The law was clear enough: children born into slavery after July 4th, 1799 would be free by young adulthood. Those born before, however, were doomed to a life of servitude. Of being owned.

Shed a tear for Aggy, then, the owned woman whose long labor produces a twin on either side of that deadline; Ambrose, the firstborn, delivered late on July 3rd, and his sister Patience, birthed bright and early on the 4th. Though mere minutes separate their respective arrivals, Patience and Ambrose are each consigned to impossibly different lives. Because of a cruel, uncaring law. Which was clear enough.

So Aggy makes a choice. One that she hopes will change the destinies of her children. One that will succeed in ways she could never have imagined, ways she might well have prayed never came to pass.

Because Patience and Ambrose are connected, linked by a mysterious tether that stretches beyond law, beyond fate...and perhaps, beyond death.