Charlotte's Journal

For a while, I had a friend. The daughter of one of my parents' slaves. She was my age and she liked all the same things I did, when I shared them with her. It was a secret, that she was a daughter. A secret from my family, and a secret from hers. It was a secret that we were friends at all. My father hated it when I talked to the slaves. He hated when I asked anything about them at all. He hated that I didn't hate them. And he would have hated my friend all the more.

But I would be dead without her. Without the secret that her name was 'Amelia' and not 'John'. Without the name she gave to the warmth I felt when I loved the wrong things. I was afraid to choose a name like hers, but I was also so excited. So warm. Because like her, I realized I was a daughter as well. And, even if only one person knew it, I wanted a daughter's name. There were so many I loved. So many that made me feel so much more myself than I ever had before. I eventually landed on 'Serenity'. Serenity and Amelia.

I had a whole plan. I would meet with Amelia any chance I got. When I became the Lady of the Renatus house, I would free all of our slaves, and I would marry Amelia. We would adopt other girls, or boys, that were like us. Given the wrong name. The wrong title. And we would raise them like our parents failed to. Fully in the sunlight. Comfortable. Themselves. It was a child's dream. I didn't know my parents weren't the only ones who would hate to see the sun on our faces.

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Amelia took the risk first. She and her mother were close. In a way I didn't even understand at the time. She trusted her. Amelia was nervous. She was terrified. But she loved her mother, and her mother loved her. And I encouraged her. Because I knew that every person who used her name would bring her warmth. Especially if it was her mother. The last time she spoke to me was the day she planned to tell her mother that her name was Amelia. That she planned to make people treat her as who she was.

After that, she wasn't allowed near me at all. I could only watch her from a distance, but I could see the results of the risk she took. New bruises every single day. The guards were quicker with the whip on her than anyone else. They hit her harder, more frequently, and more publicly than anyone else. And then, one day, a priest was invited to her family's quarters. After that, I never saw her again at all, and her parents never spoke of having a child. For a while, I lost a friend.