Cecily raises her hand to her lips, trying to warn him not to shout at her, now that he’s got her attention. She hurries back toward the boathouse, and when she gets around to the backside, where she can look straight up into the tree’s branches, she motions for Moses to climb down.
She’s so mad, she could scream. But she’s got no choice other than to bite her tongue and wait for him to arrive in front of her. When he does, she puts her finger in his face and asks in a tight whisper, “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m watching out for you,” he says.
“Watching out for me?” She wants to strangle him. “How you going to watch out for me up in a tree?”
Moses holds up a spade. “If anyone comes looking for you, I’m going to strike ’em with this.”
Cecily doesn’t know if she wants to hug him or hit him. He’s a sweet boy, even if he is likely to get her killed.
“Moses, you is sitting up in a tree, spitting distance from where I’m hiding. If they find you, don’t you think they going to find me, too?”
Moses scratches the side of his face with the handle of the spade, like he hadn’t thought of that. “I couldn’t just do nothing.”
“Doing nothing is exactly what you need to do. You got to act like the fire really got me. Do all the same things you’d do if I was dead.”
“I don’t know what I’d do if you was dead,” he says, and the way his lips tremble getting the words out makes her immediately regret deciding to go. She’s spent all this time thinking about how hard it will be to leave her mama and papa and brother and sisters behind. But maybe what she should have been thinking about was how hard her leaving was going to be on them.
“I’m sorry this is going to hurt you,” she says to Moses as she pulls himclose. He is still small enough that he fits in the crook of her arm, but he is starting to smell like a man. “And Mama and Papa and the girls.”
“Did Mama tell you what happened to Papa?”
Cecily pulls back, looks him straight in the eye. “What?”
“He got picked up by the patrol yesterday morning while he was out looking for you.”
“Becauseof me?”
Moses shakes his head. “I don’t think so. He was with Big John and Terrance, and they all got taken in.”
“How’d you find out?”
“Uncle Gilbert.”
Cecily is stunned. She tries to picture her papa, already exhausted and afraid after a long night of looking for her, having to explain himself to some patroller. “Mama didn’t say a thing to me.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have, either?”
“It’s fine,” says Cecily. “I want to know what’s happening—even if there ain’t nothing I can do about it.”
“I ain’t sure there’s anything any of us can do about it.”
“Is he all right? Papa?”
“Appears to be. I ran down to the birdcage soon as I heard, and tried to talk to him. But he wouldn’t say much.”
“Did you tell him I’m alive?”
Moses shakes his head again. “The place was packed full. I was scared to even try.”
Cecily reaches out and picks a twig out of her little brother’s hair. “You’re a smart boy.”
Moses beams.
“I’m lucky to have you looking out for me,” she says, “but you got to go home. You understand?”
“I’ll do a better job hiding.”
