Ashes

by Laurie Halse Anderson

  But how to understand her manner toward me now? Had they treated her so badly that her wits were fully addled, her remembery lost forever? Why doesn’t she know me?

  “Who’s that?” The cook stood in the doorway of the summer kitchen. “You there, girl, what’s your business?”

  The voice startled me into action. “Ruth.” I grabbed her elbow. “Come with me.”

  She pulled away with a frown. Her refusal surprised me as much as her strength.

  “Unhand that child!” The cook rushed toward us as I again reached for my sister. Close on her heels came the old man and the boy with the injured arm.

  “I’ve come to take you home,” I said urgently. “We have to run!”

  I reached for her again and managed to clutch a handful of her skirt.

  “Don’t touch her,” shouted the boy.

  The old man hobbled behind him. “You let go of our Ruth!” he called in a high, reedy voice. “Release her!”

  The three of them pressed close together like a guard. Ruth spun out of my grip and slipped behind them.

  Why doesn’t she know me?

  The ground under my feet seemed to roll, as if I stood aboard a ship in the middle of the ocean. This almost-grown Ruth thought I was a stranger. My body ached with the pain of it. My heart hung heavy in my chest, not wanting to beat.

  She turned her face away from me.

  “Please–” I started.

  “The soldiers took everything.” The old man was out of breath, but he spoke quickly. “I’m sorry, lass, we’ve nothing left to give. Mister Prentiss is due back soon and–”

  “You don’t understand,” I interrupted. “I’m not looking for food. I’m here for Ruth.”

  The boy moved so that he stood betwixt us, a spindly fence with long legs. “Don’t seem she knows you,” he said.

  His rude manner sparked my anger.

  “Don’t seem that’s your business,” I snapped. “Tell them, Ruth.”

  Ruth gently shook her head back and forth, denying me wordlessly.

  “You ought to leave right away, child,” the cook said quietly, “for your own safety. These are unsettled times.”

  “Fina’s right,” the man added. “’Tain’t safe here. Wait in the woods till dark; we’ll bring food. But then you must head out. Last thing we need is more trouble.”

  “I’m not making trouble!”

  “Hush!” The boy locked his hand around my wrist like a metal cuff. “Missus Serafina and Mister Walter want you gone, so gone you gonna be.”

  I tried to pull away. “Turn me loose, you skulking varlet.”

  He had the strength of a body used to hard work, but his eyes were red rimmed and bruised from a beating, plus he favored that injured arm. A kick to the side of his knee would free me, but it would not help my cause.

  The old man took charge. “Stay out of this, Deen,” he ordered.

  “Let me walk her to the river.” The boy tightened his grip.

  I thought again about the kick and shifted my weight in preparation to deliver it.

  “Carolina is best known for treating guests with kindness!”

  We all turned at the sound of the booming voice. Curzon boldly strode toward us from around the side of the barn. He was skilled at adopting the speech of many places. Now he spoke in flat Yankee tones that fair shouted he was a stranger to the South. “Also known for greeting kin with joy, Carolina is,” he continued. “Or at the least, with friendliness.”

  The boy eyed Curzon’s tall, muscular form and wisely let go of me. “We’re no kin to you.”

  “Nay.” Curzon took his place beside me. “But that girl?” He pointed to Ruth. “And this girl?” He jerked a thumb at me. “They’re sisters.”

  The cook looked sharply between us. “Sisters?”

  “We’ve been looking for Miss Ruth for years,” Curzon said. “Last we saw her was in New York, in ’76. The Lockton mistress witnessed one of Ruth’s fits and sent her down here. She had Isabel drugged the night Ruth was taken, to make the matter more easily accomplished.”

  “Not taken.” Tears threatened, and I dug my nails into my palms. “Stolen. Kidnapped.”

  “Is this true?” the cook asked Ruth.

  I held my breath. Ruth gently set the two kittens in the wooden box without a word. Could she understand what was happening? Was her mind broken or was there another cause for her stubborn refusal to acknowledge me?

  “Well?” the cook asked.

  Ruth picked up the box. “Must take these babies to the barn.”

  “Answer Missus Serafina, darlin’,” the old man said. “Is this lass your sister?”

  Ruth hesitated, then looked at the boy with the injured arm as if seeking his advice. His nod of permission made me want to pull off his ears.

  “Please, child,” Missus Serafina urged. “You must tell us.”

  “She was my sister when I was little”–Ruth lifted her chin and looked right through me with sorrowful eyes–“but she’s not my sister now.” She set the crate on her hip. “Go home, Isabel.”

  CHAPTER VI

  Tuesday, June 26, 1781

  THE ENEMY CAME THERE; HE REPORTS THAT THEY TOOK WITH THEM 19 NEGROES AMONG WHOM WERE BETTY, PRINCE, CHANCE & ALL THE HARDY BOYS BUT LEFT THE WOMEN WITH CHILD OR YOUNG CHILDREN. . . . THEY TOOK WITH THEM ALL THE HORSES THEY COULD FIND, BURNT THE DWELLING HOUSE & BOOKS DESTROYED ALL THE FURNITURE, CHINA, ETC., KILLED THE SHEEP & POULTRY AND DRANK THE LIQUORS.

  –LETTER FROM CAPTAIN THOMAS PINCKNEY TO HIS MOTHER, ELIZA LUCAS PINCKNEY, DESCRIBING THE EFFECTS OF A BRITISH RAID ON THE FAMILY’S SOUTH CAROLINA PLANTATION

  WHEN I WAS LITTLE, I once watched the slaughter of an enormous ox. The powerful beast was strong enough to kill the butcher, so the man entered the pen armed with a sledgehammer, as well as a long knife. He went straight to work without a word, raising the heavy hammer high in the air, then bringing it down on the animal’s huge head. The ox stood, quivering, for a moment. It looked at me, wet eyes stunned with pain and confusion. Then it collapsed in the mud.

  As Ruth walked away from me, I felt as if my body and soul had been shattered, like I was that poor ox, frozen in the moment after the dizzying blow of the hammer and before the killing-cut of the knife.

  Ruth disappeared into the darkness of the barn.

  My knees wobbled again. Suddenly Curzon was at my side, his arm around me to keep me from falling.

  “Something’s not right,” I murmured. “She’s been hexed or she’s befuddled. I must talk to her. . . .”

  “We found her,” Curzon said softly. “All is well. Let’s talk to these folks, learn about the full circumstances here.”

  “But . . .” I paused, unable to think clearly, barely able to speak. “But . . .”

  “Come with us,” the old woman said. “I’ve seen fatter broomsticks than the two of you. You need to eat.”

  Curzon’s arm gently propelled me forward, and we followed the old couple and the boy into the summer kitchen.

  Once inside, Curzon peered out each window, his face grave. “Is it safe for us here?”

  “For now,” Mister Walter said as he slowly sat on the bench. “Prentiss, he’s the overseer, he’s gone to Charleston to get more field hands. Won’t be back for a few more days ’cause he’s got a lady friend down there. You’re safe enough for a good meal.”

  Missus Serafina set bowls filled with rice and beans on the table.

  “Very kind, ma’am.” Curzon shot me a worried glance and sat down across the table from Mister Walter and the boy. “We are much obliged to you.”

  I found myself sitting next to him, with no memory of walking to the table, nor taking a seat. My mind had become unmoored from my body, like a rowboat that slipped its anchor or an apron blown off the clothesline in a gale. I kept picturing young Ruth, remembering the feel of her chubby arms around my neck as I pretended to be her horse, galloping across the garden at her command.

  “Here you go, dear.”


  I blinked out of my reverie. Missus Serafina was handing me a mug.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” I replied.

  “Drink it down,” she said firmly. “All of it.”

  The water was straight-from-a-deep-well cold and made my teeth ache, but the first sip made me realize how dry and dusty my insides were. By the time the mug was empty, my head throbbed with the chill of it.

  Curzon dug his elbow into my side; Mister Walter was waiting to bless the meal.

  I closed my eyes and bowed my head. His heartfelt prayer brought me no comfort. That increased my misery even more, which did not seem possible but was true.

  When the prayer was finished, Curzon introduced us properly.

  “You married?” the old man asked.

  “Friends,” Curzon said. “Respectable friends, sir.”

  Mister Walter stirred his breakfast. “I’ve been married to my old gal for thirty-seven years now.”

  His wife scooped dried peas from a barrel. “Thirty-eight.”

  He smiled at her. “She thinks I forget. This here is Aberdeen.” He nodded at the boy with the sling.

  Aberdeen glared at us, then went back to eating.

  “Where are the rest of your people?” Curzon asked. “What happened here?”

  “Patriot militia came through a few weeks back, looted the place good. A few, including Deen, took advantage of the trouble and ran off. Prentiss gathered up some friends and went after them, only left three fellas here to guard the rest of us.” He grinned. “A group of rovers came in and finished the work of looting the place. They scared off the guards. A good hundred or so fled to freedom. I pray every night that they all make it.”

  “Did they run to the British?” Curzon asked.

  “Doubtful,” Mister Walter said. “British officers stayed here in the spring, guests of Lockton. They treated us just as bad as any of them.”

  I should be paying closer attention to his words, I thought. We need to learn all we can before we leave. But sorrow dulled my mind. Ruth wanted nothing to do with me. I was Isabel, her not-sister. I could think of little else.

  “Where were you headed?” Curzon asked Aberdeen.

  “Spanish Florida,” Aberdeen said before he put a big spoonful of rice and beans into his mouth. “Twisted my ankle running and tried to hide in a tree. Would have made it, but the branch broke. So did my collarbone when I hit the ground.”

  “Prentiss did the rest,” said Mister Walter.

  That explained the boy’s swollen eyes and the stiff way he walked.

  “Fool doesn’t have the sense God gave a goat.” Missus Serafina put the lid back on the barrel of peas and hit it sharply with a small mallet to make it fit tight. “Couldn’t wait for the sun to set that day, had to be the first one across the field. Numbskull.”

  Aberdeen scowled but said nothing.

  Mister Walter took a sip of water, then asked, “See any soldiers close by?”

  Curzon briefly described our adventure at the crossroads, giving details about the skirmish and the number of men on both sides. While he talked, I ate the beans and rice, tho’ I tasted them not. My sister had denied me. Nothing else mattered.

  “I thought all the British were holed up in Charleston,” Curzon finally said.

  “Been terrible lawless out here since that city fell,” Mister Walter said.

  I was heartily sick of hearing of armies and dangerous men. I murmured an excuse, stood up, and walked to the open door, where I could watch the barn for signs of Ruth.

  “Why didn’t you and your wife run?” I heard Curzon ask.

  “Too old to move fast enough,” Mister Walter said. “Didn’t want to put anyone in danger. If our Sirus and Jenny were still alive, they’d have put us on their backs and carried us. Our family would have been the first one gone.”

  “Long gone,” added Missus Serafina.

  “But they passed on years ago, and their children . . .” He paused for a moment, then cleared his throat. “We’ve no way of knowing where our grandbabies are. They were sold away from us. Mebbe that’s why we became so fond of Ruth. She filled the hole in our hearts.”

  No one spoke for a moment. Of all the wretched sins committed by the white people who stole our lives, the breaking of families was the most evil.

  I needed to concentrate on the good of this circumstance, lest I lose my reason. Ruth was alive, had been well cared for. This old couple loved her and had raised her like she was one of their own. Indeed, she had become their own.

  But did that mean she wasn’t mine?

  CHAPTER VII

  Tuesday, June 26, 1781

  MY MIND WAS SORELY DISTRESSED AT THE THOUGHT OF BEING AGAIN REDUCED TO SLAVERY, AND SEPARATED FROM MY WIFE AND FAMILY.

  –MEMOIRS OF BOSTON KING, WHO FLED SLAVERY TO JOIN THE BRITISH ARMY

  DON’T STAND THERE IDLE,” MISSUS Serafina said, motioning for me to join her at the worktable. “Help me sort these peas.”

  I wiped the tears off my face, shook my head to clear away the clouds of melancholy, and took my place next to her. Her twisted fingers rubbed each pea slow and careful before she set it in the pot. I realized that her left eye was gone milky, and her right was not much better. Missus Serafina was nearly blind.

  “Why don’t you sit awhile?” I asked.

  “I might just do that,” she said, sliding the heavy bowl over to me. “But you make sure to do the job right. No one likes stones in their soup.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I promised.

  Missus Serafina dished out more food for the fellows at the table, then joined them with a bowl of her own. The conversating fell into the weary, familiar subject of the war. The fatigue of the long night fell across my thoughts like a welcome shroud. My hands fell into the rhythm of choosing the good from the bad: Pea, pea, pebble. Pea. Pea. Pebble. Pea. I didn’t look up until the bowl was empty some time later, startled to find I was alone with the old lady.

  My heart pounded. Why was this happening, this dropping out of time and awareness? We were in dire circumstances. I needed to be alert; I needed to understand what we’d walked into.

  “Your friend offered to split wood for us.” She poured hot water into a basin to wash the dirty bowls and mugs. “We’re running low.”

  The sound of chopping came through the window, and I felt more at ease. Curzon was close by.

  “If you have another axe, I can help him.”

  “The way your mind wanders?” she chuckled. “Cut your foot off, you would. You might could dry a few dishes if you want.” She handed me a cloth and pared a few soap shavings into the steaming water.

  We worked in quiet, punctuated by the sound of the axe cleaving wood. She waited a bit before she asked the question that I knew was coming.

  “How’d you come by that?” She pointed a soapy finger at the scar on my cheek in the shape of the letter I.

  “Madam Lockton, with the help of a judge in New York.” As I spoke that hated name, I realized that Missus Serafina would understand better than anyone, so I continued. “When she told me that Ruth had been sold to the islands, I fought her. She had me arrested, and”–I motioned to my face–“the court took her side in the matter.”

  Missus Serafina scrubbed hard at rice stuck to the bottom of a bowl. “That woman has a serpent where her soul should be.”

  “Is she in Charleston?” I asked.

  “Madam?” Missus Serafina chuckled low. “She and her mister got tired of the war. They’re in London now, waiting for it to end.”

  “London?” I could scarce credit her words. “London in England?”

  “The very same.” She chuckled again. “I can just see Madam trying to worm her way into the Queen’s parlor, and that old Queen telling a footman to shut the door in her pointy face.”

  Loathing and rage against the Lockton woman had been the other constant in my heart as I’d searched for Ruth. Just as it had never occurred to me that Ruth wouldn’t be happy to see me, I’d never once considered t
hat my greatest enemy had fled over the sea to England. So much of what I thought to be true had been overturned in the course of one morning, I knew not the difference between up and down.

  “That when you ran off? When they burned you?”

  Missus Serafina’s question tugged me back. “No, ma’am. That was in the summertime. I didn’t learn that Ruth had been sent to Carolina instead of the islands till after Christmas. That’s when I ran.” I paused. “That’s when we ran.”

  Before I knew it, I was pouring out our story to her in a way that I’d never done before. I described the frozen January night we escaped New York, then arguing with Curzon for months until the two of us went our separate ways, and the way Fate had brought us together again at the Valley Forge encampment. I explained all we’d endured there and how we’d run from Bellingham, the cursed man who’d tried to claim us as his property. By the time we’d finished the dishes and mixed up a batch of corn bread, I’d told her of the years we’d worked our way to Riverbend and the troubles that had slowed our journey.

  Missus Serafina spread the corn bread batter into a spider pan and set it over the glowing coals that she’d raked to the front of the hearth. She slowly stood up and wiped her hands on her apron.

  “And you haven’t married the lad?” she asked.

  My face flushed hot. “Like he said, we are respectable friends, nothing more.”

  “Do you love him?”

  “We are often at odds.”

  “Sounds like a marriage to me,” she said. “How long you plan on staying?”

  “Hadn’t planned, in truth. I figgered Ruth was in Charleston. Only came here to see what we could learn about her circumstances.”

  The pain inside my heart reached and clutched at my throat. I was caught in the worst nightmare imaginable, worse than anything I’d ever endured . . . worse than all of it combined. It felt as if the firmament of my world, of my soul, was cracking, and I didn’t know how to stop it.

  “Child?” Missus Serafina hobbled over to me. “What is the matter?”

  I cleared my throat, forced out the words. “I . . . I never thought she’d forget me. She must have been so scared, she was so little then. I . . .” My voice was raw and ragged. “I’m so grateful, ma’am, so blessed that you and your husband cared for her, you love her and . . .”