Whisper Falls (21 page)

Susanna had thought through the Pratts's involvement, but I still had a bad feeling about it. There were so many other things that could blow up. “Have you signed any paperwork?”

“We didn't draw up papers. My mistress and I agreed.”

“Good. It's not legally binding.” I didn't really know what to do at this point. Was it possible to ignore the deal and hope history would return to the way it had been?

“My sister's future requires that I uphold my end of the promise.”

I closed my eyes and counted to ten in French, because everything sounded better in French. She was not going to let this go. “Why didn't you wait to talk to me?”

“It's my problem. I shall handle it alone.”

“We're friends. We're supposed to help each other.”

She frowned down at me. “Do you have a better solution?”

“Not off the top of my head. But it hasn't been all that long since you got mad at me for ignoring your ideas. How come you didn't wait to hear mine?” I rattled the sheets. “I collected data. Maybe, somewhere in here, are other possibilities.”

“This solution is acceptable. I am ensuring that Phoebe has a valuable skill. If she can make beautiful thread or cloth, Mr. Shaw will be able to sell it for a good price.”

“Yeah, what if she's bad at it?”

“She will be good.”

“I like your confidence in your sister. So, let's assume she is good. That's not the only thing that can go wrong. What if she breaks her finger? What if he can't sell what she makes and he binds her out anyway?”

“He wouldn't do that.” Susanna scowled as the possibilities sank in.

“He might.” As I'd suspected, she hadn't planned for everything. “Phoebe's learning something she might never use. Your sister doesn't need training. She needs a job away from Worthville before your mom gets married.”

Susanna shook her head. “My mother won't let Phoebe leave.” She stepped to the bluff's edge, then flopped down, her legs dangling over the side. “My mother will talk Mr. Shaw into keeping my sister.” Her voice was dull.

“Uh-huh. I hope that works out for you.” Why did I bother? She'd made up her mind. I had to not care that she'd just tied herself to Pratt for months. Her decision.

The end of her indenture had been in sight. I'd hoped to reach it with her, counting down to her release from prison, because that's what it was. Prison.

I was tempted to walk away, except what happened to her was important to me, even though there wasn't one frickin' thing I could do about it. I crumpled the sheets in my hand. It had been a wasted trip downtown to copy these. If I'd just come here last night and she'd told me her plans, I could've saved myself the effort.

Wait a minute. I smoothed the sheets and read them again. “When did you make the deal with your mistress?”

“Yesterday morning.”

My head grew warm and full, like the one time when my dad had left a glass of whiskey within reach when I was little. After one swig, I'd puked for hours.

“I have your sister's indenture. She's bound over to Mr. Pratt in October.”

Susanna gave a determined shake of her head. “It will be different now.”

“I copied these documents this afternoon—a day after you agreed to stay.” I crawled to her side and handed them over. “History didn't change.”

She stared at the sheets like they were poison. “It cannot be. Mr. Pratt cannot afford to bind her if I am here. He wants to acquire an apprentice or a slave for the mill. He wouldn't have two servants in the house instead.”

“You're looking at the indenture.”

“I cannot believe my eyes. It has to be wrong. I have agreed to be here. The Pratts would never choose Phoebe over me.” Her voice sounded panicked. “I wouldn't leave their household while repaying my debt for Phoebe's lessons. I gave my word.”

There was no need to say anything. Susanna could read the indenture lying in her lap, binding Phoebe Marsh from October thirtieth until the event of her eighteenth birthday or matrimony. It was signed by Anthony Shaw, Jethro Pratt, and a county clerk.

“Will she know how to spin by the end of October?”

“It is not possible to learn enough by then, not even for the most apt pupil.” With a groan, she dropped her head in her hands. “I delayed my freedom to rescue my sister,” she said, her voice husky, “and now we are both trapped.”

Okay, I didn't understand what was going on anymore—whether history had been affected some or none. But screw it. There were two centuries for things to straighten out again. Susanna was my concern now.

“I'm not going to let you do this alone. There's still time. We'll figure it out.”

“How?”

“Find her a job somewhere else. Like Raleigh.”

“Raleigh?” Her laugh held a hint of bitterness. “The state capital would be an excellent option if we lived there, but eight miles might as well be one thousand. I cannot go with her, and she will never go alone.”

“I'll take her.”

“You?” The corners of her lips twitched. “With your peculiar clothes and manners, the people of Raleigh will clap you in jail as a lunatic.”

“I'll wear a costume.” The offer had been impulsive, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. And the idea had a long-term benefit, one I hated to remind her of. “If Phoebe is living in Raleigh, she won't be here when Worthville is destroyed.”

Susanna sucked in a quick, sharp breath. “Merciful heavens. You are correct.” The silence lengthened as she thought hard. “We must do it. Raleigh is a good solution. If only my mother will release her.”

“Your mother is releasing her. It's only a question of when.”

“Mama can be stubborn.”

“Then you'll have to be persuasive.” I slipped over the bluff's edge, climbed down the granite ladder, and paused in front of the falls. “How long do I have?”

“They plan to marry in the fall.” She hopped to her feet and brushed the dust from her skirt, a faint curve to her lips. “Mr. Shaw is only recently widowed. It's customary to wait several months. Any earlier than September would be scandalous.”

“September gives me plenty of time. So, it's a deal?”

“A deal?”

“Yeah. You talk your mother into letting Phoebe go. I'll find her a job.”

* * *

Even though I had months to find something for Phoebe, I began the search immediately. For one thing, I didn't know if they used the same process back then as we use now. Secondly, if a good job opened up in the summer, better to snag it than count on the good jobs showing up later on.

Researching the job opportunities in post-revolutionary Raleigh became the focus of my next free afternoon. Once I'd satisfied my paying customers, I cleaned up and climbed to the third floor rec room for a marathon of web surfing.

There were mixed results.

Our state government, in the days when they had more budget money than sense, had paid for a project to digitize all of the newspapers ever printed in our state (or colony or province or lord proprietorship or whatever it had been called across the centuries). A month ago, had I known, I would've thought,
damn, what a waste
. Today, I was thinking,
cool for me
.

I typed a narrow set of keywords into my Advanced Search. Summer 1796. Job advertisements. Raleigh newspaper.

Should be simple. Right?

Wrong. New Bern. Fayetteville. Hillsborough. All had newspapers.

But Raleigh? No.

Really? The frickin' state capital didn't have a paper until 1799? That was totally screwed up. It probably drove our early state politicians bonkers—which, come to think of it, was a bonus.

I printed the first page of the first edition of the Raleigh paper. If the upper-class families of 1799 had been living there for a few years, maybe they'd need servants in 1796. I skimmed the content. It read vaguely like an old-fashioned gossip page. An article near the top made fun of the legislature. The bottom had a detailed report of a supper party thrown by a state senator. The dessert had been a “delicious new sweet known as the sonker.” Yeah, I could agree with that.

I kept looking through the online records until I found a 1796 edition of the
North-Carolina Minerva and Fayetteville Advertiser
. It had dense columns of text without pictures. There were long letters to the editors, a bizarre obsession with the cargo of ships, numerous missing horses, runaway wives (huh?), and runaway slaves. But no job advertisements.

Newspapers were a bust.

My next query targeted anything on household servants. The search engine returned hordes of indentures. Not the information I wanted, but astonishing enough to stop me. Hundreds of children had been apprenticed, some as young as two. Apparently, the town leaders could act like their own version of Child Protective Services. They got to decide what to do with orphaned kids.

And the town leaders weren't the only ones to blame. Back then, an orphan was someone without a
father
, which meant mothers were binding them out, too.

What must it have felt like to be one of those poor kids? They were handed over to strangers. Told to work their asses off for years. And the cold-hearted jerks forcing them into slavery? Their parents.

It had happened to Susanna, although the cold-hearted jerk in her case was her stepdad.

I clicked on one of the links. A copy of a yellowed document filled the screen. The text was faded but readable. If Susanna's indenture were typical, a lot was pledged on her behalf.

In return, the master must provide room and board, instruction for reading and writing, and training in ‘the trade and mystery of housewifery.'

Mystery? Didn't seem like much of one to me. More like endless drudgery.

I copied and pasted everything the jerk owed Susanna into a file. This web page also mentioned “freedom dues.” I needed to remember to see if she knew what that meant.

Okay, time to refocus. Jobs in 1796 Raleigh.

No matter how hard I tried, I could find no useful information. This surprised me a lot. I was so used to being bombarded with data that it was just obnoxious I couldn't find the one bit I really wanted.

Come on, people. Wanting a job was universal. It couldn't have changed that much over time. There had to be positions that needed filling and people who wanted to fill them, especially in the state capital during the years it was under construction. Without a paper, how did the unemployed find work back then? Show up and hope for the best?

Wait. That had to be it.

If I wanted to know, I'd have to show up, too.

* * *

Dad's car was parked in the garage when I returned from my afternoon ride. I glanced at my watch. He was home seriously early.

I walked into the kitchen to find my father sitting on a stool at the island, still wearing his suit and tie. His laptop lay open before him.

“Hey, Dad.” Puzzled, I closed the garage door behind me. “What're you doing here?”

“Checking airline fares to Michigan.” His lips twitched into a resigned smile. “Have you figured out what you're going to do while we're at the wedding?”

Perfect. Mom wasn't here, and Dad was essentially inviting me to defend my position. Now if I could just manage not to screw this up…

“I want to stay at home
alone.”

“Convince me why you should.”

I'd bet he agreed with me and couldn't come right out and say so because, hey, he wanted to stay on his wife's good side. So I had to do all the work on this one.

What might change Mom's mind?

“I run my business out of the garage. I can't provide as good a service to my clients if I'm staying somewhere else.”

“Nice try, but you won't get behind over a long weekend.”

“Someone has to take care of Mom's cat.”

“Toby only likes your mom, anyway. He doesn't come around you unless you're feeding him. Just drop by the house once a day.”

“I'm seventeen. I can handle a weekend by myself.”

“If we were away at the beach, maybe. But we'll be in northern Michigan. We can't get back here quickly if you have an emergency.”

No logic in the world could soothe that fear. “Okay, then. I'll find someone to stay here with me.”

“It has to be someone we know.”

I frowned at him. “You know my friends.”

“Your mother thinks you have a new girlfriend.”

“I've already told Mom I'm not dating.” I pulled out a stool, sat on it, and decided it was the right time to tell Dad something about Susanna. “There is a girl, but we're just friends. Not even thinking about anything else.”

“Were you thinking about having her stay over here or staying at her house?”

“You wouldn't let me do that.”

“I'm glad you realize it.” He loosened his tie. “So, who will you ask?”

“Probably Carlton. I'll talk to him about it when he gets back from the beach in a few days.”

“Sounds good.” Dad snapped down the lid of his laptop. “I support your plan. All you need to do now is to get a commitment from Carlton and his mother—then convince Mom.”

With a fire in the hearth and the oven heating for baking day, the temperature in the kitchen rose to an unbearable level. I left both the front door and rear door ajar and stood in the slight breeze flowing between them.