A breeze brushed Tino's face and ruffled is white-blonde hair, lifting it to dance in the air – another unfamiliar feeling of clean. He'd been startled after scrubbing himself with the lye to look down into the barrel of water and to see the reflection of such fair skin and hair, bleached by the Virginia sun. Grimy for so long, he'd forgotten what he really looked like.

Tino took another deep breath, this time pulling in the sweet smells of new bloom, of greening grasses. There had been a wild hailstorm earlier in the month that destroyed all the peach blossoms and sent the plantation's owner into a fit about the loss of peach brandy for the year. But now the earth was in full blossom, joyfully shaking itself awake , spewing out millions of flowers in field and trees. Tino looked back up to the gulls. He wondered if they rejoiced in the festival of color beneath them.

When the breeze rustled his hair and shirt again, Tino felt a hesitant happiness creep through him. He closed his eyes and held his arms out, imagining just as he had when he was a small boy. The wind picked up a bit, flapping his billowy sleeves. He willed his feet to lift up off the ground, his arms to sprout feathers. He could almost feel himself float on the pale blue air of soft breezes, delicious new-life smells, and fledgling possibilities.

Today was the day that would change his circumstances. Perhaps today, he could brave hoping for his own spring.

77777

"All right sir, let's see what you have to offer," Spoke a voice behind Tino.

Tino dropped his gaze to his bare feet, waiting. Two long shadows slid across the clover toward him. A well-polished set of boots came into view alongside a set of fat, cracked shoes with tarnished buckles.

"What? This? This here? This be nothing but a runt of a lad."

Tino lost the scent of new bloom in the stench of rum, garlic, and sweat the men carried. His heart began to pound.

One of them rattled papers as he spoke: "He's thirteen years of age, Mr. Owen. He'll grow into your needs. Remember he had eight years more on his indenture until he turns twenty-one. If you purchase a grown man's time, you only have him four years. Price is eleven pounds, his cost of passage from Finlan'. If you want a strong slave, like that one, it'll cost you upwards of sixty pounds." The man pointed to Tino's friend, Mathias, who stood nearby amongst a group of slaves. He was sixteen but tall and strong, and could handle a hogshead of tobacco on his own.

"Hmmmm..." Own growled. He grabbed Tino's arms and squeezed, looking for muscle. "Blacksmithing is hard work, boy. I need someone to stoke my fires, carry water, sort scraps of iron. You've no mean on you." He began testing Tino's legs.

Tino tried to keep from recoiling from the brushing, sausage-thick fingers. It'd been like this at that other place. People checking him like a piece of clothing, touching and trying on. He was once taken by a store owner, but truth is, the owner was a gambler and lost everything. So here he is, going to be sold once again.

All he eats is barely a piece of stale bread and cup of soup. The only kindness done them had been the recent laundering to make them presentable, because all them, along with everything in the estate – the house, the acres, the clothes, shoes, feather beds, pot, pans, and hoes – were up for sale to pay off the master's debts.

"Any pestilence about him?"

"No. He's fit. They say he is exceedingly good with horses. Useful for a blacksmith, I thought." The man holding papers was clearly an auctioneer, assigned to market the plantation's human merchandise.

Owen grunted. He seized Tino's jaw and twisted it around so that sunlight fell full on his face. Prying Tino's mouth open, Owen stuck a filthy finger in and counted his teeth, lingering over the one in the back that had just finished growing.

"Well, they look sound." He shoved Tino aside and wiped his hand on his jacket. "If nothing else, if I work him to death, I can sell those teeth. There's a surgeon in Norfolk giving forty shillings a tooth. I'd make a profit." Owen jabbed the auctioneer with an elbow and guffawed.

The auctioneer straightened his waistcoat and asked coldly, "Do you want him?"

"Aye, he'll do for something. But I'll only pay seven pound for him."

Tino's heart sank. This man seemed worse then the store owner. No! Say it's not enough coin. Make him go away!

The auctioneer thought a moment. "Nine."

"Eight and ten shilling."

"Agreed." The auctioneer made a note in his papers. Tino fought off fainting.

"Right then," said Owen. "Let me see what horseflesh you have. Come, boy." He shoved Tino to walk abreast him.

Hopes all things?

Only fools hoped. Hope made life's disappointments hurt the more. Hope is what had brought him to bondage.

Owen hadn't even asked Tino's name. And he certainly hadn't looked him in the eye. That was the other kind of reaction to Tino's eyes – none – born of such indifference to his existence as a human being that a person never saw them because they never bothered to look Tino in the face.