"Will my mama be there?" Tidbit asked seriously. He had never removed the pouch his mother had placed around his neck.

Amari stopped short. She knelt down on the ground so she was eye to eye with Tidbit. It seemed to Amari that he had grown taller and gained maturity while on this journey. He had seen so much in his few years. "Teenie love you very much, you know that?"

Tidbit nodded, biting his lip.

"She can't be here with you, but she knows you be safe, and that make her happy."

"Is she all right?" Tidbit asked.

"Your mama is glad because she know you be full of joy. That make her smile so big, that smile find you here in this far place." Amari paused, remembering Teenie's lessons and her sacrifice. "Why you think she give you that piece of kente cloth you wear round your neck?" Amari asked him gently.

"So she always be with me," the boy replied. He had begun to tremble.

"What did your mama keep a-tellin' you while you be with her?"

"She tell me stories about Africa and about her own mother, and she tell me, 'Long as you remember, ain't nothin' really gone.'"

Amari, blinking away tears, hugged him. "You gonna always remember?"

"I ain't never gonna forget nothin' she done tell me," the boy said with great seriousness. He squeezed the leather pouch.

Amari raised Tidbit's face so he would look around. "She be in every breeze and cloud, every leaf and flower. She smilin' at you right now."

Tidbit thought about that. Then he asked her solemnly, "Will you be my mama now, Amari?"

She hugged him tightly. "Oh, yes. Forever I will. You be my little boy. Always."

"Polly be there always too?"

"Always," Amari promised again, even though she knew that keeping promises was sometimes impossible in life.

He hugged her back, then asked quietly, "Is I still a slave, Amari?"

Amari looked at the boy with love. "No, Tidbit, you no slave. You free man, just like your mama dream. You never be slave again."

The boy grinned at that. "You be free too, Amari?"

Amari looked up at the vast, clear sky and exhaled. "Yes, I be free too. Never no slave no more."

Amari thought back, however, to what Polly had said at the start of this journey: "Freedom is a delicate idea, like a pretty leaf in the air: It's hard to catch and may not be what you thought when you get it." Amari wondered if this long and arduous journey would bring her the happiness she dreamed of. Maybe this place would turn out to be a terrible disappointment.

That afternoon they finally saw it-the place they had dreamed of for so long. For a moment they could only stop and stare. Fort Mose. Fort Mose. The fort itself was a tiny structure, actually-only about twenty yards square. Surrounded by a wall made of logs covered with earth, it carried no markings to indicate what it was, but Amari knew in an instant that this was the place. Surrounding the walls was a ditch filled with those prickly palmetto palms that had sliced them when they ran from Nathan's house. Soldiers, both black and white, patrolled outside the wall, and she assumed more stood watch inside in the watchtower, which stood higher than the walls.

Outside the walls of the fort, small houses with roofs of thatch dotted the landscape, huddled close together as if for protection. Small gardens grew near each house.

"It be much smaller place than I thought," Amari whispered.

"Nathan was right about the streets of mud," Polly said with a small laugh.

"Freedom not big. Freedom not pretty," Amari declared. "But freedom sure do feel good."

41. FORT MOSE.

"WHAT WE DO NOW?" TIDBIT ASKED AS THEY peeked at the fort in the distance.

Amari could barely contain her eagerness. "We go in!" she said joyfully.

Tidbit jumped from one foot to the other, and Polly kept covering her mouth to hold back a case of nervous giggles. Then, as if they did this every day, they boldly headed down the road toward the tiny fort. The horse ambled behind them.

Amari grabbed Tidbit by the hand, then reached out to Polly with her other hand. Polly gripped it firmly. The two girls looked at each other and understood all that was not said.

And they began to walk. First slowly. Then faster. Finally, almost trotting in anticipation, they walked down the hill, past the first few houses clustered near the road, and directly to the gate of the fort, about a half mile ahead. One house in particular, a small rounded hut made of rough logs and covered with thatch, stood very close to the road.

"Where y'all goin'?" a woman's voice called out.

Amari tensed, then stopped. The woman, dressed in a simple green calico dress and a bonnet to match, was standing in front of the house and waving to them. Her skin was dusty brown-the color of earth, Amari thought.

A fire burned in front of her house, and the smell of cooked rabbit filled the air.

"Uh, we be heading to the fort," Amari replied cautiously. She held Tidbit's hand tightly, but she released Polly's. Polly stepped back a little.

"Y'all be hungry?" the woman asked.

"Oh, yes'm," Amari replied.

Tidbit crept closer to the woman's woodsy fire. "We be real hungry, ma'am!" They all laughed at that, and the woman motioned for them to sit down. Polly tied the horse to a tree.

"How far y'all come?" the woman asked. She spooned three bowls of steaming food for them-corn pudding and roasted rabbit-acting as if greeting strangers was what she did every morning. Perhaps it was, Amari thought. The woman even tossed a bone to Hushpuppy.

"We come from Charles Town, South Carolina Colony," Amari admitted quietly.

The woman whistled through her teeth. "That be a far piece," she said. "You walk all this way, or you come by boat?"

"No boat," Amari replied, thinking how much quicker and easier their journey might have been if they had had a boat. "We walk."

"Hard journey?" the woman asked, glancing at their battered feet.

"Yes'm, very hard," Polly replied.

"Always is," the woman said with resignation.

"This be Fort Mose?" Amari asked, wanting to be absolutely sure they were in the right place.

"Sure is, chile. Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose."

"I done dream of this place," Amari said softly, "for very long time."

"Dreams disappear when you wake up-ever notice that, chile?" the woman asked as she gave Tidbit more food.

Amari looked up in alarm. "Why you say that?"

"Relax, chile. You safe." The woman spooned a plate of food for herself. "My name is Inez. I was a slave in Georgia. Me and my man, Jasper, run away last year and come to this place. We figure we done made it to heaven, then the Spanish soldiers took him away."

"Why?" Amari asked with concern.

"It be like this," Inez said. "The English soldiers control the colonies. The Spanish ain't no saints who think everybody ought to be free. They free the slaves because it makes the English soldiers angry and because England be losin' lotsa money when they lose slaves."

"I don't understand," Polly said, looking confused.

Inez continued. "See, the Spanish own this Florida territory, and it be needin' protection from the English, who they is always fighting with. So they sometimes make the runaways serve in their army before they be truly free. That's where my Jasper is-down in Cuba someplace, serving in the Spanish army."

"But that's not fair!" Polly exclaimed.

"Everything that done happened to you been fair?" Inez asked her.

"No, ma'am," Polly answered quietly.

Amari thought about this, then asked, "You free, Inez?"

Inez smiled. "Yes, chile, I got my papers that says I be free. I be free to work hard, free to be hungry, and free to miss my man. But yes, chile, I be free. Now, tell me who you are and who this little one be," she asked, nodding her head toward Tidbit.

"My name be Amari, and this be Tidbit-he my son now," Amari said out loud for the first time.

"My real name Timothy," Tidbit said quietly.

Amari looked at him in surprise.

"Mama name me Timothy," the boy said, "but I was real little when I was borned, so everybody call me Tidbit. But Mama always told me when I get to be a man, my name be Timothy."

Amari smiled with pride at the child who would one day be the man named Timothy.

"Well, Mr. Timothy, let me be the first to call you by your free name," Inez said, lightly pinching the boy on his chin. To Polly she said, "So what be your story, chile?"

Polly shifted her weight and finished what she was chewing. "I'm Polly. I was an indentured girl. I ran off with Amari and Tidbit because . . ." She paused. "It was very bad when we left." She bowed her head, as if the memory was too much to recite.

"Troubles never be over, chile," Inez said gently. "But it be good to share them with friends."

Polly looked up. "We could not have made it without each other," she acknowledged, smiling at Amari.

Amari returned the smile as she finished eating.

"Food be good thing too!" Tidbit said, interrupting. "More, please?"

As Inez was refilling Tidbit's bowl, Amari asked, "Who live here in this place?"

"Only about a hundred folk. Mostly runaway slaves who now be free. Some Indians. Some whites-mostly Spanish soldiers. Two priests. Everybody gets along because nobody got much. Everybody know everybody else. Sometimes blacks marry up with Indians, sometimes with whites. It sure ain't like nothing else, I reckon."

"Cato be right-little bit," Amari murmured to Polly.

"A few months back," Inez told them, "we had 'bout twenty escaped slaves come here from Georgia Colony. Their massa traced 'em here."

Amari looked up in alarm and thought of Clay. "They had to go back?" she asked. She wondered if Clay could ever, would ever trace them here.

Inez laughed. "No, chile, them folks just stood there and laughed at him-right in his face. He had no power here, so he had to leave."

"So we're safe now?" Polly asked. "Even if someone from Carolina Colony should find his way here, he could not make us go back?" Amari knew that Polly was worried about Clay as well.

"'Bout as safe as you gonna be," Inez replied. "You say your name be Polly?" she asked as she looked at Polly closely.

"Yes, ma'am," Polly replied.

"A young feller come through here just a few days ago, lookin' for somebody name of Polly. A redheaded white boy. Could he be the one you worryin' about stealin' you back to Carolina?"

Polly covered her mouth in surprise. "Is he still here?"

"I thinks not. He might be down in St. Augustine, but I don't know for shure. He mighta said somethin' about comin' back this way. I don't rightly remember. He be a friend of yours or a foe?"

"A friend, I think," Polly replied. Her sunburned skin turned a little redder.

Amari turned to Polly and grinned at her. "So what we do next?" Amari asked Inez.

"Y'all need to meet Captain Menendez," Inez suggested. "He be the one who welcome y'all officially, find you place to stay, and get you registered down in St. Augustine."

"What does that mean?" Polly asked.

"Well, you gotta meet with the priests-everybody here be Catholic, you know. And you gotta promise to serve the Spanish king. Personally, I don't see much difference between a Spanish king and a English one. Both of 'em rich. Neither of 'em ever show up here." She chuckled. "But that be what they makes you do when they takes you down to St. Augustine. Everybody got paperwork, chile, but the difference here is it make you free."

Amari grinned at that, excited to start the process. "Free," she whispered.

At that moment Amari looked up as a tall, dark soldier with black and gray curly hair, deep-set dark eyes, and a spotless uniform walked purposefully from the fort toward them. He reminds me of Father, Amari thought with a pang.

The man nodded to Inez, looked over the tired and bedraggled new arrivals, and said in an officious tone, "Welcome to Fort Mose. I am Francisco Menendez, captain of this fort and responsible for all who live here."

Amari wasn't sure what to do, so she stood up and bowed. Polly did the same and said, "Thank you, sir." Tidbit, copying the two girls, bowed as well, but he leaned too far and fell over in a heap.

The captain chuckled, picked up Tidbit, then sat him down carefully. "Feel free to sit, my children," he said to Amari and Polly with a pleasant smile. "Please introduce yourselves."

Amari made the introductions, telling him briefly of their adventures on the journey and their desire to stay there as a place of refuge. She was amazed at how easily she was able to convey her thoughts in English.

"You have just learned English since you have been in this country?" he asked.