Ashes

Isabel’s collection of seeds appears at several important moments in the story, and echoes the title of the series. Isabel has carried a packet of seeds as long as she’s been on the road, hoping to start her own farm one day. By the time she and Curzon are ready to begin their new life, the seeds are hopelessly muddled, and some are rotting. Curzon is skeptical about the success of any garden grown from such motley beginnings, but Isabel reminds him, “’Tis a fool-headed way to grow a country, too, but that’s what we’re doing” (354).

Seeds, in this story, represent both hope and struggle. As black people in an intensely racist new country built on a foundation of slavery, Isabel, Curzon, Aberdeen, and Ruth must try to figure out how to make their own lives in hostile soil. They can’t yet see what might grow out of this new world, but they must hold out hope that it will be better than they can predict, and that they can have some role in creating the future they hope for. The image of the seeds—long preserved, not yet proven—has in it both the hope of future bounty and the difficulty of doubt, uncertainty, and disappointment.