Chains (29 page)

He shook his head, the laughter gone from his eyes. “No, news from headquarters. Don't tarry with it.” He touched his fingertips to the brim of his cap.

I bobbed a curtsy and took my leave, hurrying toward the Tea Water Pump. I should have known I'd be pressed into more message carrying. These soldier types were forever scheming up one thing or another. And it put a girl like me in a rough spot, not that they ever thought about that. I didn't ask to ferry messages across the city for some captain I didn't know. How was that connected to my deal with Dibdin to treat Curzon proper? It wasn't, not one bit.

The good Captains Morse and Farrar would just have to wait till it suited me for this last message to be delivered. If I didn't get back soon, I'd be in for it.

I pushed through the backdoor to the Lockton kitchen, still fussing about selfish captains who only thought of their
own skins. When Curzon got out, he'd have a debt of honor the size of a whale to me. I'd make that boy—

I set down the water buckets, removed my cloak, and hung it from a peg near the fire. I stood rubbing my hands together and warming them over the flames. As soon as I could move them, I'd boil up the water.

The door from the front hall slammed open.

“There you are.” The words came at me like shards of glass.

I turned. 'Twas Madam Lockton holding a small riding crop in her hand.

“Ma'am?”

She crossed the room and slashed the crop across my face. It hurt fierce, but I knew not to cry out.

“How dare you?” she spat.

THAT EVEN A FAILURE CANNOT BE MORE FATAL
THAN TO REMAIN IN OUR PRESENT SITUATION IN SHORT
SOME ENTERPRIZE MUST BE UNDERTAKEN IN OUR PRESENT
CIRCUMSTANCES OR WE MUST GIVE UP THE CAUSE …
OUR AFFAIRS ARE HASTENING FAST TO RUIN IF WE DO
NOT RETRIEVE THEM BY SOME HAPPY EVENT. DELAY
WITH US IS NOW EQUAL TO A TOTAL DEFEAT.
–COLONEL JOSEPH REED IN A LETTER TO
GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON

Please, ma'am—” I started.

“Silence!” She cracked the crop across my shoulder.

The back door opened and Hannah entered. “Oh, 'scuse me,” she said, turning to leave again.

“Stay,” Madam ordered.

Hannah let the door close and murmured, “Yes, Madam,” her eyes stealing once to me, then quickly away.

I fought the urge to run for the knife drawer.

Madam paced in front of me. “I have never in my entire life been so humiliated.” She paused and put on a mimic-face. “I saw your little black girl talking to a rebel officer on Warren Street. Do you allow your slaves to consort with the enemy?”

I could not swallow nor breathe.

She brought the crop down with a crack on the edge of the table. “Jane Drinkwater said this to me. Jane Drinkwater, the biggest gossip in New York.” Madam paced again, her hair flying loose, her manner quite unsteady. “I said no, Jane, you must be mistaken, not our Sal. Colonel Hawkins himself uses her for errands.”

She stopped suddenly. “And Jane says, ‘No, Anne, your girl was speaking to a rebel prisoner on Warren Street. It's hard to miss the mark on her face. From my carriage I saw her take a note from his hand.'”

I opened my mouth to protest, but she slashed at me again. This time the blow opened a cut on my forehead.

“Give me that note,” Madam demanded.

“I have no note, ma'am,” I said quiet.

She held out her hand. “Liar! Give me that paper or I'll turn you over to the British commander so fast your fool head will spin.”

Her voice shook with rage. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the folded note.

Madam looked over to Hannah. “See? You just need to be firm with them.”

Hannah said nothing. A drop of blood rolled down the side of my face. I clutched the note in my fist.

“Give it.” Madam narrowed her eyes. “Did you hear me, girl?”

Everybody carried a little evil in them, Momma once told me. Madam Lockton had more than her share. The poison had eaten holes through her soul and made room for vermin to nest inside her.

“Girl!” Madam stamped her foot on the floor.

The evil inside of me woke and crackled like lightning. I could wrap my hands around her throat. I could brain her
with a poker, thrust her face into the flames. I could beat her senseless with my fists.

I shook from the effort of holding myself still, clutching the crumpled paper. Momma said we had to fight the evil inside us by overcoming it with goodness. She said it was a hard thing to do, but it made us worthy.

I breathed deep to steady myself.

I threw the Captain's note into the fire.

Hannah gasped. Madam shrieked and pushed me out of the way, but the paper was already alight. She dropped the crop and smacked me again in the face with her hand, as she had the day I first landed in New York.

“You foul, bloody wench!” She reached behind her, picked up a bowl, and hurled it at me. I ducked and it crashed against the hearth.

“I will sell you!” she screamed. “I will auction you at dawn on Monday. I'll sell your demon sister, too, to the most cruel, heartless master I can find, the Devil himself if he wants.”

She paused to catch her breath.

Ruth?

Hannah stepped forward. “I do believe there was a knock at the front door, Madam,” she said.

But she already sold Ruth.

Madam glared at her. “Then answer it, you bloody fool.”

Didn't she?

As Hannah left, Madam brushed back her hair, gathering her dignity. I still stood by the fire, where the note had burned to fine ash. I could not think what might happen next.

Madam tugged at her short gown. “What's that stupid look on your face?” she said with a harsh laugh. “You didn't know I still owned her, did you?”

“Ruth?” The name escaped my mouth.

“Brat,” Madam spat. “Couldn't find a buyer. Had to ship her down to Charleston. I shall tell the estate manager to get rid of her, toss her in the swamp. Her death will be on your head, you insolent fool.”

Hannah came back in from the hall. “The hairdresser, Madam.”

“What?” Madam wheeled about. “What did you say?”

“The hairdresser is come to prepare you for the ball. The Queen's ball, ma'am. You must leave in a few hours.”

Madam cleared her throat and stood straighter. “Of course. You must first help me into my gown.”

Hannah nodded. “Yes, ma'am.”

“Lock the girl in the potato bin, then come upstairs.”

The bin was more than half-filled with potatoes and smelled of damp earth and worms. There was not enough room to sit up, but lying down was like lying in a bed of rocks. I wanted to scream and pinched myself hard to fight the urge. I did not want to give Madam any satisfaction.

Overhead came the noises of footsteps as the hairdresser performed his job and left, and the colonel returned from headquarters to change into his dress uniform, and Madam sent Hannah running for this folderol and that. There was the sound of horse hooves and the roll of carriage wheels and the front door opened and then closed and the house fell quiet save for Hannah's steps in the kitchen.

A light appeared through the boards of the bin.

“It's me,” Hannah said. “She's gone.”

The light was set on the ground, then there was a fumbling of a key in the padlock. The bin door opened and Hannah peered in.

“I brought you some things. Here.” She handed me a chamber pot, a blanket, and a mug of water. “T'ain't right to lock you away with nothing. You ain't an animal.”

“Let me go, please,” I pleaded. But before I could say anything further or reach for her, she had slammed down the door and shot home the lock again.

“I'll be back by dawn and check on you then,” she said. “Try to sleep.”

“Please, Hannah!” I cried. “Please, I beg of you!”

Her footsteps flew up the stairs and the door slammed. I thought I heard a sob, but perhaps I didn't.

The bees overtook me then. As evening moved into night, they ate through me and hived up inside my brainpan with a loud buzz, their wings beating me into submission. Someone whimpered and cried and it must have been me, but it mattered not for I was already dead. It was only a few days, hours perhaps, until my heart would stop beating, in truth, and the bees would fly off to haunt someone else.

And then came the sound of a distant roar, like a lion just sprung from a trap.

The bees paused and I froze, waiting. No one was home except for Lady Seymour, and she was not capable of making noise.

The roar came again. I cocked my head and listened. It did not come from the street nor the house above. It was not cannon fire. 'Twas inside me. A thought, thunderous loud.

Ruth was alive.

Alive, in Charleston. In South Carolina, not on a ship, not on an island.

Alive in a town I can walk to.

My toes wiggled in my sturdy black shoes and my legs itched. I lay flat as I could on the bumpy mound of potatoes
and kicked once at the boards of the bin. My heavy shoes made a terrible loud noise on the wood. I stopped, counted to one hundred.

There came no sound from overhead, no commotion out on the street.

I kicked again, at the same spot. The potatoes under me shifted and the mug of water overturned. I kicked a third time. The boards did not move at all. I cursed the carpenter who had built this tomb.

There has to be a way out.

I kicked, stomped, slammed. I raged and screamed and fought. Nothing happened.

I stopped, wiped the sweat from my face, and closed my eyes.

Think.

The bin stood a little taller than Ruth, and was as long in both directions as it was tall. I reached up to touch the boards above my head. They were rough-hewn, put together with cold nails. My fingertips traced the length of each board, feeling along the splinters and the knots in the wood. The top was as solid as a brick wall, each nail fastened tight. I fought back the panic that rose in my throat and tested the strength of each board that ran from the top down the sides. All strong, all sound.

Think. Remember.

When Ruth and I slept down here, the far corner of the cellar went muddy in a heavy rain. Maybe the damp had eaten at the boards. I moved over to that corner of the bin and scooped the potatoes out of the way, heaping them behind me. I sat back and put my feet on each board in turn and pushed.

The third board I tried gave way a little. So did the next two.

I moved the potato heap so I could best lean against it and push with my legs. I kicked. There was a quiet
crack.

I kicked again and leaned forward to feel the boards. The one had a piece chipped off where the wood was rotted through, the other had a long split in it. I leaned back and took a deep breath, then kicked and kicked with all my strength until the wood broke and flew into the dark.

I took the stairs two at a time and paused before I entered the kitchen. The house was still silent. I hurried down the hall, past the grandfather clock, and up the stairs to the drawing room. I needed a map and had a mind to steal a pass, too, if I could.

I threw some wood on the fire, lit a candle from the flames, and carried it to the long dining table covered with maps and countless papers. I lit the rest of the candles on the table as if preparing for a feast, then searched through the papers, throwing those that were useless to me to the floor.

Finally I found a small map that showed the colonies from Massachusetts down to Georgia. The distance from Rhode Island to New York was the same as the tip of my little finger to the first knuckle under it. From New York to Charleston stretched all the way down my fingers to the palm.

The crackling firewood startled me. I glanced up. There was a movement over the hearth and for an instant, my heart caught in my throat.

A ghost?

The firelight brightened. No, not a ghost. I had caught sight of myself in the large mirror that hung over the mantel.

I could scarce recognize me.

My hands fumbled for a candle. I moved to the mirror,
guarding the flame, and lit the oil lamps that were set into the wall. The mirror caught the light and reflected it back at me.

I leaned in.

In truth, it seemed I was looking at a stranger who lived beyond the glass. My face was thinner than I remembered and longer from brow to chin. My nose and mouth recollected Momma's, but the set of the eyes, those came from Poppa. As I stared, their two faces came forth and drifted back, until I could see only me.

I turned my head to the side a bit and studied the brand on my face; for the first time, studied it hard: the capital
I
that proclaimed my insolent manners and crimes. I leaned closer to the mirror. The letter was a pink ribbon embroidered on my skin.

I touched it, smooth and warm, flesh made into silk.

The scars on Poppa's cheek had been three lines across his cheek, carved with a sharp blade. He was proud of his marks. In the country of his ancestors, they made him into a man.

I traced the
I
with my fingertip.

This is my country mark.
I did not ask for it, but I would carry it as Poppa carried his. It made me his daughter. It made me strong.

I took a step back, seeing near my whole self in the mirror. I pushed back my shoulders and raised my chin, my back straight as an arrow.

This mark stands for Isabel.

The clock struck eleven and made me jump. I had much to do and little time.

The fastest way off the island was a boat, much as the thought made me tremble. I searched through the sea of papers on the table until I found a chart of the tides. I ran my finger down the columns.
Huzzah!
The tide would not turn against me for a few hours.

I lacked only a pass. Colonel Hawkins had been in the habit of keeping them locked in the chest in the library, but he had become sloppy and overworked since the rebel victories. I opened the drawers of the secretary table and looked through the large boxes of official papers.