"I'm sorry, Isaac. I was sick last night and I'm not feeling good today. Just don't be chunkin' at the squirrels. You forgive me?" she said.
"Yessum," he said.
He rubbed the back of his neck when he spoke and she could see that neither the pain nor the shock had left his eyes. She got to her knees and held him against her breast. Then she walked to the gallery, where Abigail had been watching her.
"I'm going home, Miss Abby," she said.
"Tell me what it is," Abigail said.
"I don't think I'll be back."
"That's nonsense."
"No, it's a heap of trouble," Flower said.
"I'm going to dismiss the children and take you home," Abigail said.
"I don't need any help, Miss Abby."
"We'll see about that," Abigail said.
It was almost noon, and Abigail told the children they could leave the school early and not return until the next day. While they poured out the front door into the yard and street, she brought her buggy around from the back and went after Flower.
"Get in," she said in front of the hardware store.
"Miss Abby, you mean well, but don't mix in this," Flower said.
"Stop calling me 'Miss Abby.' I'm your friend. I admire you more than any person I've ever known."
Flower paused, then stepped up into the buggy and sat down, her face straight ahead.
"There's a door with a secret catch on it in the side of my house. Last night I woke up with Rufus Atkins and Todd McCain standing by my bed," she said. She glanced back at the hardware store. "They were wearing Kluxer robes and hoods, but it was them."
Abigail reined up the horse and started to speak, but Flower grasped the reins and popped them down on the horse's rump.
"Atkins touched me with his whip, like I was a piece of livestock. He wanted me to know I'd never be free, that he or a hundred like him could come for me anytime they wanted," Flower said. "I'll never get them out of my life."
"Oh yes, we will," Abigail said.
"It's a nigger girl's word against a captain in the Confederate army, Miss Abby. Plus I didn't see his face."
"Don't you dare call yourself that. Don't you dare."
But Flower refused to speak the rest of the way home.
The house and yard and flower beds were marbled with shadows, the wind touched with rain, the cane rustling in the fields. Down the road Abigail could see convict carpenters in striped pants and jumpers framing Rufus Atkins' new house, hammering boards into place, sitting on the crossbeams like clothespins. Farther down the road, past the burned remnants of the laundry, she thought she saw the polished, black carriage of Ira Jamison disappearing around a bend.
Flower got down from the buggy and went inside the house, leaving the door open behind her. Abigail followed her.
"What are you planning to do?" Abigail asked.
"Go to the privy and make water."
"You answer my question, Flower."
"I aim to put Rufus Atkins in hell for what he did to my mother and me. And before he dies I aim to make him hurt."
"It doesn't have to be like this."