This powerful novel begins in the 1933 when a woman's dead body and her small child, Violet, who was around seven years old show up at Gran Gran's home. A white man brought them to Gran Gran, an older woman who was once the healer on the slave plantation, and who knew the mysteries of root magic and birthing. Gran Gran is unsure what to do with this mute child who is traumatized by the death and disappearance of her mother. Gran Gran begins to dose her with sleeping remedies, and slowly the girl is not shaking, and twitching, and is beginning to be drawn to Gran Gran, following her around in the small home. The child finds clay masks hanging in a back room, and seems confused. Gran Gran explains about the clay masks that she had made many years ago to remember that people who once lived on the slave plantation with her. She relates her story to Violet, of how she had been brought up in the master's mansion when the master's daughter dies of fever. She is dressed up in the dead daughter's dresses on Sunday to soothe the master's wife who is dealing with her grief. When the master suddenly brings home an expensive slave woman, Polly Shine, to heal the sick slaves, Polly decides that she needs to help this young girl, called Granada, remember her people and teach her how to heal them. The book is full of slave stories that go back generations, and it is Polly who helps the people remember that the master doesn't own their freedom, and they must remember that it is God who created the world, not the master. This powerful mystery that Granada is just learning about, heals Granada herself and gives her the vision that had been lost to her. And it is these stories that are also used to heal Violet, who remembers her own story. This is an excellent story that could begin a dialog about race and personal power.
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