The Trade

1845

“Please! Just give us more time!”

Confused and disoriented, Mai wakes up after she heard her mother screams. She lies there in the room thinking it was just a dream until she heard an unfamiliar voice speak.

“We already gave your family enough chances, and now your time is up”

“Just another day! Please! We will have the money ready tomorrow! I am begging you sir!

“No, Mr. Wilkinson sent me here to collect the debt you own him and since your family don’t have the money; we have to collect the next best thing. This is an order: Leave the house or me and my crew will be force to use our weapon upon your family.”

“Jinhai, go get your sister from the room.”

“Father. . .”

“Do what I say!  Don’t talk back!”

Mai lies there too scary to even move as her brother enter the room.

“Mai, get up. We need to go” said her brother. It is too dark in the room to make out her brother facial expression, but she didn’t need to. The trembling in his voice already tells everything.

“What is going on? I don’t understand. Why do we need to go? I heard mother scream. Is she fine?”

“We will explain everything later. Please get up quickly and don’t ask question. Do not speak unless you are told to from mother or father.”

Mai throw the sheets off of her and get up off from the floor. She walks out with her brother into the well-lit kitchen where her eyes lands on her mother first. It was the first time seeing her mother standing there like that. She is use to see her always moving around, cleaning, cooking, doing her chores for the day with a warm smile on her. It was heartbreaking not be greeted by that that warm she is so used to seeing. Next, she moves her eyes to her father who stood next to her mother. She always was afraid of her father. He never hit her or done anything to make her fear him, but he just has this imitating aura around him. She always saw her dad as strong man that no one wants to mess with. He looks just a hopeless as mother, only worse. Lastly, her eyes lands on the men that was terrorizing her family. They are big . . . bigger than the average men she saw in her town, but they didn’t look like they were from her town or province. They look like they were from a faraway land that she heard stories about. How was her and her family able to understand the foreign people? They didn’t look like they could speak their language. The leader of the pack eyes landed on Mai and then, his face turn back to her parents.

“I didn’t know you had a daughter. I thought you had only a son. How old is she?”

“Six . . . she is six years old” Father answers in a sulky voice.

Then the leader of the pack then turns to his crew. He started speaking to them, but not in a language she could understand anymore. It was a language she never heard anyone speak before. After a minute or two of talking to his crew, he then turns back to the family and spoke to them in their language in a calm voice:

“Okay so we decided to let you keep the land and house. It is worse less to Mr. Wilkinson anyway. He will not make much money from it”

Mother looks up from her defeated state and stares at him with wide eyes. Father kept a poker face on, but Mai could tell he was trying to hide his enthusiasm. Jinhai let out a sigh of relief.  Mai wanted to fall to the floor and thank him.

The leader of the pack said, “But we are taking your daughter back home with us.”

That is when I heard her mother whisper “no”.

Everything after that happen so fast. Next thing Mai knows, the two of the 5 crews members are by her side tying her arms back behind her back with a rope. Mai’s mother falls to ground following with a piercing scream. Father is begging to take him instead while Jinhai is trying to calm and comfort mother.

“Please take me instead of my daughter! I am stronger!  She can’t last long on the fields! She is too young!” father screams

“That is precisely why Mr. Wilkinson would need her. He needs someone young where he is at. He needs someone who will be around for a long time. Plus she is free too which is even better. Do you know how much slaves cost? Too much. Just consider it a trade”

Mother screams from the floor “A TRADE?!?! I can’t allow this! Please take me instead! There must be another option. I beg you”

“There isn’t. Our minds are already made up. Take her away fellows. Mr. Wilkinson will be so proud of us!” the leader said with a huge grin on his face.

“Why are you doing this? Leave us be! I don’t want to leave my family” said Mai with tears falling down her face as she is looking up at the leader.

“Be quiet” sneer one of the crew member.

That was the last words Mai heard before she was smack in the head with a gun and fell unconscious.