Freedom Stone by Jeffrey Kluger

Author:Jeffrey Kluger
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

THE GRASS AROUND the slave cabins at Orchard Hill was surprisingly thick and surprisingly damp. It seemed that a drizzle had fallen here but not at Greenfog, an idea that was new to Lillie since she had rarely traveled far enough to think about where weather started and where it stopped. She was tempted to pull her shoes off and walk through the grass barefoot, since now that the charm had quit, her feet were just ordinary feet again, and with the kind of running she’d just done, they felt like they’d been worn to nubs. She kept her shoes on, however, in case she had to make a quick escape.

The lush grass around the cabins was a sign of a prosperous plantation—a rare thing lately—since most masters would buy just enough grass seed for the grounds around the Big House and no more. Only those who didn’t have to worry about the expense would buy so much seed they could scatter some to their slaves. Lillie also noticed the fragrance of freshly cut wood—another sign of wealth. A smell like that in the vicinity of the slave cabins likely meant that new cabins had recently been built. That either meant that new slaves had recently been bought or that the Master had allowed the ones he owned already to rebuild their little homes. Either way, there’d been no such money spent at Greenfog in a long while.

Lillie stood as still as she could, twenty or so yards from the closest cabin. She could hear voices coming softly from some of them and could see lantern light in the windows of most. It was not quite time for the children to go to sleep and not nearly bedtime for the grown-ups. That was good, since had she gotten here any later, most of the parents would have come outside, where they could smoke and talk in quiet tones to allow the children inside to fall asleep. A stranger like Lillie bursting out of the woods would have surely caused screams.

Stepping through the grass, she scanned the cabins, wondering how she could figure out which one was home to Henry’s wife and son without knocking on all the doors and creating a disturbance that might fetch the Orchard Hill overseer. She hadn’t considered that problem until this very moment, but now, confronted with cabin after cabin, all of which looked more or less the same, she wished she’d remembered to ask Henry for some way to pick his family’s home from all the others. She scanned the cabins anxiously, aware that time was once again passing at its ordinary, uncharmed pace and she’d have to make the run back to Bingham Woods at her ordinary, uncharmed speed. She took another quiet step when suddenly she heard a voice.

“Here!” it whispered loudly from off to Lillie’s left. “Over here!”

Lillie’s breath stopped cold in her chest, and a fear so big ran through her that she felt she’d swoon. She managed to keep her head and stay on her feet, and the voice spoke again.

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