Howard University, Washington D.C. — March 2024
"Washington owned over three hundred enslaved people by the time he died."
Amara Johnson let the number hang in the air of the lecture hall. She watched her students' faces—some nodding, some frowning, a few tapping at phones they thought she couldn't see.
"Three hundred human beings," she continued, pacing in front of the projector screen. "And yet we put him on the dollar bill. We named the capital after him. We call him the Father of Our Country." She paused. "So here's your discussion question for Thursday: Can a slaveholder be a hero? And if your answer is yes—whose hero? And at what cost?"
A hand shot up. Darnell Williams, third row, always ready to argue.
"Professor Johnson, isn't that kind of presentism? Judging historical figures by modern standards?"
Amara smiled. She'd been waiting for this. "Is it presentism to point out that people in Washington's own time—including some of his own enslaved workers—knew slavery was wrong? That Quakers were calling for abolition decades before the Revolution?" She leaned against the podium. "Washington knew. He wrote about it. He just didn't do much about it until he was literally on his deathbed."
The room hummed with murmurs. Good. That was the point.
"Complexity," Amara said, tapping the podium for emphasis. "That's what we're here for. Not to tear down statues or build shrines, but to understand. Washington helped create a nation founded on liberty while holding people in chains. Both things are true. Both things matter. And if that makes you uncomfortable—" She grinned. "Welcome to American history."
A few students laughed. Amara glanced at the clock: 2:47. Thirteen minutes left.
She clicked to the next slide—a portrait of Martha Washington, soft-faced and matronly in her white cap. "Now, let's talk about the other Washington. Martha Dandridge Custis Washington. The first First Lady, though they didn't call it that yet. What do we know about her?"
Silence. Then a voice from the back: "She was rich?"
"Very rich," Amara confirmed. "When she married George, she was one of the wealthiest widows in Virginia. She brought land, money, and—" She clicked again, showing a page from an estate ledger. "—eighty-four enslaved human beings to the marriage. Her 'dower slaves.' They legally remained her property, separate from George's."
She studied Martha's portrait for a moment. Placid. Unremarkable. A woman history remembered mostly for standing beside a great man.
What did you think about? Amara wondered. Did you ever look at the people you owned and feel anything? Guilt? Indifference? Did you even see them as people?
A strange pressure built behind her eyes.
Amara blinked. The lecture hall seemed to tilt slightly, the fluorescent lights suddenly too bright.
"Professor Johnson?" Someone's voice, far away. "Are you okay?"
She opened her mouth to answer, but her tongue felt thick. The pressure in her head intensified, a vice tightening around her skull. The portrait of Martha Washington blurred, then split into two, then three overlapping images.
What the hell—
Her knees buckled. The podium lurched toward her face, or she lurched toward it, she couldn't tell. Screams. Shouts. The hard edge of wood against her cheek.
Then nothing.
Softness.
That was the first thing Amara noticed. She was lying on something impossibly soft—not the industrial carpet of the lecture hall, but fabric. Feathers. A bed.
Her head throbbed. She kept her eyes closed, trying to piece together what had happened. I fainted. In front of my students. Great. That's going to be fun to explain.
But the bed was wrong. She didn't remember being moved. And the air smelled wrong too—not the recycled staleness of a hospital, but something organic. Woodsmoke. Lavender. Something animal underneath.
Amara opened her eyes.
A canopy. White fabric, gathered in soft folds above her, supported by dark wooden posts. Sunlight filtered through heavy curtains to her left, casting the room in amber.
She sat up too fast. The room spun. She gripped the edge of the mattress—feather mattress—and forced herself to breathe.
This is not a hospital.
The room was large, furnished in a style she recognized from museum exhibits. A writing desk with a slanted top. A washstand with a ceramic pitcher. A fireplace with actual logs smoldering in it. Portraits on the walls in gilded frames.
This is a dream. I hit my head and I'm having a very detailed, very weird dream.
She looked down at her hands.
They were white.
Amara screamed.
She scrambled backward, tangling in the sheets, nearly falling off the bed. She held her hands up in front of her face, turning them over, staring at the pale skin, the soft uncalloused palms, the unfamiliar shape of the fingers.
Not my hands. These are not my hands.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. She threw off the covers and looked down at her body—a body wrapped in a white linen nightgown, a body that was shorter than hers, softer than hers, whiter than hers.
"No." The word came out in a voice that wasn't her voice. Higher. Different accent. Wrong. "No, no, no—"
She staggered to her feet. The room tilted. She grabbed a bedpost for balance and looked around wildly until she spotted it: a mirror, standing in the corner, its surface slightly warped with age.
Amara walked toward it like a woman walking toward her own execution.
The face in the mirror was not her face.
Brown hair, curling slightly at the temples. Round cheeks. A small nose. Blue eyes, wide with terror.
Martha Washington.
The face from the portrait. Younger—much younger, maybe mid-twenties—but unmistakable. That same soft, unremarkable prettiness. That same white skin.
Amara's legs gave out. She sank to the floor, still staring at the impossible reflection.
"This isn't real," she whispered. Martha's voice whispered back at her. "This isn't real. I'm dreaming. I'm in a coma. I hit my head and—"
A knock at the door.
Amara froze.
"Mistress?" A woman's voice, muffled by the wood. "Mistress Custis? Are you awake?"
Custis. Martha Custis. Before she married Washington.
The knock came again, more insistent. "Mistress, I heard you cry out. Are you unwell?"
Amara opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
What do I say? What the hell do I say?
"I'm—" Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat and tried again, forcing steadiness into the unfamiliar vocal cords. "I'm fine. Just—just a moment."
She pushed herself to her feet, gripping the mirror's frame. The face staring back at her looked terrified. Good. At least that's honest.
The door opened.
A Black woman stepped into the room. She was perhaps fifty years old, wearing a plain brown dress with a white apron. Her hair was wrapped in a dark cloth. Her eyes swept over Amara with professional efficiency, checking for signs of illness or injury.
"You don't look well, Mistress," the woman said. "You're pale as milk. Shall I fetch the doctor?"
Amara stared at her. At the deference in her posture. At the careful neutrality in her voice.
She's enslaved. This woman is enslaved. And she's calling me Mistress.
"No," Amara managed. "No doctor. I just—I had a dream. A bad dream."
The woman nodded, unsurprised. "The children are asking for you. They've had their breakfast, but Master Jacky is in a temper about his lessons."
Children. Martha had children. Amara's mind raced through what she knew. Daniel Parke Custis, Martha's first husband, had died in 1757. They'd had four children, but only two survived: John Parke Custis, called Jacky, and Martha Parke Custis, called Patsy.
"Tell them—" Amara swallowed. "Tell them I'll be down shortly."
The woman hesitated. Something flickered in her eyes—concern? Suspicion? Amara couldn't read it.
"Yes, Mistress."
She left, closing the door softly behind her.
Amara sank onto the edge of the bed. Her—Martha's—hands were trembling. She pressed them flat against her thighs and tried to think.
I'm in 1757. I'm in Virginia. I'm in the body of Martha Custis, one of the richest women in the colony, and I own—
The thought hit her like a physical blow.
I own people.
Amara bent over, fighting the urge to vomit. Bile burned the back of her throat. She pressed her palm against her mouth and breathed through her nose until the nausea passed.
I'm a Black woman. I'm a Black woman from 2024, and I'm trapped in the body of a white slave owner in 1757, and I own people, I own people—
She stood up abruptly. Movement helped. Moving meant she didn't have to think.
She crossed to the window and pulled back the heavy curtain. Sunlight blinded her for a moment. Then her vision cleared, and she saw.
Fields. Rolling green fields stretching toward a tree line in the distance. And in those fields, figures moving. Bending. Working.
Black figures.
Amara watched a man straighten up and wipe his forehead. Even from this distance, she could see the exhaustion in his posture, the slow mechanical way he returned to his labor.
My great-great-great-great-grandfather might be out there. Working land he'll never own. Building wealth he'll never see.
Her hands clenched on the windowsill.
This is hell. I've died and gone to hell, and this is my punishment—to become the thing I've spent my whole life studying and hating and trying to understand.
Behind her, the door opened again.
"Mistress?" A different voice this time. Younger. "Mistress, little Patsy is crying for you."
Amara turned. A girl stood in the doorway—sixteen, maybe seventeen, with skin the color of burnished oak and eyes that held the careful blankness Amara had seen in historical photographs. The survival face. The mask you wore when the wrong expression could get you killed.
"I'll come," Amara said. The words felt like broken glass in her mouth.
The girl dropped a small curtsy and disappeared.
Amara looked back at the window. At the fields. At the people working them.
If this is real—and it can't be real, it can't be—but if it is—
What the hell am I supposed to do now?
[End of Chapter 1]