Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Author’s Note
PHILOMEL BOOKS
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With love to
Elisa and Paloma,
my brave and clever girls
Chapter 1
THERE WERE TWO kinds of slaves on the plantation Lillie and her family called home: those who could sleep on the night before the slave seller came and those who couldn’t. Lillie’s little brother was too young to understand exactly what the job of the slave seller was, so this morning, just before sunrise on the day the terrible man was going to arrive, the boy lay deeply sleeping beside her in the narrow bed the two of them shared. Mama knew the slave seller well, having seen too many of his visits over the years and watched too many people she knew and even loved get sold off like prize heads of livestock. For much of the night, Mama had thus tossed and thrashed in her bed on the other side of the family’s little cabin, giving in to sleep only in the last hour or so. Lillie had slept even less than Mama, drifting in and out of a fitful doze for much of the night and awakening fully a short time ago, just as the sky was beginning to show a faint shimmer of dawn outside her window.
As most of the slaves on the plantation knew, the slave seller was not actually a slave seller at all. What he was—or at least what the white family called him—was a slave appraiser, a man whose sole job was to visit plantations throughout the county, examine the slaves working there and report back to the auctioneers about which ones looked likely to bring the highest price. Slaves who were selected this way were usually gone within a month and almost never seen again. Rumors had been swirling for weeks that the appraiser would be making his rounds soon, and that was no surprise.
The last harvest had been a poor one at Greenfog—which was what the plantation where Lillie lived was called—and the war between the North and South, now in its third year, was making money even harder to come by throughout Beaufort County and the rest of South Carolina too. Masters who could not raise enough cash selling their crops would often turn to selling some slaves. Yesterday, just after the quitting horn sounded, the overseer called the Greenfog slaves together in a field near the stables and announced that their Master had decided that some of them would have to go, and they’d all be priced for sale in the morning.
This, of course, was the worst news a group of slaves could hear, but the Master had tricks to try to make them forget that—or at least to think about it less. Last night, as on all nights before the appraiser came, an extra ration of pork—pink and fresh-killed, not salted and dried—was distributed to all the cabins. Fresh pork was said to brighten moods and soften skin, giving slaves the healthy, well-fed look the auctioneers liked to see. The pork had been delicious—it was always delicious before slave appraiser days—and Lillie’s little brother had stuffed himself with it. Despite her worries, Lillie could not resist it either. Mama would not eat a bite.
Even better than the ham the slaves ate was the rest they’d get. Today, the morning horn would sound a bit later than usual and there would be no fieldwork to do. Well-rested slaves were also thought to be more appealing to the appraiser. For Lillie, however—and for all the other slaves who lay awake on the night before the slave seller came—extra time to sleep just meant extra time to brood, and as morning now broke, Lillie found herself staring ahead into the shadows of the cabin, her mind filled with thoughts of the sorrow that at least one family would feel before the sun went down on Greenfog again.
Lillie stole a glance at her sleeping brother, who was called Plato, and envied him the things he did not know. She was thirteen now, old enough to understand when trouble was coming. But she had been barely the boy’s age—which was six—the first time the appraiser called. Back then, if Mama and Papa told her not to worry about what was going on, she wouldn’t worry. If they told her that none of them would ever be sold away or flogged, she believed that too. When a child was marked for sale and its mother dropped to her knees and wailed with a terrible, animal sound, Mama would pick Lillie up and carry her off and sing in her ear so close and strong that the sound of the weeping woman’s screams would seem to fall away.
But Lillie was too old to pick up now, too old to sing to and too old to believe good things were going to happen just because Mama said they were. All the other children who’d lost a family member to the slave traders had had mamas who told them the same things, and that hadn’t helped them a lick.
As Lillie lay in bed, lost in these dark thoughts, a terrible, choking feeling came over her, and her skin went prickly hot with fear. In time, the sun would be up and she would face the day as well as she could—which she reckoned would proba
bly be good enough. But here in the still-dark cabin, the low ceiling and the deep silence and even the thin, scratchy blanket under which she lay seemed all at once as if they would suffocate her. She flung off the blanket, causing her brother to stir slightly, and drew three or four deep, trembly breaths. She needed to get up, she needed to be outside, at least until day broke and her mama awoke. And she needed to go see her friend Bett.
Ever since Lillie had been old enough to explore the plantation on her own, spending time with Bett had lifted her mood. Bett was an old slave who lived on a tiny patch of unfarmed land just beyond the tobacco field. She had spent nearly all her adult life working the ovens in the Master’s kitchen, baking cakes and muffins and loaves of bread and all manner of sweets and treats. When Bett was too old for Big House work, the Master had allowed the other slaves to build her a cabin of her own where she could live out her remaining years. She would still be required to work, of course, but now it would be for the other slaves alone, baking their weekly portion of bread, which the mamas were usually too busy in the fields to make on their own.
Bett had been old for as long as Lillie could remember, but no one seemed to know her exact age, including Bett herself—who also didn’t seem to care. “There ain’t but two states of things,” she liked to say. “There’s alive, and there’s dead. I expect I’ll be one until I’m the other.”
When Lillie was feeling sad or cross, she’d often as not find her way to Bett’s cabin, where she would help with the cleaning or water fetching or sometimes even the baking itself, and would always get something fine and fresh-baked for her troubles.
All the same, Lillie had not visited Bett much in the last year. She had an older girl’s thoughts and an older girl’s troubles now, and was not so easily soothed by a child’s work and a child’s reward. This morning, however, the comforts of Bett felt like just what she needed. Lillie glanced toward the window at the faintly brightening sky. Bett, she knew, would surely be awake now; she made it her business to be up before the sun. If Lillie hurried to her cabin now, she could help herself to one of the old woman’s smiles—and perhaps a bite of her fresh-baked bread—and be back before her brother and Mama even knew she was gone.
Quietly, Lillie climbed out of bed. She was wearing nothing but her nightshirt, but it was long enough—nearly to her knees—to protect her against the morning chill and against being punished for going about undressed should anyone spot her. She tiptoed toward the door, taking care not to make the floorboards creak. She cast a nervous glance back toward Plato and Mama and then, before her courage could fail her, slipped out the front door.
The pebbly soil outside the cabin felt damp and gritty against Lillie’s feet, and she shuddered a bit at the touch of it. She looked ahead toward the tobacco field and set off in its direction in a light trot. It was early September, and the days were still hot in the Carolinas, but the mornings were cool and pleasant, and Lillie enjoyed the feel of the air against her face and her bare arms and legs. Running through the tobacco plants, she squinted toward the end of the field where Bett’s cabin lay. As she drew closer, she picked up the scent of baking on the air and smiled. It smelled like cornbread, and it smelled fine—but it also surprised her. Bett always baked her morning bread the night before, and on most days, she did not light her oven much before noon. Still, the smell alone helped lift Lillie’s mood. It was almost as if Bett knew she’d be coming and knew what she’d need. Bett did seem to know such things without being told, a fact that delighted Lillie most of the time—and spooked her a little at other times.
At last, Lillie broke out of the field and into the clearing where the little cabin stood. She could see the curl of white cook smoke rising from the small chimney, and she came to a stop, scanning the quiet scene. As she did, her eyes widened in surprise. Bett raised a thick garden of flowers and vegetables behind her cabin, and that garden often drew a thick cloud of bees. But there was something queer about Bett’s bees—or at least sometimes there was. Unlike most bees, which could fly a lot faster than a person could duck and run, Bett’s bees were often strangely slow. Their wings moved with the sleepy sweep of swan wings; they floated from flower to hive so lazily that Lillie could sometimes beat them there at a walk. And if one of them came at her cross enough to sting, she could step out of the way and brush it out of the air with barely a thought. Few other people ever saw the bees, just a slave child now and then who might be playing nearby and whose story of having seen such a thing was never believed by any adult. Lillie and her brother did see the bees. They took to calling them the slowbees and loved to watch them when they appeared.
“Quick!” Lillie would call. “The slowbees is about!” And Plato would come running.
Now, in the just-breaking sun, Lillie could see that the slowbees were everywhere, massing around the garden thick and dark as a rain cloud, as if they too had been drawn by the baking. This many bees could sting a horse to death no matter how slowly they were moving. Lillie didn’t want to consider what they could do to a child like her. She took a step back and started to turn away. But at that moment, the door to the cabin creaked open and Bett appeared. She looked as she always did—small, stout, strong. But she looked older and wearier too, as if baking so early in the day were too much for her.
“I reckoned I’d see you this morning, child,” she said with a small smile. “But it’s best you not be here now.”
Lillie was surprised. Bett had never turned her away before. “I felt like visitin’,” she said uncertainly.
“I know,” Bett said. “I expected you would. But there’s matters I have to mind this morning.” Lillie glanced toward the bees, but Bett didn’t follow her gaze. “Come later,” Bett said. “Later there’ll be cornbread for you.”
Bett closed the door, and Lillie stood where she was for a moment. Then she turned and walked off—thoughts of the slave appraiser once again filling her head, and the low buzzing of the bees filling her ears.
Chapter Two
BETT DID NOT FEEL good about sending Lillie away. The old woman had not been called to the stable yesterday to hear the overseer’s announcement—she was never required to do such things anymore—but she’d heard the rumors about the appraiser’s visit and reckoned when the assembly horn blew that that was what it was about. This morning was surely the kind of morning Lillie would want to come visit. She was a fool child sometimes—all children were—but she was a good child too. Still, Bett had other matters to tend to and she needed to turn her full thoughts to them.
The tray of cornbread that had been baking in the oven was finished, and Bett took it out and set it aside. It looked fine, and it smelled proper, but it was not up to the job she needed it to do. She’d have to start over with something different. With a sigh, she selected another of her bread pans, carefully scraped off the crust from the last baking and then washed it to a shine. She gathered up nearly all the flour, yeast, salt and eggs she had left and mixed them into a dense, gummy dough—denser and gummier than she’d usually abide. She looked at what she’d made and frowned. This was not the kind of bread she’d eat herself, nor the kind she’d offer to the other slaves. It was, however, suited to her purposes, and when those purposes had been served, she would feed it to the geese around her cabin, who would gobble it up and like it just fine.
Bett glanced out her window and saw that the sun had risen to two fingers above the horizon. Lillie was gone, but when Bett cocked her ear to the tobacco field, she could already make out the sound of two or three slave children laughing and calling out. The youngest boys often came to the fields early to play chasing and hiding games while their mamas made breakfast. Today they’d be especially likely to do so, since the morning horn would be sounding late, but boys—by their nature—would still be awake with the sun. Bett walked to her door, stepped outside and called into the field.
“Boy!” she shouted as loudly as she could. She didn’t much care which boy heard her; they all looked to be the proper ag
e. “Boy!” she repeated. The closest child turned and pointed to himself questioningly. Bett nodded a large yes, one the child could see at a distance, and waved him over.
The boy trotted out of the field with an ease Bett remembered from her own girlhood and presented himself to her.
“Yes’m?” he said.
“I’m bakin’, child. I need you to taste somethin’ for me.”
The boy brightened; if Bett was making sweets it would be a rare treat to taste them before they went into the oven. Bett stepped back into her cabin, and the boy followed. She withdrew a wooden spoon from her apron pocket, dipped it in the fresh dough and presented it to the boy. He looked uncertainly at the gray, sticky blob that stuck to the wood. This wasn’t at all what he’d expected.
“Taste it,” Bett said.
The boy hesitated. “Is this conjurin’?” he asked with a frightened look.
Bett smiled at the question. Most plantations did have conjurers—older slaves whose grandpapas and great-grandpapas had remembered Africa well and learned some of the old land’s good-luck spells and healing charms. No one knew for sure if Bett practiced any such magic. She did have a keen way of finding things when they were lost, a keen way of spotting liars and a keen way of knowing when folks were coming down sick—even when they didn’t know it themselves. She reckoned most of this just came from paying attention, but other folks always imagined there was more to it.
“No, child,” she said with a laugh. “This ain’t conjurin’.”
“Cause I ain’t done nothin’, so you got no reason to do me harm.”
Bett smiled again. “I know. I just need you to taste somethin’ my old tongue can’t anymore.”
She held out the spoon again and the boy wrinkled up his nose again, but he tasted a bit of it. It was terrible—Bett knew it would be. “Once more,” she said, sorry that she had to ask.
The boy looked set to cry, but again did as Bett instructed.
Freedom Stone Page 1
