This is a story about my alter ego Anya. As you know, she came into my head while I was reading A Great and Terrible Beauty for the second time. She came to me when I was reading the scene with Felicity and Ithal. I thought "What if it was another Gypsy who talked Ithal into leaving? What would Gemma say he/she looked like?" That's when Anya took shape. I always like for my characters to have a backstory, so Ladies and Gentlemen...Enjoy the backstory of ANYA.

NOTE: There is some talk about The French. This story is in NO WAY meant to insult them! Things like this actually happened in Haitian history, so I'm only basing them on the facts and the POV of a Senegalian girl.

There is a loud booming sound. I open my eyes just in time to see an orange flash of light make its way across the wall of our hut. I must be dreaming, I thought. The air was a little bit warm, but this was the time of the year for it to be. As soon as I was comfortable on my blankets and becoming drowsy with sleep, there was another loud, earsplitting booming sound. I woke with a start. The smell of smoke and powder was thick in the air, but I didn't have time to think about that. Something came smashing through the wall waking us all. I ran to Gervanie and hid her under my arm. Papa was already running towards the front curtain of the hut, looking out. "They've come," He said his eyes wide with fear and rage.

"Who?" replied Mama with my big brother Dolo at her side.

"The white people! They've come, just as the Priest prophesied!"

"What do we do, Papa?" I couldn't even recognize my own voice now that I was shaking so badly. I was usually never scared.

"We must leave this place! Senegal is no longer safe. Take whatever you can and hurry!"

I was on my feet in a moment. I ran to the part of the hut shared by me and my little sister, Gervanie. I grabbed a basket nearby and put our small amount of clothes inside. I took everything off our table and stopped when I saw mother's amulet. It was her favorite, given to her by a white woman long ago; a crescent eye. I took it as well and stuffed it in my pocket. Gervanie was helping mother with the food when another earth-crackling sound swept her off her feet. She fell to the floor sobbing. Basket in hand, I ran to her. "I'm scared!" She sobbed. "What if we die? What if we don't make it?"

"We will make it to safety, Gervanie," I murmured in her ear, soothingly. "Everything will be alright."

How did I know that? I wasn't the Village Priest. I couldn't prophesize. And who could not miss a family of six running for their very lives? Voldez, my youngest brother took the basket from me and followed Papa out the door. I did the same. The last view I saw of our house was it being blown up by a huge, round shiny ball of lead; a cannonball.

We ran as fast as we could with Papa ahead of us. Gervanie kept falling behind, so I swooped her up and carried her as I ran. There was chaos everywhere. People of our village were running for safety or crying for mercy to our Senegalian gods. Our persecutors were ones I've never seen before. They didn't look like they came from any of the Western Tribes. As Papa said, they were white, but he failed to mention that they also had hair that looked like straw, unlike the black, curly hair that most of our village men had. Most of them carried long weapons, like guns and swords. Could the white people really be that dangerous?

Houses everywhere were either destroyed or on fire. Dead bodies littered the ground. "Papa, where are we going?" I heard Voldez yell.

"We are going to the House of the Priest! He can tell us what to do."

The Priest. I had always loathed that short, ugly gap-toothed man. He was nothing but a false prophet. As I was thinking, I tripped on something and fell with Gervanie in my arms. I struggled to get up. As I did, I caught sight of what I fell on. A body. Kinjo's body. My best friend's body. His face was twisted and there was a wound on his head. Tears filled my eyes as Dolo picked me up, taking me to the others. They were hiding in a tangle of bushes waiting for us. Gervanie was already with them.

"Papa, the road to the House of the Priest is blocked. It is too late to go along the ocean, because the ships of the white men have blocked them." Dolo ran his fingers through his black curls with one sweaty, black hand.

"Darling, what do we do now?" whimpered my mother. Papa held her in his arms and gave her a light kiss on the forehead.

"We wait."

It was a horrible wait. From where we were hidden, we could see everything. The white people, called The French, were destroying everything in their path. They took whoever they could find; men, women, and children. Whoever got in their way, they killed the person. One of The French was separating a woman from her child. He threw the woman on the ground, took the baby and—I couldn't look but when I saw the woman again, she was crying. The French were yelling in some language that I didn't understand. They were rounding up our people and putting them in chains.

I heard a clinking sound.

"Oh, I dropped my ring!" I felt Gervanie bend down to climb out of the bushes to retrieve it.

"Be careful," Mama warned.

"I found it!" she said a few seconds later. I wished she hadn't said that. And I wished I hadn't made her that ring. For as soon as she said those words there was a loud scream and the sound of a gun go off. We all ran out of our hiding spot and saw the saddest sight in the world. Gervanie was dead.

"Gervanie!!" I screamed. I ran to her and picked up her body. They shot her in her forehead.

"Par ici!" I heard a pitchy voice yell. Tons of The French were running towards us, guns in hand. The one who had spoken had the biggest nose I've ever seen. It was as big as an elephants. He came to me and held my wrists. I wanted to bite him on his elephant nose, but I didn't want to die. The other French people took hold of the rest of my family, and started to drag us towards the beach. They took our baskets of food and clothes and threw them into one of the burning houses. I stifled a cry of rage. Who were these people to destroy our village and take us as captives? What have we ever done to them?

We were taken to one of the big French men and had chains fastened onto our necks, wrists and ankles, joining us together. We had to take off our clothes, but when the Elephant Man tried to lay a hand on me, I bit him, giving me a permanent scar under my right eye. I had managed to take mother's crescent eye out of my shirt pocket before my clothes were taken off me and burned. So here we were, captured, angry, in chains and without clothes, boarding a ship as big as a mountain and getting ready to sail away from Senegal, Africa. Away from home forever.

After reading this myself, I actually felt really sad. Things like this really happened, but I guess it was for a good cause, or else I wouldn't be able to call myself Haitian by blood.

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