The master of the Providence plantation in Barbados gathers his slaves and announces the king has decreed an end to slavery. As of the following day, the Emancipation Act of 1834 will come into effect. The cries of joy fall silent when he announces that they are no longer his slaves; they are now his apprentices. No one can leave. So Rachel runs. She begins a desperate search to find her children who were sold. The dangerous journey takes her from Barbados deep into the forest of British Guiana and across the sea to Trinidad. Above all this is the story of the extraordinary lengths to which a mother will go to find her children and her freedom.