DISPLACED and disoriented, a curious looking refugee from Haiti struggled to keep hold of her cumbersome tot bag as she jostled her way through the crowded wharf off Key West's busy Front Street, the heart of the port's commercial district. At her side, a three-year old brown-skinned child fidgeted and tugged at her mother's outstretched and aching arm.

"Walk faster, Margeaux, you're dragging your feet", the mother scolded her exhausted daughter in her thick Creole accent. Slender, well framed and possessing a beige almost white complexion, the mulatto woman was physically spent. The crossing had been harrowing, indeed, with rough seas all the way. Nauseous and dazed, the woman did not fell well at all. The sooner she found what she was looking for the better.

Pulling out a well-torn piece of paper, she asked someone for directions, then headed down Whitehead searching for Charles Street. She determinedly trudged up the dirt-covered thoroughfare looking for the address she had memorized while hunched over in her cramped cabin on the schooner. 607Charles, just as her Nanon had said, there it was right in front of her at last.

Mustering up her last bit of strength, the impoverished and hungry refugee climbed the steps and plodded onto the front porch, dragging little Marguerite Amite behind her. Dropping her tot bag, which contained everything that she owned or at the least could salvage from her possessions in Haiti, the traveler lifted her right arm and knocked on the glass paned door. After a few moments a heavyset dark fudge-colored black woman wearing a white bandana peeked through the curtains, registered the strange looking woman and her child, and cracked open the door.

"Yes, can I help ya, chile?"

"Is this the home of Monsieur J-J-Jonas and Madame Emilie S-S-Sotheby?", she inquired almost inaudibly.

"Well, if'n you mean Mistah and Miz Soth'by, I guess dis be it, chile. Are dey spectin' ya? You know, you ought not be usin' diss here front door. You iz color'd ain't ya?".

"S-S-Sorta, ma'am. I'm, ah, Haitian. Come all the way from Mirabeau Plantation just outside of Cap-France. Just landed today. Is Mme Sotheby in, ah...?"

"Sadie, chile. My names be ‘Mamie Sadie’ and no Miz Em’ly gone on up ta’ Pensy’cola, boat picked up anchor yeh’taday. Won't be back for a while I reckon'. She be visitin' her sistah Miz..."

"Suzanne", completed the stranger. Sadie was startled.

"Why yes, chile. How'd ya know dat?"

"I-I-I know a lot about Madame's family, ma'am. That's why I'm here. I was hoping to see her, see I've got no place to go and, well, me and my daughter here was in poor need of, ah.."

"Oh, poor chile. Dat's be a mighty pretty colored youngin' ya got there, but I iz awfully sorry. As I says, the Misses not here and Mistah Jonas, he not be home right know. Maybe if'n ya come back later...", began Sadie but as soon as she got the words out the sickly refugee swooned and fainted dead away on the stoop. Confused, and famished, Marguerite started crying.

"Oh, sweet Mary Mother of God, Aaal’fooord!", Sadie hollered back into the house. "Boy, come help me wit diss here poor chile!", she ordered, stepping over the unconscious woman to get to the wailing toddler. "Hush now baby, every ding gonna be all right. Mamie Sadie take care of ya, yes she will. Aaal’fooord! Did you hear me boy?!", she belted as Jonas Sotheby's nineteen year old houseboy bumbled into the foyer then froze in bewilderment of the sight before him.

"Who dat?", he blurted. Alford looked confused.

"Never ya mind all dat boy, pick da chile up and carry her on up to my room", she barked while wiping the frightened little girl's tears with the hem of her apron. "Come on wit Mamie, chile, I'll fix ya somethin' to eat, you must be half starved."

"But Mama, Mistah ain't gonna like all dis. We just can't be picking peepah off’n da street like stray cats."

"Boy, I didn't ask ya all dat. Don't sass me, do as ya told. Take dat poor chile up dem stairs and lay her on my bed. I'll be up as soon as I can get diss here youngin' settled and put some warm food in her stomach", admonished the matriarch as she shuffled Marguerite down the hall. Alford Pettybone took the uninvited guest to the attic and did as he was told, passing his sister Lilith, the upstairs maid, along the way.

"Oooo, my Lord. Heaven's mercy", she exclaimed, dropping the linen she held in her hand. "Who be dat?"

"Hell if'n I know and it’s ‘Who dat be?” How many times Mamma gotta git on you ‘bout ya diction. Showed up at da door 'n fainted, I reckon. Help me get her into Mama's bed", the young man pleaded. Lilith followed him up the narrow flight of stairs to the servant's quarters in the attic.

"Sho' nuff a pretty little thing", she admired as she pulled back the covers on her mother's small feathered bed and let Alford lay her down. "Oh, look at her soft skin and her hands. Dis chile ain't no field lab'rer. She be a Nee’grah ain't she?"

"Girl, why ya ask so many stupid que’shuns? Course she be colored, must be one of dem halfbreds like dat Libby girl what work for Miz Browne", remarked Alford. He stood over the sleeping beauty, seemingly just as intrigued as Lilith by the uniqueness of her features. Nobody had ever seen anybody who looked like this in Key West before.

"Oooo, look at her dress, dat's some 'spensive cloth too. Like dem dresses Miz Em’ly bring back from New Orleans dat one time. Where'd dis chile get clothes like dis?"

"Lily, shut up girl. It's clear she ain't from 'round here and she def'nantly not from back home."

’Back home' for Alford was Eleuthera, of course. His family had come over as the possessions of Jonas Sotheby's grandfather Edward Pettybone, a prominent Anglo-Bahamian wrecker. The wreckers made their living salvaging treasure off the hundreds of Spanish frigates that had the misfortune to run afoul of the jagged coral reef just offshore of the Florida Keys. At first they settled in the westernmost Bahamian islands, such as Eleuthera. However, when members of the British Parliament began debating the abolishment of slavery throughout the empire in the early 1830s, the wreckers abandoned their homesteads in the Bahamian isles and brought their slaves, and their trade, to Key West-converting the once sleepy hamlet into one of the most prosperous ports-o-call on the American Southern seaboard.

The Sothebys, who hailed from Mobile, had relocated to Key West to open a mercantile that catered to the wreckers every need. When Willard Sotheby, Jonas' father, had the great fortune to marry Edward's elder daughter Frances, he also obtained Alford's family in the dowry. Though slaves were not allowed to bear surnames in the States, Sotheby's new slaves unofficially assumed their previous owners' family name to distinguish themselves from their new owner's human property.

The patriarch of the black family had been Milton Pettybone. He and his common law wife Sadie Alford had three surviving children who were, in turn, all passed on to Jonas Sotheby, son of their original mistress, when he had married his exotically beautiful and wealthy wife, the widowed Mme Emily Thibidoux, back in 1853. Milton labored as the Sothebys’ yardman and driver, until his death during a yellow fever epidemic in 1856, while Sadie started in the kitchen then became the family's head housekeeper. Though Wilber Pettybone, their eldest son, worked down at Jonas Sotheby's mercantile on Greene Street, Alford, his younger brother, did odd jobs around the house. Lilith cleaned upstairs.

The Sothebys also 'owned' a cook, Binah; Mr. Sotheby's well-groomed manservant Cassius; Minor, the parlor maid; and Celeste, Mrs. Sotheby's haughty lady servant and constant companion. Celeste was not well liked by the others as she carried herself as if she was much too high born to associate with the other slaves, but Sadie was never one to let an opportunity pass to put Celeste in her place. Celeste was, after all, a slave herself.

After making certain that Binah rustled up some vitals for Marguerite, Sadie climbed the three flights of stairs to get to her own room where she found her children standing over their unexpected guest.

"You two go’on now, git outta here."

"Mamma, who she?", begged Lilith. Sadie frowned at her daughter.

"’Who she be?’, chile, and I don't know. Say she from Haiti, come looking for Miz Em’ly."

"Miz Em’ly? But, she be up at Evergreen wit da Chisholms, won't be back for weeks, if'n she come back at all what with all dat fussins she and..."

"Hush up Lily!” scolded Sadie, well aware of the difficulties in the Sotheby marriage. “Dat t'ant none of our biz'ness. Come, help me undress dis poor chile. She burnin' up in dem clothes. Must got da fever, lotta people come down wit fever afta sailin' over da water. You had it when we come over from Rock Cay, 'member?"

"Shucks Mama, I was but a wee one back den. You don't 'spect me to member dat do ya?"

"Hush chile and do like iz tell ya.” Suddenly, the housekeeper realized her son was still in the room, mesmerized by the mysterious stranger lying in his mother’s bed. “Alford, git yo butt outta here boy!" Sadie growled, pushing the awe-struck boy over the threshold. Closing the door behind him, Sadie noticed her guest had stirred and rushed over to the washbasin, wet a rag in the fresh water she always kept up there, and wiped the woman's brow. The confused woman startled when the coolness of the rag touched her forehead.

"Hmmm" Sadie leaned forward.

"Chile, can ya hear me?" Lilith looked frightened.

"Mama, is she gonna be okay? She don't look none to good a’ tall"

"I don't know baby. You jus might be right, chile. Quick, run fetch Doc Cunningham, hear?" Lilith dashed out of the room.

"Chile, don't ya worry none. Everythin' gonna be all right. Mamie Sadie take care of ya and yo chile", she whispered in the guest’s ear. Unbuttoning her blouse, Sadie noticed a small locket hanging from a chain around the dazed woman's neck. Curious, she unhooked it's tiny clasp and let the frontal piece spring open. Sadie Pettybone's eyes spread wide open when she caught sight of the miniature portrait inside and found herself staring at a youthful version of her mistress, Emily Sotheby.

"Chile, where'd ya get dis here locket?" The stranger slightly opened her eyes. "What's your name, chile? Who yo people?"

"Hmmm", the stranger moaned, struggling to get the words out. Meekly the refugee parted her lips and mumbled an almost inaudible single word in her thick Creole accent. Not clearly understanding, Sadie's Bahamian ears tried to decipher the communiqué, then unknowingly mispronounced the invalid's true last name.

"Ambay? Chile dat's a mighty strange name." Sadie eyed the jewel one more time. "Where'd ya get dis here locket and why’s Miz E’m’ly’s likeness in here?"

Realizing that her hostess had her precious heirloom, the mysterious woman, who would from here on always be called Ambay by the Pettybones and everybody else, gathered up all the strength she had left and snatched the locket out of Sadie's grasp. The weak refugee clutched it in her hand, held it to her heart and uttered one more word before she drifted back into unconsciousness.

"Mama."