What did she mean? Who was growing fond of Charlie? Charlie was not their child, not even their apprentice. She felt a need to explain to the woman that Charlie belonged to her, but she couldn’t figure out how.
“Just tell him I was here, ey?” she said awkwardly. At the door she remembered the sugar and shoved it at the woman. “Some sugar,” she mumbled.
“We’d be happy for you to stay awhile,” the woman said, but Lyddie was already picking up her things. “I have to go,” she said. “Not much time.”
She realized later that she had forgotten to say thank you. But there was no going back. Besides she was in a hurry to get to the farm. She’d have time to clean the house well and check the roofs, as well as find a good place to hide the money. She’d just spend the night there, as it would be almost dark by the time she got everything done.
If she got an early start the next day, perhaps she could stop by once more at the mill … but, no … She couldn’t stop by again and ask for Charlie and have him at school again. What would they think of her? And it might embarrass Charlie to have his sister clucking over him like an old biddy hen. She couldn’t stand the thought of Charlie being mortified by her in front of these people who thought so highly of him.
Well, she was glad. Hadn’t she felt bad that he didn’t have a father and mother like Luke Stevens had to watch over him? But these weren’t his real family. She was his real family. More than their mother, really, who had shucked them off like corn husks to follow her craziness.
Her anger, or whatever emotion it was that kept her head reeling, kept her feet moving as well. She was walking past the Stevenses’ farm by noon. She never stopped to eat, but on the last leg of the trip she suddenly realized her hunger and chewed on the now hard roll and dry cheese as she climbed the narrow track toward the farm.
There was still plenty of snow on the track, but it was better packed than she had imagined. Mr. Westcott must be going back and forth to see to his cows. And then she realized there was snow on the pastures. There’d be no animals up in the fields. But of course—the sugaring. He had gone back and forth gathering sap from the sugar bush.
When she rounded the bend, she half expected the cabin to have disappeared. But there it sat, sagging a bit, squat and honest as her father had built it. The firewood was stacked against the door as she and Charlie had left it. The roofs seemed undamaged from the snow—thanks, perhaps, to Luke Stevens. Those must be his tracks around the cabin. She felt kindly toward the tall, awkward young Quaker for taking care.
She fetched the short ladder from the shed and propped it against one of the two south windows. Then she fetched a piece of split wood from the pile at the front door. The window should be easy to pry open unless it had swollen, but it hadn’t. Indeed, it seemed to open quite smoothly, as though welcoming her home. Lyddie propped it up with the wood. She put her right leg over the sill and scrunched her head down onto her chest to squeeze into the opening.
Then she saw it at the fireplace—a shadowy form. She stifled a scream. “Luke?” she whispered. “That you?”
The form turned and stood up. She could barely make it out in the gloom of the cabin. It was a tall man. But not Luke. There was a strange man in her home—the whites of his eyes seemed enormous. And then she realized what was so strange about him. In the dim light his face and hands were very dark. Only his eyes shone. She was looking at a black man.
6
Ezekial
With one leg over the windowsill and her body pressed up under the window frame, there seemed no way to run. But why should she run? It was her house, after all, and what was one measly man, black or white, compared to a bear? Besides—she broke into a cold sweat—this man was likely to be worth one hundred dollars. Keeping her eyes on the intruder as though he were a bear, she managed to get her left foot across the sill and straighten herself to a sitting position on the window ledge. Pretending courage seemed to manufacture it, so she was just about to open her mouth to ask the man who he was and what he was doing in her house when he spoke to her.
“Verily, verily I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.” His voice was deep and smooth, almost like thick, brushed fur. She knew his words were from the Bible, but she was so astonished by the music of them that she sat there openmouthed, unable to protest that whatever he might be, she was no thief.
“Never fear, little miss. My heart assures me that you’re neither a thief nor a robber.”
“No,” she said, and then louder to show her authority, “I’m mistress here.”
“Ah,” he said, “we meet at last. You must be Miss Lydia Worthen, my hostess. Forgive my intrusion.”
“How do you know my name, ey?” She had meant to ask his, or at least what he was doing in her house, but, as before, he’d gotten the better of her with his fancy talk and quick mind.
“Brother Stevens,” he said. “He felt you would be understanding.” He glanced at her, and for the first time since he had spied her at the window his expression seemed uncertain. “I hope he was not mistaken.” He smiled apologetically. “Here, do come down from there and share a cup of tea with me. You’ve had a long journey, I’d imagine, and a rude shock, finding your home occupied by a stranger.”
What else was she to do? She took the hand he held out to her, surprised by its roughness, as his skin looked like satin in the dim light.
He helped her to the floor. She followed as he led her to the rocker, and then she sat perched on the edge of the chair as he handed her a cup of birch tea. Why hadn’t she spied smoke, coming up the road? But the man’s fire was tiny, so perhaps there was none to see. The cabin was cold, though warmer than the outdoors. The man poured himself a cup and pulled up a stool on the other side of the fireplace to sit down facing her.
“You’ve come from the village
,” he said.
She nodded. The man could hardly be a runaway slave. He talked like a congregational preacher. But he was in hiding, that was plain.
“I should introduce myself,” he said, reading her mind. “I’m Ezekial Abernathy, or was so called formerly. I was on the way northward when the snow delayed me last November.”
Then he was a fugitive.
“I was conveyed to Brother Stevens’s farm, where I stayed until it became clear that someone was watching their farm. That was when young Luke spirited me here. He thought your log pile at the door would discourage curiosity.”
“We done it to keep out wild critters.”