In ‘Freewater,’ author Amina Luqman-Dawson uses fiction to illuminate a little-known black story

Here Now‘s Celeste Headlee speaks with Amina Luqman-Dawson about “Freewater”, his book for young adults.

The novel is a fictionalized account of a society founded by runaway slaves in the Great Dismal Swamp, which stretches between parts of Virginia and North Carolina.

From the book: ‘Freewater’

By Amina Luqman-Dawson

HOMER

DOGS BARKING IN THE FOREST ARE VERY SCARY.

All their grunts and yelps hit the trees and make it seem like they’re coming from all directions. Stokes had sent the whole pack. He knew we had tried to escape, and his knowledge had me to blame.

But Ada didn’t say that. Eyes wide open in fear, Ada’s thin arms clutched against a tree trunk. She huffed and huffed for air.

“Homer!” She yelled it that way that said, You’re my big brother – now what?

I had neither the breath nor the heart to answer him. My mind was always on where we came from. Where were Mom and Anna? How could we go on without them? Mom left because of me, and now they were both gone.

“Homer, they’re coming!” says Adam.

The paws crushed branches of dead trees. It was enough to bring me back.

“To run!” I said. But it was too late. In the moonlight, I spotted dog ears pointing up. The funny thing is that I knew this dog. Even in the dark, I could see his face, big and round like one of Mom’s iron pots in Big House’s kitchen. Stokes made me feed this big head when he looked at the fields. I had to do this with my morning work, after collecting the milk and eggs, but before watering and brushing the horses. The dogs ate pretty much the same food rations they gave us – lucky dogs. Yet they still stood yelping mean and angry, ungrateful dogs. Now, here, that same dog ran towards me like it didn’t even matter that he got the food from my hand. We were strangers. I was the slave and he was the dog sent to catch me.

He sank his teeth into my ankle. cried Adam. She didn’t need it. I was so scared that I felt nothing but the moist heat of his tongue. With my other foot, I kicked him in the head. He let go with a groan, then backed away, maybe waiting for his friends before coming back to me.

I grabbed Ada and we ran.

There was water nearby, Mom had told us about it. If you don’t see me coming back, go to the river, she said.

I didn’t take much notice of his instructions at the time. We were going north, and Mom and Anna were with us.

Mama said there was a river, but she didn’t tell us it wasn’t a sleeping thing like the one we knew near Southerland. We heard the water before we saw it. It was dark, but this river was awake. We stood on the shore with barking behind us and roaring water ahead.

“It looks like a hungry monster!” Ada compared everything to monsters and angels. But she was right. The water flowed down and grumbled like a belly waiting for food, her tongue licking here and there as she twisted and twisted toward the misty marsh. God only knows what happened when he got there. But there was no time to worry about it. If these dogs met us again, they weren’t going to be nicer.

“Ada, do you know that dream you have of flying?” I asked. Even with dogs on our heels, her face was quite happy that I remembered her dream. She nodded.

“Well, now you have the chance to fly, just like you did in that dream. We’re going to take off right from this bank.

Adam thinks. “In water?” she asked.

I nodded. The sound of dog paws hitting the soft ground came closer.

“But Homer, I can’t swim.” She said it more with sadness than anything else.

“It’s okay, you can do it,” I said.

“But Homer, you can’t swim,” she said.

Before I had a chance to think about that fact, I grabbed Ada’s hand and ran to the bank and jumped off.

Excerpt from “Freewater” by Amina Luqman-Dawson. Copyright © 2022. Reprinted with permission from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved.