Hiram is the son of a Howell, a slave master, and Rose, an enslaved woman whom Howell sells away when Hiram is a little boy. Hiram goes from being a young boy obsessed with claiming his Walker heritage to becoming a man who is an Underground agent committed to a secret war against slavery.

As a boy, Hiram believes he is special—a result of being the offspring of a Quality (slaveholding white) man. Hiram’s central motivation is to come to the attention of his father and be elevated above his Tasked peers. A turning point in Hiram’s development comes when Howell recognizes Hiram’s cleverness and moves him up to the big house to become a companion to Hiram’s half-brother, Maynard. From adolescence to young adulthood, Hiram is forced to give up this dream as he realizes that his race prevents him from being truly special in the eyes of the Quality and that whites are not better than the Tasked, weak, and dependent because of their unchecked power. This epiphany comes to Hiram as he watches Maynard’s embarrassing behavior interacting with whites who despise him.

The next shift in Hiram’s character comes when Maynard dies in an accident that occurs while Hiram is driving him and during which Hiram discovers he has the supernatural power to bend time and space.