STRANGE FRUITShop the archiveEpisode 1 · 1867 · Natchez Trace, Mississippi
The Ledger
A freedman named Elijah Cross finds a leather-bound ledger in the red clay of the Natchez Trace—a book containing 412 souls still bound as property in ink. When his mother's ghost appears, Elijah learns that freeing the dead will require him to read every name aloud.
- Collection
- Season 1
- Episode
- 01
- Runtime
- 3:11
- Year
- 1867
- Setting
- Natchez Trace, Mississippi
Images from the episode
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Frame from the finished film · 01
History behind the horror
Freedom written down is not freedom complete.
The Ledger begins after emancipation, when Elijah discovers that the language of ownership can outlive the people who wrote it.
The episode turns a plantation record into a supernatural object—and the act of speaking every stolen name into a form of release.
Characters
Elijah CrossThe freedman who finds the ledger
Elijah's motherThe ghost who reveals its purpose
Production notes
Set in Mississippi during Reconstruction.
The ledger contains the names of 412 people still bound in ink.
Episode One establishes the anthology's excavation of history through supernatural horror.
Content advisory
Depictions of slavery, supernatural violence, and historical trauma.
The world around the story
1867: freedom entered a new fight.
The Ledger is supernatural fiction, but its year places Elijah inside the unsettled struggle over what freedom would mean after slavery.
Historical context · The episode itself is a work of fiction.
March 1867
Congress begins Military Reconstruction
The first Reconstruction Act placed the former Confederate states under military administration and tied readmission to new governments and Black male suffrage.
Explore the source · National ArchivesReconstruction
Freedom met organized resistance
Four million newly freed people pursued family, education, land, work, and political rights while Southern Black Codes attempted to restrict that freedom.
Explore the source · National Archives
Continue the story
The episode ends.
The story goes deeper.
Return to this world in the full novel-length expansion of The Ledger.
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