“Mr. Jim, you still have that necklace I gave you for Layla to wear?”

“Yes, it’s in Maggie’s jewelry box,” I said.

“Will you go fetch it for Mama?”

“Sure,” I said, and in a few moments I reappeared with the necklace. It was a small gold medallion on a gold chain, and it was set with a luminous, precious stone. It looked ancient and worn.

“Mama wants to tell you somethin’ about this necklace. It’s called a traveler’s medallion and it’s very, very old. My family, they’s been passin’ it down for centuries. My great-great-grandma, she was just a little girl when she was given it. She was just a baby like Layla, and she was bein’ protected by a great healer who was ridin’ on the same ship with all the others.”

“What others?” I asked.

“The others on the slave ship. They’d all been captured by raiders in Africa and sold into slavery. My family, we was all slaves.”

I was riveted by her story as she continued.

“A lot of people were dyin’ on that ship and nobody thought a baby would survive, but this healer woman, she knew the power of love like no other and she put all her love into that medallion and into that baby to save her.”