Then he let go and she walked alone down the road and turned up the long drive to the house.

Long before she got to the house she had been spotted and three men were on the porch, holding muskets.

"You crazy, girl?" said the oldest of them. "Don't you know there's an army of raping and pillaging runaways coming this way?"

"My papa's wagon overturned up the road, I need help."

"Your papa's out of luck," said the biggest of the men. "We, ain't leaving this porch for nobody."

"But he's hurt, when he try to stand up, he falls down."

"What's that accent?" said the youngest man. "You French?"

"My parents are from Nueva Barcelona," she said.

"Being a Frenchwoman in these parts ain't such a good idea this week."

She smiled at them. "Can I change who I am? Oh, you must help me. At least send a couple of servants with me to help right the wagon and bring my father here, can't you do that?"

"Slaves are all locked up, ready to be marched away in the morning, and we ain't letting any of them out on the road, neither," said the big man.

"Then I see that Providence brought me to a house with no Christian charity," she said. She turned her back and started back down the road.

It sort of made sense that when she seemed willing to leave, that was what convinced them. "Ain't never turned folks in trouble away from my house before," said the old man.

"Ain't never been no slave revolt, neither," said the big man.

"But even during a time of slave revolt," said the young man, "wagons can still overturn and honest men can still be hurt and need help."

Marie didn't like lying to these men. The old man wanted to be kind, and the young man wanted to trust her. The big man was doing no worse than looking after his people. And since his suspicions were all completely justified, it hardly seemed fair that he was the one made to seem uncharitable. Well, it would all be clear soon enough. She hoped that this one bad experience would not put them off helping their neighbor in the future. It would be a shame if their journey did nothing but make the world worse.

"Come back," shouted the old man.

"No, stay there!" shouted the big man. "We'll go with you." And he and the young man bounded down from the porch and started trotting toward her.

This was not the plan. What would she do with them out here? "But we need to bring him water."

"Plenty of time for that when we've got him to the house."

Now they were beside her, and there was nothing she could do but lead them down the drive.

Suddenly a fog came up. Out of nowhere, and then there was a chill in the air and a fog so thick she couldn't even see the men beside her.

"What the hell," said the big man.

"I can't see my feet on the drive," said the young man.

Marie, however, said nothing, for the moment the fog came in, she turned around and started walking back toward the house.

In a moment she was out of the fog. She did not glance back to see what it looked like, to have a single thick cloud- she wondered if it was like the Bible story, a pillar of smoke.

The old man wasn't on the porch.

And then, as she got closer, there he was, with a musket in his hands. "I know devil's work when I see it, you witch!" he shouted.

He fired the musket.

It was pointed right at her. And the barrel was not soft. She thought she must surely die on this spot.

But when the noise of the gunshot died down, she felt nothing, and kept walking toward the porch.

That was when the lead bullet popped out of the barrel of the musket and went maybe two yards and plunked on the ground. It made a pool of lead there, flat as a silver dollar.

"I'm no witch," she said. "And you are a kind and good man. Do you think anybody will hurt you or the people you love? Nobody will hurt anybody."

From inside the fog came shouts. "Who's shooting! Where's the house?"

Now she did look back. Two thick clouds barely taller than a man were moving swiftly across the lawns, but neither one was headed for the porch, and neither one was holding a straight course, either.

"We heard what you done in those other places, you liar!" shouted the old man.

"You heard lies," she said. "Think about it. If we killed everybody, who would tell you there was two French women and two slaves that came to the door? That's what you were watching for, no?"

The old man was no fool. He could listen pretty well.

"We want food," she said. "And we will have food from this house. You have plenty, but we don't take all. Your neighbors will help you replenish the lack. And you won't need as much food, anyway."

"Because you're gonna take all our slaves, is that it?"

"Take them?" said Marie. "We can't take them. What would we do, put them in our apron pockets? We let them travel with us if they choose to. If they choose to stay with you, then they can stay. They do what they want, like the children of God that they are."

"Abolitionist bastards," said the old man.

"Abolitionists, yes. In my case, also a bastard." She deliberately pronounced the word with a thick French accent. "And you, a man who knows to be kind to strangers, but keeps human beings as property. Even as you do it to the least of these, my brethren."

"Don't quote scripture to me," said the old man. "Steal from us if you want, but don't pretend to be holy when you do it."

She was standing on the porch now, facing the old man. She heard the door swing open behind her. She heard the click of a hammer striking the Hint. She heard the sizzle of the gunpowder in the pan.

And then the plop of the bullet hitting the porch.

"Damn," said a woman's voice.

"You would have murdered me," said Marie without turning around.

"We shoot trespassers around here."

"We don't hurt personne, but you with murder in your heart," said Marie, and she turned to face the woman. "What is your food, that you could shoot a woman in the back for asking you to share it?" She reached out a hand toward the trembling woman, who cowered against the door. She touched the woman's shoulder. "You have your health," said Marie. "That's good. Treasure it, to be so strong, no disease in you. Live a long life."

Then she turned to the old man and reached out to him. Took his bare hand in hers. "Oh, you're a strong man," she said. "But you're short of breath, yes?"

"I'm an old man," he said. "Ain't hard to guess I'm short of breath."

"And you have pains in your chest. You try to ignore them, yes? But they come again in a few months, and then a few months. Put your house in order, say your good-byes, you good man. You will see God in only a few weeks time."

He looked her hard in the eyes. "Why you cursing me?" he said. "What did I ever do to you?"

"I'm not cursing you," she said. "I have no such power, to kill or not kill. I only touch a person and I know if they are sick and if they will die of it. You are sick. You will die of it. In your sleep. But I know you are a generous man, and many will mourn your death, and your family will remember you with love."

Tears filled the old man's eyes. "What kind of thief are you?"

"A hungry one," she said, "or otherwise I would not steal, not me, not any of us."

The old man turned and looked down onto the lawn. Marie assumed he was looking at the other two men, or at the clouds that enclosed them, but no. While they were talking, Arthur and La Tia and Mother must have opened the slaves' quarters and now the house was surrounded by black men and women and children. The clouds no longer surrounded the two white men. Unarmed, they were standing inside the circle.

Arthur Stuart stepped forward and held out his hand. As if he expected a white slaveowner to shake with a black man. "My name is Arthur Stuart," he said.

The old man hooted. "You trying to tell us you're the King?"