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Terms
A superpower that enables a person to move rapidly travel through time and space using memory. Hiram and Harriett, and Santi Bess possess this ability.
Conduction Quotes in The Water Dancer
The The Water Dancer quotes below are all either spoken by Conduction or refer to Conduction. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 1
Quotes
I had always avoided that bridge, for it was stained with the remembrance of the mothers, uncles, and cousins gone Natchez-way. But knowing now the awesome power of memory, how it can open a blue door from one world to another, how it can move us from mountains to meadows, from green woods to fields caked in snow, knowing now that memory can fold the land like cloth, and knowing, too, how I had pushed my memory of her into the “down there” of my mind, how I forgot, but did not forget, I know now that this story, this Conduction, had to begin there on that fantastic bridge between the land of the living and the land of the lost.
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Chapter 18
Quotes
And in all of these words, and each of these stories, I saw as much magic as anything I’d seen in the Goose, souls conducted as surely as I was out from its depths.
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Chapter 23
Quotes
“It’s just like dancing. Stay with the sound, stay with the story and you will be fine.”
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Chapter 31
Quotes
Corrine Quinn was among the most fanatical agents I ever encountered on the Underground. All of these fanatics were white. They took slavery as a personal insult or affront, a stain upon their name. They had seen women carried off to fancy, or watched as a father was stripped and beaten in front of his child, or seen whole families pinned like hogs into rail-cars, steam-boats, and jails. Slavery humiliated them, because it offended a basic sense of goodness that they believed themselves to possess. And when their cousins perpetrated the base practice, it served to remind them how easily they might do the same. They scorned their barbaric brethren, but they were brethren all the same. So their opposition was a kind of vanity, a hatred of slavery that far outranked any love of the slave.
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Chapter 32
Quotes
“Was a big king who come over from Africa on the slave ship with his people. But when they got close to shore, him and his folk took over, killed all the white folks, threw ’em overboard, and tried to sail back home. But the ship run aground, and when the king look out, he see that the white folks’ army is coming for him with they guns and all. So the chief told his people to walk out into the water, to sing and dance as they walked, that the water-goddess brought ’em here, and the water-goddess would take ’em back home.
And when we dance as we do, with the water balanced on our head, we are giving praise to them who danced on the waves. We have flipped it, you see?”
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Conduction Term Timeline in The Water Dancer
The timeline below shows where the term Conduction appears in The Water Dancer. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 4
...Rose. He is not sure how exactly, but it was this memory that facilitated his Conduction.
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Chapter 12
...of the country than “these Jeffersons, these Madisons, these Walkers.” She then notes that the “Conduction” which allowed Hiram to escape drowning in the Goose is the same power Santi Bess...
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...that they had to test to see if he had indeed inherited the power of Conduction.
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Corrine continues that they suspected Hiram might have conducted himself back to Lockless, and had agents waiting to see if he showed up there....
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Chapter 13
...time, he learns about another person in the Underground who also has the power of Conduction. She is “beloved and famed” all over the North and has been granted the nickname...
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...powerful memory. However, they desperately need him to be able to master his power of Conduction. The current techniques they possess are not enough to rescue people from the “coffin” of...
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Chapter 16
Hiram realizes that what he just experienced was Conduction. Yet he doesn’t want to try it again, because every time he conducts it leaves...
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Chapter 17
Hiram starts conducting more frequently. He realizes that the woman who sneakily gave him the gingerbread was Emma....
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...nicknames, including The General, The Night, and the Vanisher. She is the “living master of Conduction.” As they drive back toward Philadelphia, Bland tells Hiram that by shooting the men who...
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Chapter 18
...pretended not to know where she was. This anger brings on the blue light of Conduction, but before long Hiram resurfaces in Bland’s house, albeit feeling “disorientated.” Hiram eats dinner with...
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...Moses isn’t going down South to save Lydia, considering she has greater control over her Conduction, but Bland explains that Moses “has her own promises to keep.” He then explains that...
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Chapter 19
...to Moses if he is ever going to be able to properly understand—and gain control over—Conduction. The next day, he, Bland, Otha, and Raymond discuss the preparations for Lydia’s rescue. Bland...
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Chapter 21
...her. She adds that the only name she answers to is Harriet. Hiram brings up Conduction, but Harriet brushes it off, asking if he is ready to take the job with...
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Otha says that he has noticed Hiram struggling to gain control over his Conduction and wants to tell him a story that he hopes might help. He says that...
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Chapter 23
...that she doesn’t believe in her “own miracles,” but that she has seen others—not just Conduction, but even one man who “self-resurrected.”
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Harriet remarks that Hiram never knew Abe, but will know him now, through Conduction. She recalls how she was sent to trap varmints in the swamps at only seven...
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Chapter 24
Harriet likens Conduction to the ability to see bridges between islands that others can’t, and to journey across...
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Hiram admits that he feels Conduction is “chancy,” and he can’t predict when it will happen or where it will take...
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Chapter 30
...and Sophia lie upstairs in bed, marveling at each other. Hiram feels he truly understands Conduction for the first time. He gets dressed, and as he goes Sophia hands him the...
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Chapter 31
Hiram has finally mastered Conduction, and this achievement brings him immense joy. He spends his nights with Sophia, theoretically keeping...
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...tour of the grounds. While they are alone, he tells her it is time to conduct Thena and Sophia to the North. He explains about the attack on Thena’s house, and...
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Chapter 32
...everything that happened with the Underground and Philadelphia, he explains that he is planning to conduct both her and Thena to freedom. Sophia reacts with anger, resentful that Hiram left her...
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...riverbank. He tells Sophia, “It’s like dancing.” He shows her again and again, performing short Conductions to prove how it works. The final vision he summons is of a woman water...
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...into it. He says he’s learned that the “deeper” the memory he recalls, the farther Conduction takes him. The problem is that he needs an object linked to a memory that...
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Chapter 33
...informs Harriet that he is going to try and get Thena and Sophia out using Conduction. Hiram then helps Howell with his own correspondence and waits for him to have his...
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...but doesn’t receive one, and thus knows he must press on alone. He arranges to conduct Thena on a Saturday night. He, Sophia, and Thena eat a “feast” together and then...
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...was a water trough there, and it was via this water that he first experienced Conduction.
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...was so painful, Hiram forgot it. He continues talking until he is no longer able to—Conduction overcomes them, and he is lost in a swirl of visions. A green light appears,...
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Chapter 34
Corrine asks if Hiram will conduct Sophia, too, and he indicates that he will if he needs to. Corrine replies that...
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Two days after Hiram conducts Thena to freedom, Hiram deliberately shows Howell that he has the necklace, wanting him to...
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