The Heritage Keeper

By Jacqueline Leigh

This second edition of The Heritage Keeper is a touching story from the 1830s set in Sierra Leone, West Africa during the Transatlantic Slave Trade, based on the true experience of the young heroine Fima who takes chances a

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bowker
• Release date: Mar 25, 2024
• ISBN: 9798990339705

Jacqueline Leigh

Award-winning author Jacqueline Leigh is a creative-writing teacher for elementary and middle-grade students in Peachtree City, Georgia. Her love for children extends to the education and growth of their creative minds. Her work can also be found in multiple publications, including Fayette County Lifestyle magazine, where she has contributed lifestyle, personal, and business-related articles. Illustrator Maya Gur has studied art and design in Jerusalem and Prague. Her work includes children's books, product and toy design, adult and children's art, logos, and branding. She aims to create clear, communicative, joyful, and unique art that reflects the diversity and wonder of life.

Book preview

PROLOGUE: THE CIRCLE

Let the storyteller speak!

We know this tale to be true: Many generations ago, our five villages stood closer to each other than you see them today. There was no need to hide them from the world. We cooperated more. Planting and harvesting teams drew on farmers from all five villages. When we held ceremonies and celebrations, the whole area feasted!

Each village had its own water wells, but the five also shared a special spring in the hills that was sacred to all. No one used it casually or freely. Five women—one from each village—met there at regular intervals. They kept the source pure, and collected water from it for ceremonies.

Before leaving, they would linger a bit. True, they were not young and needed rest, but they had another reason to stay. They would talk, and their talk rose from the deep, just like the spring came up through the rocks.

One of them might begin by saying she would like to re-route the irrigation channels, and they would discuss this. Another would re-organise the farmworkers. Everyone should plant and harvest more often, a third might say. Their talk was wise because they were thinkers, and great trust rested with them.

These women were called The Circle. When they returned home, their ideas passed through their actions to their co-workers—their sisters and daughters—until all the women in all five of the villages had joined in the discussion. Such a force emanated from the five women that every farmer became more skilled, and all five villages prospered.

One day when The Circle arrived at the spring for their regular visit, they found laid out on the rock before them, five small sand-dollar fossils, each no bigger than a groundnut.

They wondered at these, so far from the seashore and arrayed so neatly in a circle at the sacred spring. They were grainy to the touch, light as clouds, and marked like flowers with five fine petals, both front and back. They were so, so fragile! Rough handling could chip them.

Sand dollar fossil

That day when our ancestors—the guardians of the spring—returned to their villages, each with a fossil in her care, everyone knew they were signs. That all the benefits they had gained from The Circle had in fact been destined for them. They were grateful, and there was a great celebration.

However, not long after the day of recognition, mishaps began occurring that demeaned The Circle. When objects went missing in a village, the five women were blamed. Accusers claimed that tasks The Circle had carried out were accomplished by others instead. Repeatedly, the five women were accused of defying elders when they had not spoken at all. One by one, The Circle left their villages. I don’t mean they went to the next village, or the next district. Each of them disappeared and was never seen again. No trace of them or their sand-dollar fossils was ever found.

We, the women whose mothers and grandmothers worked side-by-side with The Circle, call ourselves The Circle today. We implement their ideas. We do it quietly, but we will not stop. My mother’s groundnuts sent all her children through school, and mine will do the same.

CHAPTER 1

GRANDMA KARFUA

26TH DEC. 1838, YAGOI

Laneh! Fima called. Laneh, you bad dog, where are you? She banged his food pan with her cooking spoon and listened. Whenever her puppy disappeared, she searched first out near the forest behind the house. Today, though, there was no sniffing or digging noise in the undergrowth; no barking to answer her call.

Fima sniffed, herself, and remembered she had sauce on the fire. She half-ran back to the kitchen and found Mama Boi, her mother, adjusting the firewood under the pot. She looked up when she heard Fima. There’s the spoon! Why are you walking around with it? She stirred the pot and checked the heat and stood up. Have you found Laneh? Fima shook her head. Never mind, he’ll turn up.

Not if someone captures him.

Who would harm a dog named ‘Faith’? Go and call for him again. But don’t go into the forest!

Fima was heading for the side of the house when a shrill greeting sounded from down on the river path. After that came loud barking! A small dog had burst from the bush and stopped a woman in her tracks.

Laneh! shouted Fima, running down the path.

You see? called Mama Boi to Fima. Didn’t I tell you? That dog is smart! There he is protecting our house.

It’s Fanta, Mama! Fima folded the dog in her arms and gave her cousin a hug. She took her bags and they walked together up to the house. They were age mates, but it seemed to Fima that Fanta had turned into a woman in the years since she had seen her. The restless fingers and laughing mouth were still there, but she was somehow quieter than before. Then Fima remembered that if Fanta had just arrived from Mengbinteh, Mama Boi’s village, she would have been walking for two whole days.

I’ll bring water to the washroom for you. We’ve almost finished cooking.

Later, when they gathered on the veranda to eat, Fima couldn’t keep quiet. Fanta, weren’t you afraid to come all this way by yourself? Your clothes smell like smoke. Was there trouble?

Yes! There was a raid up the river from here. They set fires to scatter people so they could capture them. The place I hid was not near flames, but there was a lot of smoke.

You shouldn’t have risked it! Mama Boi said. Why did you come? What has happened?

Grandma Karfua needs your help, Mama Boi. Her leg is worse. She can no longer farm. If you don’t come, we won’t get the harvest in.

Mama Boi was quiet for a moment. Then she said, We’ll leave in the morning.

CHAPTER 2

THE BUNDLE

27TH DEC. 1838, YAGOI

Fima, you’re in charge now.

There was still a chill in the early morning air. Fanta and Mama Boi had started walking down the path. To keep her load from capsizing, only Mama’s eyes turned toward Fima. The basin on her head was crowned with two new hoes.

Make sure you deliver all 200 bushels of rice to Banna the Trader today. And don’t come home alone with the payment! Oh yes! The shipment for Gallinas! It is due at the waterway by Friday. Don’t forget!

I know, Mama, I know! Her smile turned into a pout. I’m as old as Fanta, but you still treat me like a child! Laneh was nudging her ankle, and she scratched his ear.

Their neighbour appeared in her doorway. Mama Boi, are you travelling? Greet them all for me!

I will! her mother replied, waving.

Fanta had gone on ahead, but Mama Boi just stood looking at Fima. She seemed to be trying to decide something. Finally, she undid the knot tying her lappa, or skirt-cloth, at her waist. Carefully, not to shake the load on her head, she took out the small reddish-brown bundle that she always carried there in addition to her money. To show you that what you are saying is not true—that I do have confidence in you—I want you to keep this for me. I am always afraid I might lose it when I make this trip. Fima stepped back, her eyes wide. Her mother shook her downward-turned fist again, urging her to take it.

Fima put out her palm, and the object dropped into it. Strange that it has weight, she thought. The little leather package was cross-bound with narrow leather straps. She was tempted to smell it, but she didn’t. Everyone made fun of the way she smelled everything. She closed her other hand over it.

Fima raised the front of her docket, tied the bundle inside her own kotoku, and covered it again. She patted it to check that it was secure. She stared at her feet. She felt awkward, as if she had just grown older and should stand in a different way now.

Her mother started to talk. Fima