They picked up the pace a bit, and rode until they got tired. Then they rode some more. Just when Lizzie was about to suggest they stop for a rest, they came upon a cabin. It looked run over. Deserted. A tree grew right out of its side edge, as if the cabin had been built on top of its roots. It cracked the wall and angled south toward the sun. Mold covered the gaping hole. Glory jumped off her horse and tied him up. Lizzie descended more slowly, suspicious all of a sudden. Although she trusted this white woman, they were still in slavecatcher territory and she didn’t want to be mistaken for the wrong runaway slave. If she disappeared, Drayle would assume she’d run away. And Glory would be able to collect a reward.

A curtain moved in the window. When Glory was certain none of the sounds around them were human, she walked up to the door. It opened without her having to knock. She motioned for Lizzie to follow. They stepped into the dark cabin before they could see who opened it. Behind the door was Mawu, a cloth wrapped around her hair, earrings dangling from her ears. She looked exactly the same, only thinner.

“Mawu!” Lizzie whispered. Mawu reached out for her. The embrace did not end quickly. Lizzie wanted to kiss her face, wanted to cover her up with joy.

“Miss Lizzie,” she said.

When they let go of one another, Lizzie looked around. The cabin was dark because the curtains were made out of a thick, opaque cloth. But even in the darkness, she could see its coziness. There was hardly any dust. The wood plank floors were swept clean. Lizzie wondered if Mawu had been expecting them. How did Mawu and Glory communicate? That had been a long ride.

“You looking good, Miss Lizzie,” Mawu said.

Something about her diction sounded different. Lizzie looked in the corner of the room. Three books sat neatly stacked. Had she learned to read? Or did those books belong to somebody else? Lizzie searched for signs of somebody else living there.

“It’s just me,” Mawu said, watching Lizzie. “Reenie long gone.”

Mawu brought out three jars of cold tea and the two slave women settled themselves into two ragged armchairs while Glory sat on something that looked like it was carved from a tree stump. A beetle came up through the floorboards. Mawu stomped it with her foot before sitting back down.

Lizzie crossed her arms over her stomach. “I think I might be having another one.”

Mawu’s eyes traveled down Lizzie’s body and back up again. “How long have you knowed?”

Lizzie unfolded her arms. She hadn’t talked to anybody about it yet, and it hurt to let her secret go.

“Not long. I don’t even feel it moving yet,” she said. “What am I going to do?”

“That’s the same thing I was gone ask you.”

Glory looked from Lizzie to Mawu.

“Kill it,” Lizzie said, before she could think.

Mawu’s face didn’t change, but Glory choked on her tea.

“Don’t,” Glory said. “Give it to me. I’ll take care of it and raise it right alongside this one. Don’t kill a baby from God.”

“Ain’t from God,” Mawu snapped. “From the devil, if anything.”

“You don’t know about God. You left your boy behind,” Glory said.

“He’ll be all right.”

“What kind of mother.” Glory left the statement unfinished.

Lizzie had never heard Glory speak so angrily before. She, too, wanted to know how Mawu could have left her son behind. Had she sent him word of her whereabouts? Did she plan to try to buy his freedom? Did she even care?

Glory was still staring at Lizzie as if to say don’t you do that. Lizzie knew she ought to feel bad about it, pitiful as Glory’s face was, but she didn’t. She really couldn’t say that she felt anything at all. It seemed like lately, her feelings had been drying up.

“Ain’t no other choice now, Lizzie. You got to escape. You got to get out now,” Mawu said.

Lizzie looked down into her glass. She’d heard somewhere that there were folks who could look at the bits of tea in their cup and tell the future. She counted the flakes of tea swimming in the bottom of her jar, but she didn’t see a sign. The leaves didn’t form into anything that resembled a hatchet or a rifle.

“Course if it was me, I’d kill it. If you sick, it’s gone make it hard for you to escape.”

Lizzie thought about her children like she always did when escape crossed her mind. How could she get word to them? Tennessee seemed so far away. Like a different world.

“I reckon that man fancy he love you. You don’t still talk that nonsense about loving him, do you?” Mawu watched Lizzie.

That’s what she’d told Mawu before. She’d told of Mawu’s plan to escape because she loved her, but also because she loved Drayle. But something was shriveling up inside of her. The love she did have left felt old and useless.

“Where’s Reenie?” Lizzie asked.

“I don’t know. Us was together for only that first night. Us didn’t have no plan. Us was just running for our lives. Then us split up cause all the slave catchers was looking for two women together. I do hope she made it. I had a vision the other night that us gone meet up again some day.”

So Mawu still believed in her heathen religion. Most folks would have said they would meet up again in heaven. Mawu probably meant she would meet Reenie in Canada or Africa. Lizzie had begun to believe that slaves had a right to venture off course once in a while when it came to religion.

Lizzie looked down at Mawu’s hands and saw the burn scars. They were raised and welt-like and lighter-colored than the skin around them, and she could tell that the scarring went up her sleeves. When Mawu caught Lizzie staring, she did nothing to hide her hands.

“This is what you got to do. Everybody expect you to leave at night. That be when there is the most men out looking for runaways so they can get that there reward money. But you got to fool them. You got to leave in the middle of the day. You got to walk just like you free. I got a man can make you up some free papers look just like the real thing. Course it’s gone cost money. You got money?” Mawu asked.

Glory took Lizzie’s empty glass and went to refill it. When she came back, she grabbed Lizzie’s other hand. Glory’s hand was cool and wet from where she had been holding the glass. She let go of Lizzie and sat back down on the stump.

“If you ain’t got no money, us can get some.” Mawu kept on without waiting for an answer. “You know Philip married that woman and now he a barber. Did you ever think he would go from being an outdoors man to cutting hair? They say he picked it up right quick. I bet he rich.”

“Philip?” Lizzie said absently.

“Yeah, Philip,” Mawu continued. “He’ll help if us ask him.” Mawu fixed Lizzie with a stare. “But my question is, is you ready? cause I ain’t gone help you if you is gone act the way you acted in the past.”

Lizzie tried to focus in on Mawu’s features. The woman’s face had not changed. It was still steady and cold. “Why did y’all leave without telling me, Mawu?”

Mawu stole a look over at Glory. Glory understood and announced she was going to check on the horses. When the door closed behind her, Mawu said: “Wasn’t no time.”

“What do you mean? You knew what you were doing long before you did it.”

“No. I mean, I knew what I tried to do. I tried to get rid of Tip once and for all.”

“You burned down that cottage to kill him.”

“He never said nothing bout it or they would have had the law after me. I would be a dead woman. But he knowed what happen. I believe the only reason he wants me back is so he can punish me hisself. Lord knows what would happen if he caught up with me now.”

“Why are you still around here then? You ought to be in Canada by now.”

Mawu put her glass down. She lifted out of her chair.

At that moment, Lizzie understood why her friend had remained. She had waited for her, the last of them.