The Book of Lost Friends

Hannie, still disguised as a boy and leading the horse with the two white girls draped across its saddle, is exhausted after two days walking through the oppressive heat of the swamp. She is terrified by the thought of wild animals, and she is hungry to the point of collapse. Neither of the girls say much. Hannie knows she needs to find a place where they can rest and recover. She happens upon a small structure, a “little old place tucked in the trees, low roofed and built of cypress logs chinked with straw and tabby” (160). She recognizes it as a church, most likely built by enslaved people before the war. She moves everyone into the church, grateful for the shelter. For the next several days, the three camp out in the church and eat the meagre food they find there. Then one morning (Hannie deduces it must be Sunday) she hears the approach of people singing an old Black spiritual. Hannie, desperate, steps out of the church and shouts to the stunned parishioners, “Need help. Need food…You carryin’ mercy in your soul today, sister?” (165).

For the next four days, the church members take care of the three strangers. Missy, Hannie, and Juneau Jane sleep in the church, and the congregation brings them food. Juneau quickly recovers; Missy, however, seldom stirs, and Hannie begins to suspect the kidnapping may have traumatized her. Hannie knows they cannot stay in the church indefinitely and proposes to Juneau that they move on, although she is not sure where they will go. Juneau begins to stuff her shoes with newspaper copy she pulls off bulletin boards in the church. The newspaper will serve as padding for the long walk ahead. In passing, she notices the newspaper postings are little ads from a newspaper called Southwestern Christian Advocate, a publication, the masthead says, of the Methodist Church. The ads were placed in the paper by mostly Black families separated from each other as a result of enslavement or the Civil War who are still looking to be reunited. The Church circulated the newspaper to all its pastors who would read the ads during services in the hopes of helping their shattered families.

Hannie cannot read, but Juneau reads her some of the heartbreaking ads. Mothers searching for lost children, husbands looking for their wives, grown children now trying to locate their parents. They are all the living victims of slavery. Hannie begins to think of her own lost family, her mother who haunts her dreams, lost somewhere in Texas. It is then that Hannie gets an idea. She could go to Texas now and use the network of this newspaper to find at last her family. She shares her idea with Juneau who asks to accompany her. The two reluctantly agree they cannot leave Missy behind. They prepare to depart the church.

In the present, Benny is overwhelmed by the task of cataloguing the Gossett family library. She enlists the help of LaJuna to begin the work of cataloging and organizing the immense hoard of books and magazines. LaJuna tells Benny that she had been given access to the library years before by Nathan’s father who saw in the young girl the spark of curiosity and the respect for learning. Benny had noticed the girl and worried over how much school she missed to help out with her family. LaJuna agrees to help Benny. She cautions her, however, that the house has secrets and that their project might upset people, powerful people, in the town. As the two begin the work of sorting through the books stacked everywhere in the salon, LaJuna shows Benny two leather-bound books that are kept high up away from prying eyes. The first is the family Bible with its careful genealogy of the family, the other is the family business records of the plantation itself, including all the acquisitions of slaves, the trafficking in human lives, the buying and selling of Black people who were seen and treated as property. Benny initially resists messing with such a private family record. LaJuna insists. These books, she tells Benny, are history.

That same evening, Sarge, LaJuna’s aunt, visits Benny and cautions her not to get involved with the Gossett family and its tangled history. She also warns Benny not to get her niece involved. Benny tells Sarge she sees so much promise in LaJuna and reminds Sarge of the iconic story of the man and the starfish, first published in 1969 in an essay by celebrated anthropologist Loren Eiseley but now part of pop culture. In it, a man walks up and down a beach strewn with dying starfish after a hurricane has swamped them in the sand. Patiently he tosses them back into the surf, determined to save one starfish at a time. Sarge knows the story but still warns Benny not to give LaJuna false hopes.

The following week, Granny T. finally visits Benny’s class. She comes dressed in an authentic nineteenth century outfit worn by her own grandmother. She regales the class with stories of their ancestors, particularly how a determined group of formerly enslaved Black women secured against all odds a grant from the Carnegie Foundation and proceeded to “build the fanciest library in town” (201). Benny’s students are enthralled. Inspired by Granny T.’s presentation, they ask Benny whether they could research the town’s ancestors and do some sort of costumed presentation of their stories around Halloween, perhaps in the town’s old cemetery where many of the people are buried. Benny immediately sees the potential in the idea. Benny sees something in the class she has not seen before: passion.