Chapter 1

                                    

                                          
Mercy Peters. I wonder what my mama done gone through thinkin, callin me Mercy. Maybe it's cause she thought I'd need it. Shit. It never helped me though. We's got separated when I was a kid. Just 6 years old. Just up one morning, got dragged out our shack, and never saw her again. Only thing I got from her was her eyes. Her big brown eyes. That's it. I done got my skin color from my daddy. I turned out light skin. My mama always use to tell me:
                          
"Mercy, don't you trust them men--them no good white folks, ready to break you to pieces, for they advantage."
                          
It ain't like I had a choice. Neither did she. My bastard daddy gone--take her from her room, rip her rags and gone straight up rape her. He straight up pulled her hair so hard chunks remained in his hands. That's how I was made. I was my daddy's slave for 4 more years until he up and died. They said he had some sorta lung problem from smokin too many pipes. Well he had it comin. I ain't shed a  tear. Matter fact, I might have maybe smiled a little.
                          
But after that, evrything went bad. My daddy's wife learned about her husband's nigger child and decided she'd put me up for auction. I can never forget the day that mean old woman sent me away. I had just been done washing some plates, when the yard boy gon come up to me and hold me with a strong grip. It was as strong as an ox's. He dragged me  to face my daddy's wife in front of the house.
                          
"Take a good look at your daddy's house one last  time nigger. You're never gonna see it again." She told me, fanning herself.
                          
The yard boy threw my small body into the most awful, pit smellin carriage I had ever been in. At least the first. For that day, I guess I was the only slave she was willin to sell cause I was the only girl in there. I remember how scared I was. I barely understood what was happenin. Went we finally stopped, they opened the doors, and I got out. I had never been outside daddy's walls. I saw another bit of Georgia.
                          
10 dollars. That was what I was worth. My mama used to say I was worth a thousand stars, but I guess those must be worth 10 dollars too. Next thing I knew, I was thrown into the back of another carriage, except this one was full of others like me. Some kept a starin at how light my skin was, but it ain't like I still wasn't black. I was. No matter how light, once a nigger, always a nigger. That's what my daddy used to tell me.
                          
While we traveled,  I got to see a sign that said Alabama. Mama taught me enough of readin and writin for me to get by. Once the carriage finally stopped, they opened the doors to a big ole house. I thought some kind of king or queen live there. But I was  wrong. It was just another white family with some crops they  done wanted to grow. 10 of us of many different ages, went up for auctions in front of the fam'ly as if we were cattle. For the first time, I felt like an animal.
                          
The owner of the house and plantation was an old white man, livin with his wife, hoe, babies and gran'babies. I was suprised when I heard he done got himself a mistress livin in the same house as his wife. I's guess white man can do watever he want to. I stayed in that same house for nearly 4 years. I was the only light colored nigger you could fin in that whole house. But I's done wished with all my heart I was darker. My last year there, I's done started becomin a woman. But I wished It would had happened at least a few years. The owner's youngest son---22 years, gone take a likin to me. 
                          
He was married. To a young pretty little miss too.  He was white, with curled dark brown hair,always with a cigar on the side of his lip. I hated that smell with all my life. He'd stare at me with those filthy eyes, like--like I was somethin he could just do evrythin dirty he wanted to. I remember that night, like it was yesterday. I was sleepin in my shack with 5 other slaves, when a man just came rushin, and grabbed me by my arm. I started screamin, but nobody was around. How could they not hear a lil gurl screamin, shoutin? He threw me inside the slave kitchen, and I started hittin him and hittin him, cause I was scared. I could see the slaves in my shack starin at me through the open door, lookin scared too. They couldn't do nothin cause they'd die. I screamed and screamed, but then, he knocked me out unconscious and as my eyes closed, I saw him close the door b'hind him. I was 14. 
                          
When I finally woke up---when I finally woke up...He was still rapin me. I couldn't do nothin bout it, cause he done gone tie my arms with a rope. I still could "feel" him inside me. And that made me sick. When he finally finished, he let out a sigh' like he done do somethin great and pulled up his pants. I looked down, and I saw blood...on my legs and on the floor. I was 14. Just 14.