Opening
Two lives, a century apart, collide through a crumbling mansion, a lost ledger, and a hunger for truth. In 1875 Louisiana, Hannie Gossett chases the scattered pieces of a broken family. In 1987 Augustine, Benedetta "Benny" Silva fights to reach students in a town that would rather forget its past. Both stories circle the same house—and the secrets it keeps.
What Happens
Chapter 1: Hannie Gossett—Louisiana, 1875
Hannie wakes from a recurring nightmare that sweeps her back to 1863, when, at six years old, she is stolen from Goswood Grove by Jeptha "Jep" Loach, nephew to her mistress. Under the pretense of “refugeeing” enslaved families to Texas during the Civil War, Jep sells them along the route for profit. Hannie’s mother, Mittie Gossett, makes her memorize a chant—eight siblings’ names and the towns where each is sold—turning memory into a lifeline.
Before the caravan breaks, Mittie and her sister sew poke sacks, each with three blue glass beads from their African-born grandmother—tokens of identity and a promise of reunion. The dream reaches its worst moment: Hannie watches her cousin Mary Angel sold, then feels herself torn from Mittie’s arms as Mittie is struck down and Jep drags Hannie away to be sold next. The terror jolts her awake, sleepwalking in the fields of Goswood Grove.
Back in 1875, Hannie lives with Tati and other orphans, sharecropping on a fragile contract. Only Hannie is returned to Goswood after the war; the rest of her family remains missing. From atop an old pecan stump, she spots a cloaked woman at the plantation gates—so haunting she mistakes her for Mittie’s ghost—before Tati brings her safely home.
Chapter 2: Benedetta Silva—Augustine, Louisiana, 1987
Benny’s first day in Augustine begins with screeching tires: a pipe truck blows a stop and she crashes her VW Beetle to avoid hitting a small boy. The driver flees. A school board member witnesses the chaos, and the day only worsens.
In her underfunded classroom, students sit divided by race and social group. They heckle and ignore her attempts to discuss Animal Farm. Disorder crests when an enormous student, Lil’ Ray, seems ready to fight—then collapses from hunger. Benny hands over her M&Ms and improvises authority, making a short writing assignment the “ticket” to lunch.
The day ends with a slap of reality. A paper left behind by the teen who saved the little boy at the crosswalk calls Benny a “crazy lady” and predicts she won’t last. The town’s judgment and the students’ needs feel bigger than her syllabus.
Chapter 3: Hannie Gossett—Louisiana, 1875
At Tati’s urging, Hannie disguises herself as a boy and slips into the Gossett “Grand House” to spy on the cloaked stranger. Tati recognizes the garment—she made it for Juneau Jane LaPlanche, Old Mister Gossett’s mixed-race daughter from New Orleans. With Old Mister missing four months after a trip to Texas, Hannie fears Old Missus will void the sharecropping contract before harvest.
Hannie crawls in through a coal trap and hides in the library as Juneau Jane ransacks Old Mister’s desk. Desperate, Juneau Jane climbs the towering shelves for a specific ledger, drops it with a thunderous thud, and wakes Old Missus. The commotion draws Lavinia Gossett, just home from boarding school.
Juneau Jane flees out a window, abandoning her distinctive cloak. Hannie snatches it to protect Tati and ducks into the butler’s pantry. From the dark, she hears Lavinia lie to Old Missus—claiming she dropped the book herself. The lie reveals something startling: the half-sisters are secretly working together.
Chapter 4: Benny Silva—Augustine, Louisiana, 1987
Alone in a creaking rental beside a cemetery, Benny listens to rain drip through the kitchen roof. A blind elder with a guide dog stops at a nearby grave and introduces himself as former Councilman Walker. Thinking she’s the previous tenant, he shares local lore and the house’s ties to the powerful Gossett family, then points her toward the Cluck and Oink for help with the roof.
At the barbecue joint, the formidable “Granny T” dubs Benny the “Ding Dong Lady” for handing out snacks to students, scolds her for coddling kids, and quietly gives her the town’s lay of the land. Benny learns her landlord is Nathan Gossett, the absentee grandson of the late Judge Gossett, notorious for neglecting his properties. Outside, the girl from the crosswalk, LaJuna Carter, surprises Benny with her aunt’s number for roof repairs. Pointing to the decaying Gossett mansion, LaJuna mentions its library—“books nobody even cares about anymore”—planting a seed.
Chapter 5: Hannie Gossett—Louisiana, 1875
Hannie hides by the old bridge and overhears Lavinia and Juneau Jane meet in secret. They’re hunting Old Mister’s papers—likely his will and records of inheritance. If Old Mister is dead, those pages decide everything.
Hannie pivots to action. Still in disguise, she intercepts the carriage request, hitches the old mare, Ginger, and presents herself as driver. Lavinia complains but accepts; they collect Juneau Jane and set off in a tense, three-female convoy with crossed agendas.
They reach a grim, industrial river landing and follow Lavinia down a back alley to a red-doored shipping office. Lavinia says it belongs to Mr. Washburn, her father’s business associate and legal adviser. A scarred man with an eye patch answers, expecting only two girls. With a dismissive “just my driver boy,” Lavinia gets herself and Juneau Jane inside. The bolt slams. Hannie stays alone in the alley, the horses restless and danger rising.
Character Development
Both narrators confront power structures bigger than themselves and choose action over fear.
- Hannie Gossett: Trauma sharpens into purpose. She guards her mother’s chant, keeps the blue beads close, and risks everything—breaking into the Grand House, stealing a cloak, posing as a driver—to protect her community’s fragile claim to land and to inch closer to her scattered family.
- Benedetta “Benny” Silva: Idealism meets scarcity. She adapts under pressure—feeding a hungry student, inventing a “ticket to lunch,” and seeking local help—revealing grit beneath her outsider’s uncertainty.
- Lavinia Gossett: From spoiled cruelty to strategic desperation. She breaks allegiance with her mother, aligns with her half-sister, and hunts her father’s documents to secure her own inheritance.
- Juneau Jane LaPlanche: Proud, guarded, and relentless. As an illegitimate daughter with precarious status, she climbs literal and social walls to claim what she believes is hers, even if it means trusting an enemy.
Themes & Symbols
The Search for Family and Identity: The Search for Family and Identity drives Hannie’s every choice. Mittie’s chant and the blue beads stitch a map of kin across space and time, insisting that names remembered are bonds unbroken. The hunt for Old Mister’s papers echoes this search—documents that define lineage and belonging.
The Power of Stories and History: The Power of Stories and History appears in two forms: Hannie’s oral archive and the written records hidden in ledgers and legal files. In 1987, Benny’s battered classroom and the neglected Gossett library suggest that the town’s past lies ignored—and that reading it may change the present.
Injustice, Race, and Social Hierarchy: Injustice, Race, and Social Hierarchy persist across eras. Hannie’s world of post–Civil War sharecropping and theft-by-ledger mirrors Benny’s de facto segregation at school, hunger in the hallways, and an absentee landlord with inherited power.
Resilience and Hope Amidst Adversity: Resilience and Hope Amidst Adversity surfaces in small mercies and bold gambits—M&Ms shared, a leaky roof tackled, a disguise donned. Each act asserts a future beyond the limits of the moment.
Symbols
- The Blue Beads: A tangible inheritance—African ancestry, family promise, and a portable archive against erasure.
- The Gossett Grand House: Wealth in decay, a vault of secrets, and the crossroads where both narratives meet.
Key Quotes
“Books nobody even cares about anymore.”
LaJuna’s offhand line points to the Gossett library as a neglected archive. The phrase frames the novel’s central task: to make the past matter now, to turn “nobody even cares” into discovery and change.
Lot of history in that old place. Lot of stories. Sad thing when stories die for the lack of listenin’ ears.
Granny T’s words serve as a thesis. They link the decaying mansion, the underfunded school, and the silence around old injustices, urging characters—and readers—to listen for what history still asks of them.
A “ticket” to lunch.
Benny’s improvised rule becomes a symbol of survival and pedagogy under pressure—leveraging the smallest structure to restore dignity, order, and a path forward in a classroom on the brink.
“Crazy lady.”
The note left for Benny crystallizes the town’s skepticism. It tests her resolve and marks the obstacle she must overcome: not just chaos in the classroom, but a community that expects her to fail.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters anchor a dual narrative in the same charged landscape, showing how power is held, hidden, and sometimes reclaimed. Hannie’s search for kin and documents sets the historical mystery in motion; Benny’s struggle to teach and to fix a roof positions her as the present-day listener the past requires.
The bead-stitched chant, the secret alliance between Lavinia and Juneau Jane, and the hinted “Lost Friends” advertisements establish the novel’s engine: reunion through record-keeping—spoken, sewn, and written. The convergence point is clear. To change Augustine in 1987, Benny must unearth what Goswood Grove buried in 1875.