“Here we go, Mama,” I whispered.
Pickin my way through the woods got harder. Every time I set down my foot I wondered if I could ever lift it again to take another step.
I broke past the last fringe of trees and walked the edge of a meadow. In front of me, another arrow of shiny white pebbles pointed to a knee-high field of corn. I kicked at the pebbles, sent them flyin, and kept walkin.
Lights in the town went out one by one. The moon shone acrost the fields and glinted on the corn like it were silver. I squatted, watched, and listened. I heard the rushin water of the millrace, the creakin of the mill wheel, and the rustlin of the corn. I could smell the sweet pine of the mill, and from somewhere nearby, a catbird called and mewed, but not a soul moved.
Another arrow-tipped line of shiny white pebbles pointed to a narrow pathway. I scuffed the pebbles aside and crept toward the outskirts of the sleepin town.
The lights from the window of the little gray cabin made three yellow patches. I headed toward them without payin attention to where I were—until I stubbed my toe and looked down. I were on the edge of a buryin ground, small gravestones pricklin through the grass like thumbs. A long stone buildin stood on a rise above me, its moon shadow markin an inky darkness.
I backed out. That weren’t no place I wanted to be; bad, bad luck to walk into a buryin ground at night. I shivered again, this time from bein scairt and bein cold and hot all mixed together. I picked up a handful of dirt and sifted a thin line of it through my fingers and onto the ground between me and the graves. No haint would dare cross over and foller.
One of the lights went out in the cabin. Now it looked like two yellow eyes stared out at me.
Somethin thudded. I stopped in the middle of a step, my sacks thumpin against my back. I heard a sound like laundry bein shook out, and then a slap as somethin slammed.
When I looked down, I saw another line of shiny white pebbles runnin alongside a crickity, knobblety wooden fence. Tall hollyhocks peered over the top, and moths big as my hands flew in and out of their cup blooms. So still, so still and peaceful, that I could hear the whirrin of their wings.
I stopped and watched the little cabin. Nothin moved.
My hand skipped along the palins of the fence, one by one, till I reached the front gate. The smell of roses, mint, and sage wrapped round me.
When I looked down, I saw another short line of pebbles pointin toward a porch. I nudged them with my feet so’s nobody would see them and walked through the gate. Below the porch, a large pot, stinkin with the smell of lye, bubbled and boiled. Beneath it, a bed of coals glowed a wicked orange. I looked toward the cabin and saw first one, then the other window darken.
I stepped through the gate and looked around the yard, then slowly walked up a camomile pathway. Every step smelt like apples.
“Thee is welcome here,” a quiet voice said.
I turned and started to run, but my knees crumpled and my feet felt like two heavy stones.
The voice come again, soft, wavery, like water ripplin acrost a pond.
“Thee is welcome here, friend,” the voice said again.
Welcome here? How could I trust anyone? My legs shook, and my eyes filled with tears. That was the last thing I remembered.
Never hurt a spider or you will suffer bad luck.
A muzzy red light and a low roarin inside my head made me feel all pain and thirstin. I fought to pull myself away from Pa. He grabbed at me, held on to my foot, and yanked.
I kicked, yelled, and kicked again, fightin hard, but couldn’t break away from his hands. Dogs howled and snarled around me. Weren’t nowhere for me to go, no way for me to get freed.
A shard of sunlight pierced through the darkness inside me. When my eyes opened, I saw that my feet was caught, wound tight up in a bedsheet. I kicked free and set up. When I looked down at myself, I saw that my clothes was gone. I were in a clean white nightshirt sewed from cotton feed sacks.
The room weren’t like any I’d ever seen. It were tiny and held only a tall, narrow bed, a small table with a white pottery pitcher and cup, a colorful braided rug, and a rockin chair with a woven splint seat. A big, chipped thunder bucket set on the floor beside the table. High above me near the peak of the roof, a long, narrow openin covered with wooden slats let in thin, bright stripes of sunlight.
At the foot of the bed, I could see the outline of a short, wide door. I wanted to crawl to it, try to see where I were, but I didn’t have the strength.
Water, I needed water. I rolled onto my side, reached for the cup, and lifted my head till I could sip. I didn’t want to stop drinkin, but the tiny room spun around me. I laid back on the pillow, the cup still in my hand.
“Where am I, Mama?” I asked. “Where am I?”
Sleep come easy to me. When I woke, the room were almost dark. A bowl of warm broth set next to the pitcher of water and the cup. I pushed myself up and leant against the wooden spindles of the bed.
It didn’t take me no time at all to drink down all the water and start on the broth. I could taste bits of chicken, onions, and carrots. When were the last time I had eaten somethin cooked and hot?
I finished and swung my legs over the edge of the bed and stepped down onto the thick, braided rug. When I tried to stand, my legs was wobbledy, as wobbledy as our cow Hildie’s newborn calf.
“Mama, can you hear me? Help me find some good luck.”
I held on to the bed, slid myself down along the mattress, and reached for the door, shoved, shoved harder, but it wouldn’t budge. My fingers worked along the edge of it in search of a crack, a pull, anythin that would help me open it.
Were I a prisoner? Would I be sold and sent away like Zenobia’s family? I felt scairt and near at my wits’ end, but kept tryin to open the door. By now it were dark in the room. Darker than night, dark like it had been in the cellar hole—I couldn’t do no more.
The bed were only steps away, but I felt like I’d walked for miles. I slumped down onto the mattress. The last thing I remembered were the sweet smell of lavender.
When I woke, the sun shone through the high, slatted openin under the eaves. A fat brown spider dangled from a thin strand above me, then swung over to the edge of the chair. I licked at my cracked lips and tried to sit up. I watched the spider as she walked from the edge of the table to the rockin chair and back again, layin a silver strand of web behind her.
Grandpa’s song about spiders played over and over in my head. “Let a spider run alive, all your days you’ll live and thrive.” That were all I wanted, to live and thrive.
The bowl of broth were gone; in its place set a thick slab of bread. I reached for the water, drunk my fill, and for the first time in I don’t know how long, ate a piece of bread smeared with butter and scuppernong jam. Nothin had ever tasted better.
I drifted off to sleep again, still hearing Grandpa’s song. I jerked awake and set up. Had someone been singin to me? Touchin me with cool, soft hands?
A steamin bowl of barley porridge set on the table. The water pitcher, filled to the top, dripped and puddled beside the cup. Who were bringin food and drink to me?
I drank water, picked up a horn spoon, and ate the thick porridge. When I finished, I pushed myself up from the bed and walked acrost the little room. My fingers run along the edge of the door, and down near the bottom I felt a small iron pull. When I reached for it, my hand shook so much I could barely slide my fingers through the loop. I tugged, tugged again, and felt the door move slightly. My heart beat hard, and I breathed as fast as when I run through the woods.
What would I do when I got the door open? Where could I go? Where were my real clothes, my sack and food, my lucky buckeye, and where were my old Hannah doll?
I slipped down the wall and set beside the door. Finally, I said aloud words my grandpa used to say to me. “Don’t be scairt, Sweet Girl, just get movin.”
The door made a small creakin sound when I pulled on the loop. I held my breath, pulled again, and it budged th
e tiniest bit. What if someone heard me tryin to get out? I waited for a minute, put my ear against the door, and listened. No sounds. When I tugged again, the door moaned and opened a crack. I waited, then pulled harder. It opened an inch, then wider. I held the edge of the door with both my hands. One more jerk, and it opened full on to a solid brick wall.
If you hear a crow calling, it is a sure sign of death. Spit over your left and right shoulders and call out to the crows to fly away and take death with them.
I stood there starin at the wall like some kind of fool. Then I reached out and patted at it. It were real. Real and hard, and nary a crack nor sliver of light to show that there had ever been anything there but a wall.
I stopped, laid my ear against the bricks, and listened. Were someone movin acrost the floor on the other side?
I looked around the room for somethin, anythin to pick at the brick, but the closest thing to a tool were the horn spoon settin in the porridge bowl. I started for the spoon, then stopped. “Girl,” I said. “You could chip away at that brick wall for a year of Sundays and not get yerself out of here.”
“Yessum,” a deep voice whispered.
I swung round. The room were empty. My heart pounded.
“I must be goin out of my head,” I said, doubtin that I’d heard a real voice.
“Yessum, you must be goin out of your head,” the deep voice answered.
I shivered. Someone or somethin were in the room with me.
I turned in a slow circle, my eyes searchin everywhere but not wantin to find anythin.
“Am I dreamin again?” I asked.
No answer, just quiet.
I pinched myself hard on the arm.
“Ouch, I am not dreamin.”
Quiet.
“Where are you?” I asked, mad and scairt all twisted together inside me.
Quiet.
I shuffled slowly acrost the room, looked beside the bed, under the bed, and in the corners, but found nothin.
“Am I a prisoner?” I asked.
Quiet.
I looked up, down, held my breath, and waited for an answer, but the only sounds was the nearby caw, caw, cawin death calls of crows and the wind whistlin through the wooden slats high above me.
I spit over both shoulders and asked the crows to fly away and take death with them. Were that voice a death sperrit come lookin for me?
What were happenin? Were I a prisoner? Where were Zenobia? Were she caught and a prisoner now too?
The thick heat of summer had turned the little room into an oven, and I felt all played out. I climbed onto the bed and curled up like my grandpa’s old Delia dog. I felt too scairt to close my eyes, but I must’ve closed them and dozed, because I woke to the sound of a dull clunk and somethin slidin and scrapin below me.
My heart thumped. I pushed myself up and looked around the darkenin room, but I were alone. My fist pressed against my mouth, as though I could hold all my courage inside.
Another clunk and one big dark hand appeared beside the bed, snaked up, twisted, and turned full round, almost like it had eyes and were searchin for me.
I pressed my fist harder against my lips, bit into it, and moved back against the wall to get as far from the hand as I could. It slipped down the side of the bed and disappeared.
The bed shook. Now two big hands come. They reached up and pulled at the edge of the mattress.
I heard a loud scream. The scream come from me.
When someone calls your name, don’t answer until you know who is talking or you may end up doing the devil’s bidding.
Them big hands let go and disappeared.
I rolled over, grabbed the thunder bucket from its place on the floor, and stood up on the saggin corn-husk mattress that crackled with my every move. Whatever, whoever were comin into the room would have a heavy stinkin surprise dropped on top of it.
A cool gust of air rushed in from somewhere below. My arms and legs turned rough as chicken skin, and my hair prickled. I looked around at empty.
“Lark,” someone hissed, “Lark.”
Were the trickster death sperrit callin me again?
“Lark, it’s me.”
I stood ready to drop the bucket.
“Lark, it’s me, Zenobia,” the voice whispered, but I didn’t believe it.
“How do I know it’s you and not the devil?” I asked.
“Who else call you Lark?”
The braided rug took on a life and slipped to the side of the table below me. I couldn’t believe what I were seein. A trapdoor slid full open. More cool air come into the room. Two big dark hands rose up again, reached for the mattress, and pulled at the edge of the bed. I took aim.
Up come the scarred face of the tall boy who had carried Zenobia away from me.
He looked at me. “Lark,” he said, “don’t you be droppin that bucket on me.”
He pulled hisself out of the trapdoor, rolled onto the floor, and set up.
He looked clean now and were dressed in real clothes, not the bloodstained filthy rags he’d worn the first time I seen him with the soul drivers.
I lowered the bucket and walked to the edge of the bed.
Seein his face peerin up at me, seein that he were a real boy and not a death sperrit made my stomach settle.
“There someone behind me that you be glad to see,” he said.
The big boy reached down and tugged and up come Zenobia, one arm all wound in strips of fabric and tucked into a sling.
I leapt from the bed, set the bucket on the floor, and wrapped my arms gently around her.
“Quiet,” he said. “We cain’t make no noise.”
Outside, the sound of thunder clapped and rattled the cup against the pitcher, and a steady, hard rain began to fall.
The boy slid the trapdoor closed and pulled the rocker close to us. Zenobia and me set side by side on the bed, holdin hands like we wouldn’t never let go. I felt like someone had lifted a huge rock off of me, like if I didn’t hold on to Zenobia I might float right up to the peak of the ceiling.
We all started to whisper, then we stopped, started up again at the same time, and laughed.
“You first, Lark,” Zenobia said. “What happen to you?”
“No, you first,” I said. “Last time I saw you he were carryin you into the woods, and I didn’t know if I would ever see you again.”
Zenobia let go of my hand and scooted acrost the mattress. She leant her back against the wall, her legs drawed up to her chest, her good arm wrapped round them.
“I cain’t right remember all the happenins,” she said. “First I thought I were dead, next you yank my arm and something big and heavy fall on me. Next I know he is helpin me”—Zenobia pointed to the boy—“and carryin me into the woods like a sack of cotton. Lark, this here’s Brightwell, you met him a few days ago, but not by name. He’s our friend.”
Brightwell nodded.
I looked him in the eye and said, “Thank you for savin Zenobia, but you near scairt me to death when you was talkin at me and tauntin me like a haint. I didn’t know who or what you was.”
Brightwell shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry, Lark. First when you was talkin I couldn’t help but tease you, but then, when you sounded scairt, I knowed I needed to get Zenobia.”
I forgave him right quick. And hadn’t he taken a beatin from them slave traders and never told them I were hidin right above them in the tree? I owed him somethin fierce.
Brightwell reached inside his shirt and tugged out my old Hannah doll. He passed her to me, and I held her to my heart.
“I never thought to see her again,” I said, chokin back my tears.
I glanced from him to Zenobia. “Why, she looks better than she’s ever looked.”
“Auntie Theodate nursed Brightwell, me, you, and Hannah,” Zenobia said. “Auntie takes care of peoples who need her help.”
“Who is Auntie Theodate?”
“Lark, you come to her house. You come here three nights ago when you was so sick you
couldn’t hardly walk, but you found her, found us.” Zenobia swiped at a tear with the back of her good hand.
I set quiet for a minute and thought about that night, but I couldn’t rightly remember what had made me come to Auntie’s house.
“Are we trapped here?” I asked.
“No, we safe, but it’s a long, long story we can talk about tomorrow with Auntie,” Brightwell said. “Auntie and some of her family showed me that there are good white folks. We got real friends here, and they has helped people north to a safe place. A free life.”
The night I had made my way here flashed into my memory. I had been sick, burnin up with fever.
“Lark, I told you to look for signs to a safe place. You done it. You follered the signs and found your way here,” Brightwell said.
I remembered stubbin my toe on a gravestone and then the yellow light from the two windows of the little cabin shinin out at me. I remembered holdin on to the pickets of a fence, one by one, hollyhocks like tall ghosts. I remembered a huge pot over a wicked orange fire.
I remembered Brightwell’s words afore he left with Zenobia: “Look for a sign.” Then I remembered the twig arrows and the lines of shiny white pebbles.
“Was it you left them signs for me?”
“Lark,” Brightwell said, “we slaves, we never tell most folk about the signs. Never tell a white folk. Ever. I were goin to leave you signs, but couldn’t set Zenobia down again and again. Hurt her too bad. I were tryin to sign you when Asa come up. He scare us at first, but he talk and we knowed he would help us. He left you signs, and he made sure we got here safe and that you be safe.”
Thump, thump, thump. Loud sounds came from somewhere below.
Brightwell raised his finger to his mouth. “The signal,” he whispered.
We didn’t move, just held hands, squeezin tighter and tighter as heavy steps come up toward us.
Knock three times and call up the devil. Knock four times and chase him back.
The thumpin stopped. Below us we could hear loud talkin and yellin, and the drawn-out yodel of a hound. Then we heard the sounds of tappin on the wall.
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