“I guess a bed, even a sinking one, is better than a dirty old pallet any day,” the girl said softly, watching Lizzie.

Lizzie slid her bundle under the bed and thought of her bedroom at home. This free girl was assuming that because she was a slave, she slept on a pallet. She wondered what the girl would think if she saw the spacious room Lizzie called her own in Drayle’s house. The drawer of underwear. The wooden horse on the dresser.

Lizzie wasn’t used to being idle, but the new sleeping situation had her off balance. She was used to tidying the cottage and washing Drayle’s clothes and warming his dinner. Why had they brought her here?

She considered asking the girl her name, but thought better of it. The last thing she needed was another friend who would desert her.

She wanted to kill Drayle. While she was sleeping that night, she made up in her mind that she didn’t want to kill it. She wanted to kill him instead. He was the one who had gotten her into this mess. He was the one who had been lying to her for all these years, who wouldn’t let her children go free.

She had to kill him. And unlike Mawu, she had to succeed.

She caught herself mumbling when she woke up. The room was so hot, she felt as if she were boiling. There wasn’t a window that opened in the attic and even though the door was ajar, the air wasn’t moving.

She pushed her way out of the bed, pulled off the sheet, and walked down the back stairs. She was used to finding cool spots in the kitchen, so she had no problems locating one here. She balled up the sheet and made a bed of it.

But still she couldn’t sleep. Because in her dreams, she had done it already. She had killed him. Would doing something like this weigh on her children’s spirits? Would they pay for her decisions? Big Mama always used to say that the sins of the mother and the father rained down on the heads of the children.

She finally gave up on trying to sleep and stepped out the back door. Everything was quiet except for the occasional sound of a dog barking. She walked, stopping when she saw a piece of paper nailed to a tree.

$100 REWARD FOR NIGGER WENCH.

RANAWAY FROM TAWAWA HOUSE RESORT, NEAR XENIA SPRINGS, OH

ON THE SEVENTH DAY OF AUGUST, 1853. ANSWERS TO THE NAME

REENIE

5 FEET 6 INCHES HIGH WITH A STRAIGHT NOSE FOR A NEGRO;

NO TEETH REMAINING BUT DOES WEAR A SET OF FALSE ONES;

DEEP VOICE LIKE A MAN. SHE WAS RAISED IN THE HOUSE

AND WILL LIKELY LOOK FOR WORK AS A COOK.

The paper made Lizzie go cold.

She had only meant to walk to the pond and back, but her feet had their own mind. Before she knew it, she had arrived at the cottage and was peering in the window. She wasn’t sure if Drayle would be staying in the same cottage as the one he had shared with Lizzie. A part of her had hoped they wouldn’t, that Drayle would be sensitive enough to know the cottage had been special to them. But there lay the couple, sleeping as sound as babies. Drayle’s arm lay across his wife’s chest. They didn’t look any more comfortable than she had felt in the attic above the kitchen.

As she tried to make her way back, she tripped over something in the dark that sounded like metal. It clanged loudly. She looked down and saw Drayle’s metal camping dishes, lined up against the outside of the house, still dirty from the last visitor. Surely Fran would wash them for him, she thought, as she put the cup back in its proper place.

“Who’s there?”

Jesus! It was Drayle and there was no place to hide. She stepped closer to the side of the house and pressed up against it. She figured if he went left, she would go right. If he went right, she would go left.

He came out the back door and walked to the water pump, as if he figured he would get himself something to drink while he was up.

She couldn’t help herself. She needed to claim him, needed to know there was still that connection between the two of them, even if she was angry at him. She crept up behind him and put her arms around his waist.

He jumped and turned around. “Girl! Don’t you sneak up on me like that. Are you crazy? What are you doing out here this time of night?”

His eyes moved past her shoulder.

“You spying on me?” he said.

Then he pushed her back into the shadows and kissed her. It had been a while since he had kissed her on the mouth. Lately, their lovemaking consisted of a few grunts and then he was through. Most of the time it was from the back with her dress still on. She had noticed that sometimes he couldn’t seem to get it going good enough. Then he would tell her it was her fault.

She let him kiss her for a few minutes until she started to feel sick again. She pushed him back and lay an arm across her stomach.

“What’s wrong with you woman? You ain’t-”

“No!” she said. “Something I ate.”

He grabbed her shoulders. In the dark, his face looked boyish. He seemed to be enjoying the secrecy of the meeting. He told her to turn around and bend over. She didn’t say what she wanted to say, that she didn’t feel like it.

It lasted a little longer than it had lately. While she was bent over, she spied a sharp piece of metal on the ground. While he was carrying on behind her, she stared at it. It was just close enough where she could reach it. Swing it around. Hit him with it.

But she couldn’t do it. I’m not Mawu.

And then he was quiet. And she knew he was through.

THIRTY-NINE

It was the Quaker woman who led her to Mawu. Lizzie had started to know the Tawawa Woods, the deep ravine in its center, the five mineral springs, Massie’s creek, but she still did not know them well enough to navigate directions. Once they arrived, she was surprised Mawu was so close. With that hair, she’d figured Mawu would be long gone by then. All of this time and she had been living right under the slavecatcher’s nose. Only Mawu could do something like that.

The first thing Lizzie noticed as Glory approached with the two horses was that she was pregnant. The woman’s rounded belly made her pause. Lizzie wanted to share in the news, touch it, give her a silent prayer. But she was in no place for such celebrations. She tried hard to feel warmth, especially since she’d known how much Glory wanted a child.

She forced words from her lips, “You’ve done it I see.”

Glory smiled and put a hand on her middle. “Yes. My very own. I’m hoping it’s a girl.”

“A girl?” Lizzie wanted to chastise her for such talk.

“Yes. If it is, I’m going to name it Eliza. Like your given name.”

Lizzie didn’t bother to hide her surprise. Why would this woman want to name a baby after her? Why not Mawu or Reenie or Sweet?

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t,” Glory said. “But I want to. I need this baby to have a strong love like yours.”

Lizzie shrugged and climbed onto the horse. It was a gentle mare and not as large as the one Glory rode. As they started off, Lizzie noted she was a better rider than Glory. And she took pleasure in the fact. She had learned a lot about horses from Drayle over the years. The one-eyed horse had finally been sold, and Lizzie remembered him now. This mare felt much less solid beneath her. She coaxed it to follow Glory’s horse off the trail.

Glory was delivering fresh goods to the hotel again. Her husband wasn’t sick anymore, so he was back in the fields. As they rode at a leisurely pace, Glory described the turnips and tomatoes she grew in her garden. Lizzie asked what Glory and her husband would do once the resort closed this summer. Perhaps they would return to taking their goods into town and selling them, Glory answered. Some were hoping the hotel would be sold to new owners who would maintain it and keep some of the help. Glory hoped for the same thing.