupled little mind, trying to decide what consequences “Leela” should face for James’s disobedience. The calculated plan Mary Jo had conjured up had brought forth her ability to sit next to James quietly at church the following morning. Knowing it would not be long before justice was served, she had kissed James with ease before the service and happily held his hand without exposing one single sign of displeasure over his audacity to break character during “the MJ show.”

  Since their “engagement,” Mary Jo was used to James creating an excuse to get out of having dinner at her home after church. She decided to take advantage of his cowardly evasive methods. Before Jesse left her house that evening, Mary Jo pulled him aside and expressed her displeasure over “Leela” making a mockery of her engagement party. Learning of Mary Jo’s discontentment, gruesome visuals immediately began to mount in Jesse’s mind about the sort of brutality he wanted to inflict on Lily. In no way was he going to allow her to be responsible for the demise of James and Mary Jo’s union and the loss of potential money, without her suffering dearly for it. Jesse had promised Mary Jo that he would handle the situation, but she was adamant about dishing out “Leela’s” punishment on her own. As was always the case with Mary Jo, Jesse instantly turned into a genie that was more than happy to grant her wish. Despite placing the power in Mary Jo’s hands to do what she pleased, Jesse still could not resist the urge to subject Lily to the horrors of his preferred method of punishment at the Ghost Rider rally. James had grown tired of his father’s squishy ways with Mary Jo. In this case, however, he should have been thankful. If Jesse had it his way, James would be left retrieving the scattered remains of Lily’s dismembered carcass after utilizing her for Ghost Rider “entertainment.” Instead, Jesse limited himself to only torturing her visually. He then dropped Lily off at the Parker plantation, leaving her shackled in one of their unused barns in the middle of the night the way Mary Jo had requested.

  Knowing Lily would be in her possession before dawn had Mary Jo too filled with adrenaline to sleep long. She had gotten out of bed at five a.m., eager to greet her new prisoner. Just as Julia had witnessed, Mary Jo then snuck out to the barn before her father had a chance to see the diabolical plan she was trying to secretly carry out. When Mary Jo walked into the barn and saw Lily shivering with her legs chained to a horse stall, a grand smile stretched across her face. Before unchaining her from the wall, Mary Jo took pleasure in adding more shackles around Lily’s neck and wrists. The hardware she added was completely unnecessary; much like Jesse, she just wanted to drive home the fact that Lily was beneath her. Mary Jo carried out the callous scheme while spewing one insult after another. Despite the demeaning rhetoric, Lily did not say a word or resist at all.

  At daybreak, Mary Jo then dragged Lily out of the barn and began escorting her new prisoner off her property to serve her hefty sentence. The crime: grand theft of a narcissist’s attention. The place: Parker/Adams engagement party. Method of theft: grand piano. Victim: Mary Jo Parker. Felon: Lily Adams. Mary Jo had her driver place the criminal in the seat directly across from her in her luxury carriage. She wanted to stare at the fruits of her labor while seizing the opportunity to continue tormenting her convicted felon.

  Strangely enough, Mary Jo did not want Lily’s punishment to be death … not yet anyway. She was able to string together enough sense to know that she would lose control over James if something that sinister were to come to pass too soon. Unaware that Lily was already with child, Mary Jo’s plan was simply to have her impregnated by another man. Her hope was to taint Lily forever in the eyes of James. She wanted him to view her as damaged goods and make him cringe at the thought of ever being inside of her again. In the process, she preferred Lily to rot in utter misery, suffering alive with nothing to do but dwell on her collapsed career and the life she would never have with James. At the very least, Mary Jo figured the time apart would help end the immature, lustful fixation she felt James had with Lily, ultimately forcing him to focus on the glorious future he could have with her.

  While on the journey to drag Lily away from James, Mary Jo had sipped her wine and nipped at a platter of fruit sitting next to her. She was taunting Lily with a meal, knowing full well that she had not eaten or had anything to drink since being turned over into her custody. She swirled the red wine around in her glass and tried to torture her criminal by speaking candidly about her two sexual escapades with James, embellishing the truth per usual. Lily only yawned at the graphic details. Nearly the whole ride, Lily had her eyes focused out the window in the distance without a single solitary sign of annoyance present in her facial expressions or body language. Her nonchalant attitude finally began to escalate Mary Jo’s anger. When her pornographic verbiage failed to garner the reaction that she wanted from Lily, Mary Jo suddenly began a verbal assault. “Can’t you shut that damn thing up?!” she demanded, her tone saturated with annoyance. “I’m sick ’n tired of listenin’ to your stomach growlin’! Sounds like a tiga’s roarin’ in here!”

  Silence.

  “Can’t wait to get you outta my sight. Wouldn’t have to be doin’ this if my fiancé would’ve got it right the first time around. Don’t you worry though, Leela. I’m gonna see to it that we finally breed you right this time. Sometimes, you just gotta leave certain things for a man’s wife to handle,” Mary Jo smirked.

  Lily’s eyes remained fixated on a flock of birds flying by.

  “Oh, and trust me, I know I’m gettin’ it done right this time. I’m takin’ you to the perfect place for a defiant little whore like you. The Sampsons got themselves a big ol’ nigga’. Got a cock the size of a horse. Might just tear your i
nsides up while he’s impregnatin’ you. Heard he likes to fuck a woman until she breaks down in tears,” Mary Jo laughed.

  Yawn.

  “And that won’t be the end ‘a the torture eitha’, Leela. They say he’s known for producin’ babies ten pounds or more. Heard several women died givin’ birth to his babies. One way or anotha’, your worn-out cunt won’t be worth any man wantin’ by the time this big nigga’ gets done with you.”

  Silence.

  “We gonna make us a pretty penny from the little monsta’ you give birth to. Might just use the money for my honeymoon with James.” Mary Jo smirked, leaned back, and took another sip of her wine.

  Lily suddenly began snickering.

  Mary Jo quickly leaned forward. “What the hell’re you laughin’ at?!”

  Lily finally turned from the window and stared directly at her prison warden. “I bet it makes you sick, doesn’t it?” she said cryptically, still snickering.

  “I said what the hell’re you laughin’ at, you filthy heffa’?!”

  “Ain’t no doubt in my mind, it makes you sicka’ than the sight ‘a yo’ own reflection to know that there ain’t a thing you can do or say that’ll eva’ make James see you for anything more than the irritatin’, snot-nosed, bitch that you are,” Lily replied. “It don’t matta’ where you take me, what you do to me, how much money you have, how many fancy dresses you wear, how much make-up you smear on that pale little face, or how many times you force him to suffa’ inside ‘a that rotten hole between yo’ legs…” Lily leaned forward and lowered her eyelids. “James will neva’ love you, the way he loves me.” Lily leaned back in her seat and returned a wicked grin.

  Mary Jo calmly finished the last of her drink and set her glass aside. She slid off her seat and got down on her knees in front of her prisoner and began gliding her hand seductively up Lily’s thighs. “Tell me, Leela,” she said as her hands neared her shoulders. “Is this the way James touches you?” she asked, caressing her face gently with one hand and then suddenly gripping Lily’s neck tight with the other, immediately cutting off her air supply. “Tell me,” Mary Jo whispered, while watching Lily’s eyes begin to water.

  Lily had no plans to be the only person in the carriage with a lack of oxygen flowing to her brain. Intent on adorning Mary Jo’s neck with an unfashionable version of a choker, she suddenly tensed the chains dangling between her wrist shackles. The moment she began moving the chains towards Mary Jo’s neck, the carriage came to an abrupt halt.

  “We’re here!” the driver called out.

  Mary Jo released Lily’s neck and Lily eased the tension on her chains, but the death stare between them continued until the driver opened the door. Preparing to present herself, Mary Jo reached into her psychotic mind and selected the personality most fitting for this sort of occasion. She then emerged from the carriage with her infamous, fake, tomato-red smile firmly in place. Her driver helped her down, and she gallivanted off like a princess to greet Mr. and Mrs. Sampson awaiting her on the porch, like her attempted homicide was nothing more than a joyous daydream.

  Not long after Mary Jo settled the contract agreement with Mr. Sampson, Lily was locked inside of a run-down shack with two other women who were quietly lying on filthy mattresses on the floor. The cloud of sorrow inside felt to Lily like it had suffocated every woman who had ever entered the dilapidated dwelling. Lily sat down on her assigned mattress with her back against the wall, pulled her knees up to her chest, and buried her head between them. She did not need to look up to know that the other women there had broken spirits. Neither of them had even bothered to raise their head when she entered, giving Lily a clear indication that they were too submerged in emotional desolation to even react to her presence.

  “Hello,” Lily suddenly heard one of the ladies say after she had been there nearly an hour.

  Lily lifted her head off her knees to find the lady across from her staring right at her. “Hello.”

  “I ain’t neva’ seen you here befo’.”

  “This is my first time comin’ here.”

  “I figured as much. I’m Stella.”

  “I’m Lily.”

  “Pleased to meet ya’, Lily.”

  “Pleased to meet you too.”

  “Where you from?”

  “Adams Plantation in Fayetteville.”

  “Oh,” Stella nodded. “Well, we ladies try to get to know each otha’ since most ‘a the time we’s here for upwards of a year or more.”

  “So, you’ve been here more than once?” Lily asked.

  Stella nodded. “Been comin’ here just about every year since I started menstruatin’.”

  “Since you were just a girl?” Lily questioned, looking bewildered.

  “Mm-hmm, me and Millie both,” Stella replied, turning to look at Millie who was clearly far along in another pregnancy.

  Lily’s stomach turned over that fact. “If you’ve been comin’ here since you’s just a girl, h-how many children have you had?”

  “Nine boys, six girls,” Stella rattled off quickly.

  Lily’s mouth fell open. “Y-you didn’t get to keep any of ’em?” she asked hesitantly, almost too afraid to know the answer.

  “No.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Lily said empathetically. “I can’t imagine how anyone eva’ manages to get ova’ losin’ their children.”

  Stella looked Lily straight in the eyes. “You don’t,” she replied bluntly.

  Lily suddenly turned her head in the direction of the door when she heard it squeak open. Mrs. Sampson was there to deliver meals for everyone. After having not eaten in nearly twenty-four hours, Lily scarfed her food down and laid on her mattress afterward. After being up half the night, the food instantly made her groggy. However, she found it hard to sleep with Stella’s last two words echoing in her head. She eventually dozed off in a pool of her own tears after crying silently over what Stella had gone through, as well as all the other women who had ever cried themselves to sleep on the filthy mattress beneath her.

  Hours after Lily had been locked away, James had his horse galloping at blazing speed through the entrance of the Sampson plantation. He did not yank the horse’s reins to slow it down until he was just in front of their porch. He hopped down before the horse came to a complete stop, bounded up the steps, and impatiently beat on the Sampson’s door.

  Mr. Sampson snatched the door open, clearly looking displeased by the way James had just knocked. “What the hell you bangin’ on my door for, son?!”

  “I’m so sorry about that, sir,” James said, trying to catch his breath. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

  “Who’re you and what the hell do you want?!” Mr. Sampson spat.

  “Forgive the intrustion, but my fiancé, Mary Jo Parker, accidentally dropped the wrong slave off here earlier today, and I’m here to retrieve ’er.”

  “Retrieve ’er?” Mr. Sampson snickered. “Your fiancé already signed a contract for me to breed ’er. She ain’t goin’ anywhere!” he yelled, rudely closing the door in James’s face.

  “But sir!” James yelled, stopping the door just before it latched. “There was a misunderstandin’ between us, and my fiancé didn’t realize that she was bringin’ a slave that’s already with child.”

  “Already with child?!”

  “Yessa’. I know we’ve wasted your valuable time and your resources, so I’d be happy to pay you for the inconvenience and for any food you may have already given her.”

  “And you’re wastin’ even more ‘a my time now!” Mr. Sampson barked. “You’ll owe me fifty dolla’s for breakin’ the contract!”

  “Fair enough,” James replied, willing to pay whatever it would cost to get Lily. He fished all the money he had left out of his wallet. “I’m sorry sir, but is there any way you can take twenty? This is all I have.”

  “No!” Mr. Sampson replied emphatically. “It’s written clear as day on that contract! Fifty dolla’s for breakin’ our deal, or I’ll be forced to sell the ba
by she’s already carryin’ to recoop my losses!”

  “Here, take what I have now,” James replied, quickly handing the twenty dollars to Mr. Sampson in a panic after hearing his statement. “I promise to bring the rest by the end ‘a the day.”

  Mr. Sampson snatched the money out of James’s hand. “And bring those owna’ship papers your so-called fiancé had too. Hell, for all I know, you’re here to steal that young lady’s property!”

  “Not a problem. I’ll be back as soon as I can with the money and her papers. And again, I apologize for the intrusion.”

  Mr. Sampson scowled and slammed the door in James’s face.

  It took everything within James to hold it together in front of Mr. Sampson after learning that he not only needed another thirty dollars but had to coax Mary Jo into giving him Lily’s papers. As strapped for cash as he was, another thirty dollars may as well have been a request for a million. But he was willing to rob a bank if that’s what it took to get the rest of the money. Wrangling Lily’s ownership papers from Mary Jo would be just as difficult to ascertain, but James was willing to stoop even lower to steal those too.

  While trying to calm himself down and figure out a plan of action, James first headed back home to get a wagon and two fresh horses from his house. He knew the wagon would slow his ride back out to the Sampson plantation, but he wanted a warm, comfortable way to transport Lily back. He threw some blankets, pillows, and food in the back and tried to remain optimistic as he made his way back over to Mary Jo’s house. It was well after dark when he arrived at her estate. He stopped his horses on the outside of their plantation gates so as not to wake anybody up. Since Julia had been so helpful earlier, James had gotten the idea to ask for her help again. After visiting so often, he knew that Julia was likely staying in the guest bedroom on the bottom floor. Being as quiet as he could, he walked around the wraparound porch and knocked on the window to that room. After a few tries, a startled Julia peeked out of the curtain to find James holding a finger to his lips. He motioned with his hands for her to open the window.