Excerpt from Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

One breath more, I think, feeling my mother's heart in her neck. One breath.

MONTHS LATER, WHEN I see the Georgia Man standing at the head of the trail leading from the cabins to the fields, my sire beside him, pointing at me and my mother, I dig my nails into my mother's hand to stop her.

"Mama, no," I say.

"Come," I say, echoing the first time she roused me to fight.

"Please," I say.

I turn back toward the cabins, the woods, the far clearing. I pull my mother's arm, try to rouse her to run, but she will not. She stops still and grabs me by my collar. Tears are already leaking down her face, and she does not try to wipe them, to hide the glaze of her sorrow. The sky is thick with clouds, the air heavy with coming rain, the smell of water cloying. My mother has eyes for nothing but me, only me. She smooths her hands over her hair and then does the same to mine, and something sharp knifes my scalp: the ivory awl sliding into place. And then I feel only the press of her palms on my cheeks, my ears, as she holds my face to look at her.

"Annis, my Arese," she says, her voice fluttering. "I love you. I love you, my little one." One of the Georgia Man's men walks toward us and grabs my mother by the same soft meat of her arm as I have done so many times. Cries rise from the people around us; a bolt of summer lightning flashes in the distance. The Georgia men are grabbing men and women and children on their way to their labor. The Georgia men are separating those to be sold. They have come for their goods to march to New Orleans. There is a sinking at the heart of me, a whirlpool sucking down and down. Surely the earth is opening to us. Surely this terrible world is swallowing me. I grab my mama's wrists, sinewy as corn sheaves, and howl.

"Mama," I say.

"I always be with you," my mama says, and No she not, I think, no she not, as the closest Georgia Man, broad armed and dirt faced, wrenches her away. Pulls her back. My sire done chose her for the markets.

"No," I say.

One more, I think, and yank my mother from the man, whip her like a spear to me. He grabs her again and pulls, and we are three of many, tussling in the path, until the Georgia Man standing next to my sire pulls a gun from its holster and fires it in the air. Panic stills us but cannot calm my love, my frantic need to keep my mother here, here, here. I fall to the dirt, wrapping myself around her legs.

"Mama," I mouth into her skirts. Her free hand finds my scalp.

One more breath, I think.

Excerpted from Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward. Copyright © 2023 by Jesmyn Ward. Excerpted by permission of Scribner. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.