A grandfather confronted with the fact that his family is woefully ignorant about their own lineage and legacy is determined to educate them. So begins the tale of his great-great-grandmother, Annabelle. Annabelle was a slave born on a cotton plantation in Mississippi and raised as a house servant thanks to the plantation master's daughters having a fondness for her. The youngest daughter protects her as best she can from the wrath of the cruel master and his wife, but then marries and leaves the plantation. Unable to bear the master's heinous acts against her any longer, the teenaged slave girl escapes north to be free.