. . . the Second of October, about 9 of the clock in the morning, Mr. Mavericks Negro woman came to my chamber window, and in her own Countrey language and tune sang very loud and shrill, going out to her, she used a great deal of respect toward me, and willingly would have expressed her grief in English; but I appre- hended it by her countenance and deportment, whereupon I repaired to my host, to learn of him the cause, and resolved to intreat him in her behalf, for that I under- stood before, that she had been a Queen in her own Countrey, and observed a very humble and dutiful garb used towards her by another Negro who was her maid. Mr. Maverick was desirous to have a breed of Negroes, and therefore seeing she would not yield by perswasions to company with a Negro young man he had in his house; he commanded him will’d she nill’d she to go to bed to her, which was no sooner done but she kickt him out again, this she took in high disdain beyond her slavery, and this was the cause of her grief.
—John Josselyn, Two Voyages to New England, 1674 Source

This unnamed woman is the subject of my novel. I am haunted by the thought that there has to be more to her than “the cause of her grief.” But the historical record provides nothing and possibly never will. So I decided to take Toni Morrison’s advice and write the book I want to read. Since it is a haunting, I’ll be writing it as a kind of ghost story. However, one person’s ghost is another person’s ancestor. To quote Miriam Makeba:

In the West the past is like a dead animal. It is a carcass picked at by the flies that call themselves historians and biographers. But in my culture the past lives. My people feel this way in part because death does not separate us from our ancestors. Source

But before we start, we must follow protocol and awaken her.