“In here,” my mysterious mate tells me. We walk into a larger house, up the stairs, and into a small room that contains only a mattress slung to a corner and a table for holding a candle. Like most bedrooms in slave villages, there is no window, but the house is drafty, so air is no problem. There are barely any items in here, so I guess my mate is one of the seasonal workers in this village, and he was lucky enough to find an empty room.
“Let’s sit down to talk first,” he suggests.
I feel my heart practically jumping from his words, suddenly becoming nervous. There is no place to sit except on his mattress, so we bend down to sit next to each other, leaning against the wall. I’m sweating, not only from the late summer heat but also from the buzzing air around us. Our bodies want to enta
