An involuntary trembling starts in my legs and travels up my body. Just as I predicted, the gossip has spread, likely by Arabella. I’m certain now that she recognized me that day in the pawnshop. And although there’s no mention of the recent murders, they’re looking for me all the same. They know I’m alive. That I avoided my execution and escaped my grave. I was wise to flee the city. But even here, in this much smaller town, I’m not safe. If they capture me, if I’m seen and reported, it will mean certain death.
I wrap my cloak tightly around me, tuck the remaining bread into its folds, and walk at a fast clip with my head down, startling at every small sound. When I reach my hermitage, I crawl inside, where my trembling turns to full-body sobs. The next morning, after a fitful, restless night, I find more benne wafers and a small sweetgrass basket filled with cooked rice, red peas, and sausage. At least there’s one person in this world who cares that I live. But can I trust her? Four hundred dollars is a lot of money. Enough to tempt anyone. But as I eat my friend’s offering, the warm food nourishing my hunger, I feel ashamed. It’s a hard way of life, to suspect every kind gesture as something sinister. My friend has just as much to lose as I do. She must. And so I place my Whitby jet brooch inside the sweetgrass basket after I’m finished eating and set it on the stump, to let her know her generosity is returned.
Eight
I’m out fishing in the marsh one mid-February morning when it happens. With the tide coming in, sluicing around my feet, I don’t see the boar trap until it’s too late. I only hear the snap of its jaws closing around my shin. A cry of pain tears through me as I tumble into the pluff mud. I will myself to remain calm, to breathe through the bright, sharp agony as I attempt to pry the teeth of the trap open with my hands. My exertions yield nothing but more pain, lancing up my leg with even the tiniest movement. A cold, familiar clamminess washes over me, and I vomit, heaving up my meager breakfast. The sun beats down on my face, reflecting off the estuary waters as the tide creeps higher. A new kind of panic washes over me. I’ll be trapped here as the waters rise, pulled under by the thick, sucking mud. If I don’t move soon, I’ll drown.
Even through the pain, I have the sense to tear the fishing hook and twine from the branch I’ve been using for a fishing pole. I pocket them, then grasp the trap and pull it loose from the mud. I struggle to my feet, fighting the tug of the water around my shins. Blood streams into the water as I drag myself free, taking the trap with me. The teeth bite deeper into my flesh with every step. My head swims, stars sparking in my vision. I scan the landscape, trying to find my bearings through the fog of my agony, and trudge toward the trees, where the shelter of my campsite and dry land await. I’ve no mind what I will do once I achieve this smallest of victories. How I’ll remove the trap. How I’llmanage out here, alone, with a mangled leg. This could very well prove to be the end of me.
Once I reach the shore of my tiny island, I collapse, dragging myself on hands and knees toward my hermitage. My vision flickers before I make it inside, and I fall into a delirium of pain, the distant throb of my heartbeat the only sound in my ears.
When I come to my senses, two people are kneeling next to me on the ground, staring at me through the dim. I blink, my vision adjusting to the darkness. It’s my friend, and she’s brought someone with her. A man.
“We can’t,” he says, his voice low and sonorous. “You know that.”
“She’ll die if we leave her out here like this.” The girl is sweetly voiced, but firm in her resolve. She’s watched me long enough to know I’m not the boy I pretend to be.
They turn from me, continuing their conversation in hushed tones. Though I can’t make out their words, I can tell they’re arguing, and I can gather why. Two Negroes—whether free or not—found with an injured white woman means a death sentence. I’m a threat to their safety, even if there is a bounty on my head.
Their footfalls brush closer, and the girl squats next to me. I smile at her through the throbbing pain. She’s wearing my sapphire ring on her thumb. “Daddy says we can take you up to Angel’s Rest.”
Before I can protest, before I can ask what Angel’s Rest is, strong arms scoop me from the ground, lifting me. I cry out as the trap tightens around my shin, cutting into my flesh anew.
“Hush, girl. Be quiet now,” the man scolds.
I wrap my arms around his neck and do my best to soundlessly breathe through the pain as he carries me to the water with long strides. A shallow canoe sits moored in the spartina. The girl boards first, one foot in the water, the other steadying the boat as her father loads me into the hull, pillowing me against a bundle of fishing nets. He takes up his oars, and we shove off into the current. It’s a clear, star-filled night, lit by a fingernail sliver of moon.
Sometime later, I can’t determine how long, the canoe slows, and comes to a stop, sand scraping against its berth. I lift my head. Lights stream across the marsh, reflecting in the shallow water. In the near distance, I see a house—a large one—silhouetted against the sky, lights blazing from its mullioned windows and its wide, lantern-lit piazza. A plantation house.
“Run and tell him what’s happened,” the man says. “I’ll bring her.”
“Yes, sir.” The girl steps out of the canoe, bare feet splashing in the shallow water.
“Where are we?” I ask drowsily, my consciousness flickering. Everything feels like a dream.
The man sighs. “Angel’s Rest.”
Without another word, he heaves me over his shoulder like a sack of grain. I throttle the yelp of pain that tries to leap from my throat. The man steadies the trap with his other hand as best he can as he carries me. I can’t see the house as we approach it, only the tabby path below us, winding through a corridor of mossy oaks and resurrection ferns.
“Good heavens, Noah. Bring her to the kitchen house.” Another man’s voice cuts through my flickering consciousness, crisp and luxuriously accented. An Englishman. Amid the jostling, I can make out a pair of long legs in well-cut trousers. Polished shoes. The scent of camphor and something vaguely herbal accosts my senses as he strides past us, leading the way. We go through a doorway, and light blooms all around me. “There, put her on the table.”
Noah lays me gently down on a rough-hewn table and steps back. I turn my head and see a cast iron cookstove, shelves stocked with dry goods and spices, a deep soapstone sink. My friend stands just beyond the halo of lantern light on the table. She wears her hair wound up in a yellow turban tonight, the jet brooch I gave her pinned to the front. The style is becoming and makes her look older. She sees me looking at her and drops her eyes to the dirt floor.
“We’ll have to get this trap off before we can do anything else,” the Englishman says. “I’ll put some water on to boil.” I hear the doorto the stove creak open. The clatter of crockery, followed by the smell of burning firewood. The Englishman floats into view again and gazes down at me with deep-blue eyes, ringed by a fringe of heavy black lashes. His dark hair grazes his collar in a tumult of waves, but he’s clean shaven—a deviation from the current fashion for full beards. His cool hand brushes my forehead, sending a shiver through me. “She’s already feverish. Could you help me, please, Noah? Hold her leg straight. I’ll do the rest. These traps are nasty things.” I feel Noah’s firm grip close around my knee and bite my lip to keep from crying out as he straightens my leg.
The doctor—for he must be that—goes to the foot of the table and leans forward, his hair obscuring the lean planes of his face. “Now. Be very still, young miss,” he admonishes me. “This is going to hurt. A lot. But then it will be over.”
Just when I think I’ve reached the upper limits of pain, a white-hot knife’s blade slices through me, followed by a wave of nausea as the doctor presses all his weight onto the leaves of the trap. It springs open with a groan, freeing my leg. “There we are!” he exclaims.
Suddenly, I feel hot and cold all at once. I begin to shake, from head to toe. My vision narrows to a pinprick. An ocean roars in my ears.
“She’s falling into shock,” I hear the doctor say. “That’s to be expected, poor thing. I’ll clean her wounds, stitch her up, and ready a room.”
The last thing I see is the girl as she rushes to my side. And then the world goes dark.
Nine
The next few hours, or days, or weeks go by in feverish confusion. I fade in and out of consciousness. The doctor and sometimes the girl visit me. She presses warm cups of beef broth to my lips and bids me drink. I learn her name is Ruby. Ruby with the sapphire ring. The doctor changes my dressings once a day, with quick, gentle motions, dabbing a foul-smelling paste on my sutures before wrapping fresh linen around my leg again. I know the scent of him. Camphor. Lemon. Something earthy and warm I can’t mark, but it’s pleasant, all the same.
