The Slave Escaped but Never Free

The night was dark this Halloween. No moon was showing in the sky. The scent of death filtered out the air as shadows of shadows sifted through the mist. The mysteries of this night made even the owl wary. The nocturnal king sat silently watching without even a "who" to give away his reconnaissance position.

A spark split the shadows as the blackened fear struck the flint to the kindling and began to breath destruction over the sparks. "Evil that reigns over this night, let it be that if I be found by master or other, should death come to me, let it also come to them til such a time as I can rest in peace." The spark burst into a fiery frenzy fueled by the anger of a slave escaped but never free. The howling of the dogs seared her ears as she left from her voodoo in a terrified retreat. Soon the sounds surrounded her in the night. Still she ran as her life depended on it, hoping to find the river that might lead her to peace and rest at last.

The hounds began to close in. She could see nothing in the dense black. Suddenly, she felt the jolt of a rope yanking at her. The shadowy figures wrestled her onto a wagon. The wagon pulled away leaving only the dangle of revenge. Her final words echoed through the tree as her spirit sifted into the branches. "Evil that reigns over this night, let it be that if I be found by master or other, should death come to me, let it also come to them til such a time as I can rest in peace...peace...peace."

The black was cut away as Aurora unfolded her brilliant wings merging light and sky into one entity. The secrets of the night revealed there seemed obvious, yet one secret was still hidden that not even the power of the morning sun could bring to light.

The pounding of hooves along the way brought a stranger from far into the path of the tree. Upon spying the dangling edifice, he moved aside to travel on. As he began to pass staring, the clawing branches devoured him and crushed his bones beneath the roots.

As time passed, the falling leaves gave way to winters chill, and none passed by. No rest for the weary as the spirit of the slave escaped but never free waited yearning for peaceful slumber. Spring's warm breezes swept away the chill, and the grinding of wagon wheels whirled along the lonely path. The abolitionist driver, distracted by an intense purpose to find safety for a small slave boy in a river of freedom, whizzed it's precious contents on til the branches of the tree of slavery devoured all.

Word began to pass along, and a ghoulish conjecture was spread throughout all the land. The months passed by, and no one ventured into the forest of the slave escaped but never free. One year had passed. Halloween was come again. The night was sinister in the forest reigned by death. The weary spirit yearned moment by moment for peaceful rest. The pounding of hooves raged across the path. It was as though the spirit knew he was coming. Suddenly, as Aurora's first beam slit through the bleak velvet, the pounding stopped. The figure there was reminiscent of a boy that sat once upon her knee, and a man with a whip, and a woman with a grimace, and the fear that dominated her life even in death.

The man dismounted in tears, trembling at the sight of a woman who was so close to his heart. The woman had once bounced him on her knee. With compassion for someone he once held dear, he cut the rope. He buried her there under the tree, and her soul slipped into that peaceful slumber as she finally forgave and was forgiven. The grip of death was broken from the forest forever as he placed the cross upon her grave.