"The different emotions and tensions were a chaotic storm running through all of us. I hadn't answered any questions or made any statements. I just sa... there listening to what they had to say and feeling their emotions.The one consensus everyone agreed on was it was time to go. However, they felt my strong desire for Mandy and the torment she had been put through. Some suggested she stay; others agreed that she had been through enough. The talking had turned into a constantly thrumming. Retrieving the key, she slid it into the lock, and opened the door. Turning back to Alice, she said, “Well, do you want to see the inside?” Alice closed her mouth with a snap. She had been standing at the bottom of the steps, looking up over the slate roof of the porch to the third story, and wondering what the shingles would look like painted in a contrasting color. She slowly ascended the three curved steps onto the porch, and running her hand over the porch column as she walked past it,. Baranova, Ray Mack were not unfamiliar with. The most efficient and directremedy, they had learned, was insant and direct truth."THE FORMER LUTHER ROBINSON," Ray Mack crowed like a judge pronouncing adeath sentence, "YOUR MIND NOW INHABITS THE BODY OF ONE MS. PINJA OFVARBOLA, ESTONIA. YES, PINJA OF ESTONIA, A SMALL SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD GIRL WHOEXPIRED ON THE LONG VOYAGE FROM HER VILLAGE IN THE HOPES OF PROSPERITY INTHE WEST. AS MS. PINJA'S BODY WAS LEASED TO ME AND MY ASSOCIATESPRECEEDING HER. “Lewis just sold a plantation that he inherited. He kept the slaves and just now got back from Lexington where he filed letters of manumission for each them. Forty-two of them want a place of their own to work and we wanted to see if they liked your place.”“Look all you want. Pa’s old slaves will probably beg you to let them stay and work for you. With that much help, you should be able to work the entire property. Pa didn’t want to buy any more slaves, so he only worked about three hundred.