The Trap Door

by Lisa McMann

  “I don’t know yet.”

  Sera smiled as she spotted a burlap bag with the words Saltville, Virginia stamped on it. She shoved her bonnet off her head so it hung down her back, and scratched her scalp. Then she picked up the bag. She opened it and looked inside. “Aha,” she said softly to herself, and then she turned toward Dak. “Well, I know.”

  “You do?” Dak asked. “That’s awesome! What is it?”

  “It’s time for a little chemical experiment.”

  Dak’s eyes grew wide. He stepped back. “No way. Not like the time with the —”

  “No, no, no,” Sera said, impatient. “Geez, Dak will you let it go? That was third grade.”

  “Still, I’ve barely just grown my eyebrows back, thank you very much.”

  Sera waved off his fears. “Your eyebrows are safe. But I am going to need a sacrifice from you.”

  Dak’s eyes grew wider still. “Like what, like a-a — human sacrifice?”

  “Oh, stop it. All I need is that fancy bottle of French soda that you got from the President’s House.”

  Dak gasped and sputtered. “Blasphemy! That’s even worse! Do you know how many of these still exist in our time?”

  “Actually, I don’t care. Because do you wanna know what?”

  “What?”

  “Chicken butt,” they both said automatically.

  “Okay, seriously, though,” Sera continued. “If we don’t get out of this cellar, guess how many people you’d be able to show that fancy French confectionery’s bottle of soda to?”

  “Well, there’s Mrs. Beeson.”

  “In our time, you dork.”

  Dak scowled. “Nobody.”

  “Right. Nobody. But if you save the world with me, and we go back to our time as heroes, and we get really high-paying jobs and make zillions of dollars because we’re so amazing, then you can buy a bottle just like it.”

  Dak nearly twisted in half with his overdramatic gesturing. “But that’s the pooooint, Seraaa! The last authentic bottles dating back to the eighteenth century got destroyed in an earthquake! There aren’t any left to buy anywhere in the whole entire universe.”

  “Dak.”

  “Whaaat?” he whined.

  “Calm down.”

  “Right, okay,” Dak said miserably. “Wait. Why should I? This is very upsetting.”

  “Because when we fix the Breaks and things go back to the way they were supposed to be, those earthquakes won’t have happened in the first place.”

  Dak opened his mouth, and then closed it again. He giggled. “Oh, yeah.” He giggled some more, and then he stopped. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive,” Sera lied. “Now, hand it over. And then we’re going to rest for a little bit. We want that phony abolitionist to be sound asleep when we bust out of here.”

  They left the lamps glowing, knowing they’d need them later, and tried to sleep. But their minds were whirring. Just before Dak dozed off, he muttered, “What we really need is a secret word that we can use to tell each other to be careful and stuff.”

  Sera rolled over and propped herself up on her elbow. “How about eighteen-abibble?”

  Dak snorted. “Perfect.”

  RIQ FOUND himself out of the rain eventually, at least. He and the woman — Kessiah, she said her name was — and her two children were finally taken off the wagon and brought to the slave quarters of a plantation. They had traveled quite a long way to pick up the family, but then Riq noticed they’d turned around and ended up in the little town area not far from the cornfield where he and the other time travelers had first arrived. He recognized the ships in the harbor. It gave him hope that if he could get away, he’d be able to find Sera and Dak.

  But he remained shackled, locked up in a small room with Kessiah and her children, and no matter how hard he tugged on the chain, it wouldn’t come loose.

  When they had arrived, a black woman wearing an apron had come to clean up Riq’s wounds and give him a fresh shirt, both of which he appreciated immensely.

  “Thank you for the clean shirt,” he said. “I must have looked frightening.”

  The woman flashed Riq a startled look, and then turned her eyes to the floor. She looked as though she wanted to say something in response yet didn’t dare. She looked scared. Riq decided not to push it.

  Later Kessiah told him that the woman hadn’t been acting out of kindness. “You have to look good for the auction to get more bids, so they clean you up,” she explained. “If you’re covered in blood, nobody wants to buy you. They think you’re a troublemaker.”

  “Maybe I plan to be.”

  Kessiah gave him a small smile. “’Fraid that attitude won’t last too long.”

  Riq frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “They’ll beat the trouble out of you in time. They always do.”

  Riq sank back against the wall that he was chained to and shook his head. “You know,” he said, “I really can’t believe this is happening.”

  Kessiah shook her head, too. “I still can’t, and I’ve never been free,” she said softly.

  While her children slept, Kessiah stared out the window into the darkness. She seemed agitated. Nervous.

  Riq wasn’t all too comfortable either, but despite his anxiety and the howling wind, he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer. He slept.

  When he woke up, the storm had passed and the sun was just coming up. Kessiah was asleep, and her son had snuggled up next to Riq. Riq looked at the sleeping boy, and the lump rose in his throat again. He thought about the stories his grandmother had told him, and the songs she’d played and sung for him when he was the little boy’s age. The stories had been meaningful back then even though he hadn’t understood the depth of them. But now he was sitting smack dab in his ancestors’ shoes, shackled like a criminal even though he’d done nothing wrong, and he was about to stand on the auction block to be sold to the highest bidder like he was a horse at a trade show.

  It was all so strange, but the surreal aspect from the dead of night had become very real with the dawning light. What if Sera and Dak couldn’t escape? What if they did escape but didn’t find him? What if he were sold to someone who took him far away? What if he couldn’t escape either? Would he be stuck here forever to live his life out like this?

  The child who sat with him probably knew nothing different for his life. Riq wondered if the little boy would ever be free.

  The boy woke when the woman with the apron came into the room. She handed Riq a warm bowl of food and a cup of water. She did the same for the little boy, and then returned with more for Kessiah, setting it by her head so she could eat it when she woke up.

  “Thank you,” Riq said. There was corn bread and some sort of fish in the bowl. He balanced it on his knee and ate gratefully. The little boy ate the food like he hadn’t eaten in a long time.

  “You want some more?” Riq asked. He held the rest of his corn bread out to the boy.

  “Yessir,” the boy said, and took it.

  “James,” Kessiah said. Her eyes were open now, but she hadn’t moved. “What do you say to Riq?”

  “Thank you,” James said.

  Riq smiled. “It’s all right.”

  Kessiah regarded him. “That was kind of you,” she said.

  A few women began singing outside — slaves who were hard at work on the plantation. Riq could hear them through the cracks in the doors and windows. Kessiah turned swiftly and strained to see and hear. They sang a song as they worked:

  There’s singing here,

  There’s singing there.

  I believe down in my soul

  There’s singing everywhere.

  Run, mourner, run!

  Lo! says the bible,

  Run, mourner, run

  Lo! is the way . . .

  When the song’s words became clear, Kessiah sucked in a breath. She closed her eyes for a moment, and then she turned back, a look of peace on her face. “All’s not lost after all,” she said softly
.

  Riq furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?” he whispered.

  “It’s a song my . . . someone arranged to be sung as a signal.” She looked at James and then back to Riq. “I don’t dare explain right now.” She nodded her head toward the boy, and then looked away. “He can’t tell what he doesn’t know,” she said softly. When the song outside repeated, she hummed along, and when they reached the second verse, she sang out in a gorgeous voice, one line only. Run, mourner, run.

  Riq felt something welling up inside him. He didn’t quite understand all that was happening, or what meaning she was trying to get across exactly, but Grandma Phoebe had told him about the power of the spirituals, religious songs spread by slaves in the South. And for the first time since his capture, he felt hope.

  They heard men’s voices. “Don’t fight, now,” Kessiah whispered. “Do as I do.”

  Seconds later, the three men from the night before burst into the room, unshackled Riq and Kessiah from the rings on the wall, and hooked them together instead. Kessiah picked up the baby, and Riq grabbed James’s hand as the men led them to the door and outside to the street. They walked half a mile to town as the voices of the slaves they were leaving behind grew faint. When they reached the steps of a courthouse, the men stopped and told Riq and Kessiah where to stand. And there, posted on the wall of the courthouse in front of Riq, was a flyer that made him gasp.

  SERA STOOD on the ladder, a handful of rock salt from the burlap bag in one hand and the open bottle of French soda in the other. She had changed back into her 1814 puffy bloomers and dress, with the slip tied over her hair.

  “Can I at least have a taste first?” Dak asked.

  “Sure, but hurry,” Sera said. “And keep the noise down. We don’t want to wake her up.”

  “Got it, chief. I’ll be as far away from your mad science as possible. Trust me.” He took a sip and rolled it around his mouth like he’d seen his parents do with wine. And then he made a face. “Yuck.” He handed it back to her.

  “Just quit goofing off and be ready.”

  “How is this supposed to break the door down, anyway? Is this like the soda-and-candy-reaction thing?”

  “That’s exactly what it is, only with rock salt — what’s important are the tiny holes in the salt to create the pressure and explosion. And it won’t be able to blast the door open. It’s just going to unlock it.”

  “So, no fire involved?”

  “No fire. That would be dangerous in an enclosed, windowless room.” Sera gave him a patronizing smile. “Although, if only you’d had a can of SQueez Cheez . . . now that plus the oil lamp could have been a really awesome explosion.”

  “Stop disrespecting my favorite foods already,” Dak said. He rolled his eyes and went back to the corner of the cellar. “Okay, I’m ready — I’ve got all our stuff in my coat, including your Quaker clothes. I freaking love this coat, by the way. So many pockets.”

  “Good — keep my clothes dry if you can.” She swallowed hard. “We’re going to experience extreme stickiness, but it can’t be helped.”

  Dak zipped his lips and hovered against the wall. He put his Quaker hat on to protect himself further.

  Sera glanced back at him, and then held her hand above the bottle. “Stay back — in case I fall.”

  Dak nodded. Sera figured he wasn’t planning to catch her.

  “Three, two . . .” Sera whispered. She wrapped one leg around the ladder to keep herself from losing balance, and she aimed the bottle toward the little hole that housed the spinning lock mechanism. “One.”

  She shoved the rock salt into the neck of the bottle as quickly as she could, and pointed. The liquid shot out at great force just inches from the hole, but Sera couldn’t see a thing as frothy soda bubbles rained down all over her face. All she could do was squint and hope the pressure of the liquid was forceful enough to push the rotating lock a quarter turn.

  It rained for ten seconds before the foam slowed. “Here,” Sera said, “I saved you the bottle.”

  Dak ran to grab it and then retreated once again. Sera peered up at the lock. The entire ceiling above her dripped with soda. Gingerly, she pushed on the trap door.

  It moved.

  She did a silent happy dance on the ladder, and then scurried down. Dak turned to face the wall as Sera whipped off her 1814 clothes, wiped her face with them, and then grabbed her Quaker clothes from Dak, who had pulled them from his coat and tossed them over his shoulder to her. She got into them at full speed, and though she was still a bit sticky, it wasn’t too bad. And there wouldn’t be any bees around in December, she hoped. That had been her main concern about being covered in sugar.

  “Remember,” she said in a soft voice, “there’s the little rug and the chair above the door, but with any luck you’ll be able to get an arm out before the chair tips. If it doesn’t move easily we’re going to have to really whale on it to knock it over, and run for our lives.” She patted the satchel beneath her shawl. “I’ve got the Ring.”

  Dak tapped his coat. “I’ve got the SQuare.”

  “Amazing,” they both whispered together, and Sera added, “Now let’s go find our friend and follow our clues.”

  Dak gently pushed up on the trap door. It kept going and going, nearly to a forty-five-degree angle before it hit the chair seat. Dak pushed himself up to the next rung, his head going partway through the opening, and he looked all around. Then he dropped back below once again. “I think we can slide out without moving the chair at all,” he whispered.

  Sera’s eyes widened. She nodded and gave him the thumbs-up.

  Dak returned the gesture, and he climbed and slid up through the opening. One of his pockets nearly got caught on a nail, but Sera quickly unhooked it before it tore. In a moment, he was splayed out in the hallway. He scooted out of the way as Sera followed suit, and, being a bit smaller, had no trouble at all getting out despite the extra bulk of the dress and Riq’s jacket.

  But as she pulled her feet out of the opening, her bootlace snagged on the same nail that had given Dak trouble. She jerked her foot and it came loose, sending the trap door slamming down.

  Sera gasped. She looked at Dak. He grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet, and they careened down the hallway just as they heard someone coming from the next room. “Who’s there?” Mrs. Beeson called out. Sharp footsteps grew louder at an alarming rate.

  “Run!” Sera cried.

  “Running!” Dak said.

  Sera reached the front door, whipped it open, and flew outside with Dak right behind. Mrs. Beeson, or whoever she was, ran out onto the porch and into the yard after them, but she was no match for the two.

  “Thanks for the bread!” Dak called out over his shoulder.

  Sera poked her elbow into Dak’s ribs. “Come on,” she said. “Over here.” They sprinted around the cornfield toward the shed they’d seen the night before. The door was closed now and the lantern was gone, perhaps blown away by the gale. She peeked in just to make sure Riq wasn’t hiding inside. It was empty.

  “At least the storm passed,” Sera said. “Now, if you were Riq, where would you be?”

  Dak looked all around. “If I were mistaken as a runaway slave and captured,” he mused, “I guess I’d be either on a plantation working, or . . .”

  “Or what?”

  Dak looked at Sera. “Or killed.”

  Sera shuddered, and then she set her jaw in anger. “I don’t get it. How could anybody treat another human being like that?” she cried.

  Dak didn’t have an answer to that one.

  DAK AND Sera checked the cornfield first, agreeing that if Riq had managed to escape, he might have gone there — it was sort of an unspoken rule of travel that the place you arrived was a good place to use as a meeting spot in case somebody got lost. But Riq wasn’t there.

  They headed toward town. “We can ask around, maybe,” suggested Dak. “See if anybody’s seen him.”

  Sera nodded. “We’ll go door-to-door if
we have to.”

  As they approached the town, things grew a bit livelier. People walked the streets, coming in and out of buildings and taverns, laughing and chatting. There was almost a spirit of adventure in the air. Dak muttered out of the side of his mouth, “Do you think this is the fair?”

  Sera shrugged. “Maybe. Look, there must be a street performer over there or something. There’s a crowd gathering. Act like we belong here. We should be careful in case that horrible woman shows up.” She pulled her bonnet back on her head and tucked her hair back.

  They drew close to the gathering and tried to peer over the shoulders of the townspeople, but there were a lot of bonnets and hats in the way, so they moved around the edge of the crowd, trying to see what was happening.

  “Excuse me,” Dak said, tapping a shoulder of a dark-skinned man in front of him.

  The man stepped aside.

  “No, sorry, I mean I have a question,” Dak said. “What’s going on here?”

  The man glanced at Dak. “It’s an auction.”

  “Cool. What kinds of stuff? Any unopened bottles of French soda from, say, the eighteenth century? Ish?”

  Sera jabbed Dak.

  The man gave Dak a harder look. He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “No, not that I know of. It’s a slave auction.” He pulled an old pocket watch with a scratched face from his waistcoat pocket, then replaced it and looked around. “Do thee read?”

  “Yes,” Dak said.

  “Thou will find signs posted with details. It seems there is one more slave than I expected.” He looked nervous. “And if you will excuse me,” he said to both of them, “I must go.” He turned on his heel and walked away from the small crowd and across the street.

  “A slave auction? That’s horrendous!” said Sera. “Come on. We need to see what’s happening. Maybe this is why we landed here.”

  Dak shrugged and followed Sera as she weaved her way through the crowd.

  Soon, a voice rose higher than all the others, and the crowd hushed. “Welcome!” the man said. “Attention! Take a close look at these fine slaves and get your bids ready. We’ve a prime young woman laborer with two children, not to be split. Think potential. A boy around six and an infant girl, two generations of work for the price of one. And we have a strong young man around sixteen, suitable for hard labor or household work. Last chance to examine them is now. Bidding begins in thirty minutes!”