A young girl watches her mother cutting shapes and sewing pieces of old cloth to make a quilt in the evenings after her long hard days labouring in a cotton plantation and wonders at the meaning of these unfolding pictures of trees, log cabins and stars. Only later does she realise that her mother is crafting navigational clues into a template of freedom that will carry her beloved daughter towards the Underground Railroad and away from the bonds of slavery, whilst she remains behind to help others on that journey. The child tells the story in her own words, in a spare, poetic monologue. The text is set against richly coloured full-page paintings with endpieces of patchwork squares. An author's afterword discusses the historical background and the role of quilts in the Underground Railroad.