The Freedom Maze (25 page)

Africa shrugged. “My baby need me, China. I’m sorry as I can be, but you just have to put up with Young Missy’s ructions a while longer.”

China sighed and nodded. “They saying Antigua probably lost in the swamp, got ate by a ’gator, maybe. I sure sorry for your trouble, Africa.”

“I’ve got a peck of it, China, and that’s the truth. It’s been preying on my mind so I can hardly remember my own name. I promised Sally a
gris-gris
last week, and I clean forgot it until this very minute.” Africa fished around on the mantel among the jars and twists of dried herbs and produced out a little scarlet bag tied with white thread.

“You want me to give it to her?” asked China.

“I have to put it into her hand myself. But if you tell her the
gris-gris
is ready, I’ll be mighty grateful.”

China looked from the scarlet bag to Africa’s face. “Be my pleasure,” she said. “I tells her tonight.”

Africa closed her fingers on the bag. “Thank you.”

The two women hugged, and China hurried off faster than she’d come.

This whole exchange had mystified Sophie. “Why didn’t you just tell China that Antigua was safe? And why do you want Sally down here? What can Sally do that China can’t?”

Africa put the
gris-gris
back on the mantel. “Sally works in the Big House. She hears things China doesn’t. And China knows everything ’bout Antigua she needs to know right now. I wish Ned was here, but he ain’t, so we have to get Antigua out without him. We need a plan, Sophie. And we need a friend in the Big House to tell us what the white folks are saying. Sally’s not so bad. She’s silly, is all, and she likes an easy life. She’ll help if we put it to her right.”

Next morning, everybody knew that Mr. McCormick’s dogs had followed a trail into the bayou and promptly lost it, which wasn’t surprising, given the rain and all. However, McCormick had told Dr. Charles he was pretty sure the wench had run into the swamp: round about sunset, he’d found a petticoat snagged on a cypress root. That evening, Sophie heard about Sally’s visit from Canny.

“I thought she faint dead away when Momi tell her what she want.”

“What did she say?”

“Momi or Sally?”

“Both.”

Canny scratched carefully at the edge of the bandage around her chest, watched by the stitched black eyes of her doll. “Momi say we gots Antigua hid, never mind where, and we studying to get her away North before frost. And Sally say she don’t want to hear nothing ’bout it, that she got her a good mistress and regular food and nice clothes to wear, and dances and Samson talking ’bout marriage, and she ain’t got no mind to go courting trouble.”

Sophie could just hear her saying it, too. “And what did your mama say to that?”

“Momi say in that case, she tell Mammy who order up the hoodoo from Aunt Pearl gave her bellyache last spring, and Sally, she say she willing to keep her ear out and tell Momi what she hear, and Momi say that good for now, and can Sally come back tomorrow evening after supper, and Sally say yes. And then she go away and Momi cry.”

Africa came in with a steaming bowl. “What you two talking ’bout in here?”

“Sally,” said Canny.

“Sally.” Africa shook her head ruefully. “Stupid wench bought a hoodoo from old Aunt Pearl over to Doucette. Mammy came down here holding her belly and groaning like a bull ’gator, wanting to know if I did it. I said I didn’t know anything ’bout it, gave her a
gris-gris
and some chamomile tea. Just goes to show everything comes in useful in the end.”

“Momi,” said Canny. “What we going to do about Anti?”

It wasn’t just a matter of getting Antigua out of Oak River, but of getting her North. She was a young girl, a house servant, not used to fending for herself. On the road, she’d be in constant danger of being turned in or pressed into the fields of some small farmer with a little land and not enough slaves to work it. At worst, she’d be shot for trespassing or found by some man who’d hurt her worse than Mr. Beau.

They talked until Canny fell asleep without getting any further than deciding that Antigua should go to New Orleans first. “Best place to hide a hen,” Africa said, “is in a henhouse. Nobody going to find one runaway slave girl in New Orleans.”

“But how’s she going to get there?” Sophie asked.

“We talk about that later. You sleep now.”

But when Sophie came off her shift next afternoon, Africa just sent her to hoe the weeds out of the pea patch and gather greens for supper. Africa herself took advantage of the bright weather to wash Canny’s bandages and blankets and her menfolks’ clothes. Ducking under the line where their shirts and pants flapped in the wind, Sophie wondered when Ned and Poland and Flanders would be free to wear them.

Sally showed up after supper, looking nervous and sulky. Old Missy was beside herself over Antigua’s disappearance, she said, and Miss Liza was fit to be tied. “She weeping and wailing and carrying on like Antigua was her own sister, when everybody know how ugly she treat her. Siberia down to Oak Cottage say Miss Liza just sorry she ain’t got nobody to chuck her boots at anymore. Young Missy, she the one sent for Mist’ McCormick. She say she find your girl come hell or high water, and then she going to sell her downriver for a field hand.”

Africa slapped her aproned thighs. “Well, we better get planning, then. Sophie, fetch me that tin from the back room. You know the one.”

Sophie did. It was where the family kept their savings, the money they’d earned selling dried moss and Ned’s whittled toys and Africa’s jams and pickles. Hoping Canny was asleep, she groped for it in the dark.

Canny stirred restlessly. “Soph? What you doing? Is that Sally I hear out there?”

“I’m fetching something for your mama. You hush now, and go back to sleep.”

“I tired of sleeping. I wants to hear what Sally saying ’bout Anti.”

“If you lie real still, you can listen from here. Sally’s voice isn’t exactly soft.”

The box was heavy. When Africa counted the money out on the table beside the half-eaten spoon bread, it came to over two hundred dollars. Sally stretched her eyes and whistled.

“We thought we’d buy our freedom by and by,” Africa said. “But Anti got her life in front of her.” Counting out a hundred dollars, she swept the rest back into the tin. “And so do Poland and Flanders. A hundred dollars should be enough to buy a passage on a paddle-wheel boat to Ohio, maybe further.”

Sally shook her head doubtfully. “Ain’t nobody going sell Antigua no passage ’less she gots free papers or a travel pass. And that ain’t happening ’less you got something on Mammy like you got on me.”

“Why Mammy?” Sophie asked.

“Mammy can write,” Africa said. “Old Missy taught her when she was a girl.”

“So can I write,” said Sophie. “As well as Mammy, I bet. You tell me what to say, and I’ll write it.”

Sally looked at Sophie as if she’d announced she could flap her arms and fly to Ohio. “Naw,” she said scornfully. “You never.”

Sophie gave her a look. “You wait and see.”

Africa got up, went into the back room, returning with a yellow, much-folded paper in her hand. “Can you write like this?”

Sophie unfolded the paper. Scratchy, spidery words sprawled elegantly — and illegibly — across the heavy, expensive paper. Sophie’s heart sank.

“Lookit her face,” said Sally with mournful satisfaction. “She can’t do it.”

Sophie ignored her. “What is this, Africa?”

“She lying ’bout knowing how to read, too!”

“You hush up, Sally,” Africa said. “It’s my travel pass from New Orleans.”

Sophie squinted at the loops and curves. Yes, that was
Africa,
and that was
New Orleans,
and that was definitely
August 15, 1845.

“I see,” she said slowly. “It says,
The slave Africa, property of Mr. Patrick Fairchild of Oak River Plantation in the parish of St. Mary’s, has my permission to travel by steamboat or wagon between New Orleans to Oak River.
Then the date. I still can’t read the signature.”

“Maître Jacques Dumont,” said Africa. “He taught me pastry-making and fancy sauces. He said I was a fine cook and he wanted to buy me from Old Missy. But I told him I had to go home to my baby girl, and he said babies were why women would never amount to anything.”

“Can you write like that?” Sally demanded.

Sophie studied the old-fashioned hand. “It’s not what my writing generally looks like,” she said carefully. “But I might copy it. With practice.”

“What you going to practice on?” Sally wanted to know. “You ain’t got no paper nor ink.”

“We got soot and rags,” Africa said. “For the pass, well, we have to steal some paper, is all, and a pen and some of that fancy ink Old Missy writes her letters with.”

“We?” Sally asked, alarmed. “Who
we
? I the only one of us got any business in the Big House, and I ain’t stealing nothing, no, ma’am. Not a thing.”

“You are, Sally,” said Africa. “You’re stealing a pen and a bottle of ink and two-three sheets of heavy paper, and you’re doing it right smart. You know you’re bound to say yes, so you might as well say it now.”

Sally didn’t see it that way, but when Africa threatened her with Mammy again, she gave in. She went off looking mighty put-out and saying it might be a day or two.

“A day or two is fine,” Africa said. “Sophie has her some practicing to do.

As soon as Sally had gone, Africa sent Sophie out to the maze.

“Just tell my baby girl things are going fine, she’ll be out in three-four days, and she’s going to ride a steamboat, just like a fine lady.” Africa pressed a bundle into Sophie’s hands. “There’s more candles. The soup’s cold, but it’ll put heart in her. And a comb. She’s got to look respectable when she escapes, you tell her that.”

Sophie thought of the muddy crawl under the summerhouse. One more thing to plan — a change of clothes for Antigua. There were other things to think about, too. She counted them as she hurried through the dark. Something to carry her things in. A false name for the travel pass, something not so particular to Oak River as Antigua. Sue-Ellen? Ann?

By this time, Sophie hardly had to look for the white stone markers. Her feet knew the way to the central garden all by themselves. She slithered under the camellia and called out softly. “Light the lantern, will you, so I can see where I’m going? I’ve got more candles.”

A pause, a scrape, and then a faint glow seeped up from the pit.

Antigua was hollow-eyed and filthy, but she perked up as Sophie outlined the plan for her escape,

“Better say that I a cook,” she said. “They’ll be looking for a house slave, and ain’t no field hand going anywheres this time of year. Ask Asia can she find me something to wear — Momi might not think to ask her.”

“All right,” said Sophie. “You can change in the summerhouse. We’ll pack your old dress in a basket or something. It’ll look suspicious if you’re not carrying anything. It’s bad enough you’re traveling alone.”

“Come with me, then.” Antigua turned to her, eyes glinting in the lamplight. “Come take the boat with me, we be free together.”

Panic swept over Sophie at the thought of leaving Oak River. “I can’t,” she said shakily. “There’s only enough money for one.”

Antigua shrugged. After an uncomfortable pause, Sophie said, “I’ve got to get back, or your Mama’ll have my hide. I need a name for the travel pass. Who do you want to be?”

Antigua huffed in surprise. “You asking
me
?”

“It’s going to be your name.”

Antigua laughed. “I ain’t going to be an island no more! I have a
real
name!” She propped her chin on her drawn-up knees to think. She’d taken off her head-rag and unraveled her hair with the comb Sophie had brought so that it lay in a fleecy cloud around her shoulders. She looked more peaceful than Sophie had ever seen her.

“Aren’t you scared?” asked Sophie curiously.

“Oh, I plenty scared. I going out somewheres I never been, amongst folk I don’t even know they names. But I going be free. Free woman got gumption. Free woman can learn to read and find work and get
paid
for it. Free woman leave if she don’t like where she be. Free woman got the world before her.”

“Like Adam and Eve.”

Antigua frowned. “Oak River a long way from Paradise, Sophie.”

“I know.”

They sat quiet for a little longer, Antigua thinking over names, Sophie thinking about Antigua’s offer. Oak River wasn’t her home, after all. She’d been sad to leave New Orleans, and remembered clearly how miserable and lost she’d felt when she arrived, was it only six months ago? But now the thought of leaving felt more dangerous than facing Mr. McCormick’s flesh-eating dogs, and she didn’t for the life of her know why.

The plantation bell rang for the night shift. “I’ve got to go,” Sophie said. “What name shall I put on your travel pass?”

“Omi Saide,” said Antigua.

“Omi Saide? What kind of a name is Omi Saide?” Sophie was in too much of a hurry to be diplomatic. “That’s not going to make you disappear into the crowd. Anyone who reads that is going to remember it for sure, and you, too.”

“You said whatever I wants.”

“Yes, but —”

“Anybody running away not so big a fool as take an African name, make her stand out and be remembered. So I ain’t running away.” She paused. “It my great-grandma’s name, Sophie. And you promised.”

Sophie stood up. “So I did. All right, then. Omi Saide.”

Antigua stood, too. To Sophie’s surprise, she hugged her tightly.

“Next week, you’ll be on your way North,” said Sophie.

“Good,” Antigua said, releasing her. “I mighty sick of this hole in the ground. Now get along, or Momi’ll be fretting.”