BIRD OF PARADISE

15

THE FUNERAL WAS LOVELY.

The mourners echoed those words as they trekked into the cemetery in pairs or in clusters, each pleased by the beautiful service honoring the deceased.

Hetty didn’t know if this was true. She hoped it was. While she had been there the entire time, she was not truly present. Throughout the entire service she moved from place to place, unable to sit down once, not even for the eulogy Pastor Evans delivered. From the moment people entered the church she was there, helping people find seats, find fans, move something out of the way, hand out the spare Bibles to those that could read them, and anything else people stopped to ask her for.

Then there were the candles.

Five large white candles spread around the church dressed with special oils and with important sigils carved into their sides. They were not there to add light but to observe rites that would help provide safe passage of the departing soul.

They were gorgeous candles, but she had to keep lighting them as the press of people kept causing them to flicker out. No matter how quietly she did it, with or without magic, people glowered at her for the distraction she presented.

For all she endured, she was luckier than Benjy.

He didn’t even make it inside the church.

Oliver did not let the cemetery caretaker know that burial services were to be performed later that day. This meant nothing had been prepared, not even the digging of a grave—a task that fell squarely on Benjy’s capable shoulders along with whatever else that had been left undone. All that entailed was something they didn’t know either, for Oliver had vanished like the wind after passing the casket into their hands.

The whole thing had left her so filled with rage that when everyone went to the cemetery, Hetty was glad she needed to remove the decorations. Anger roiled in her chest as she ripped things away, but it was only when she blew out the last candle that she realized it wasn’t just at Oliver. Yes, she would have words with him the next time they met, but the anger wasn’t for him.

It was for Charlie. Not for dying. But for dying with her still so angry at him that she couldn’t shed a single tear.

Charlie had been the first person they had rescued from slavery. He had married someone Hetty had called a friend, in a match she arranged. He was the jokester in the group, the one whose good fortune everyone aspired to even when they disliked him for it. He had been a friend, even when he hadn’t been kind to them in the end.

And he didn’t deserve this death, not before she had gotten a proper apology from him.

“Don’t run,” Cora said when Hetty finally arrived at the cemetery grounds. A bit of a smile took the sting out of the reprimand. “Charlie is not going anywhere.”

Cora stood at the fringes of the group, and while she faced the procession of the casket, her attention had fallen to Hetty.

“I thought I missed something.”

“Like the rest of the service?” Cora asked. “I had to look to see if you were there at all. When I did, I only saw a swiftly moving blur. I’ve just seen Benjamin now, and he was here waiting for us. Was he even there for the service?”

“There were things to take care of.”

“I’d say,” said another voice.

Recognizing that particular voice, Hetty looked beyond Cora to see Bernice Tanner sitting atop a gravestone.

A regal woman with a mane of pure white hair, she leaned against a polished cane, her round dark spectacles glinting in the light.

An old friend of Cora’s, Bernice had also worked with the Vigilance Society but in a vastly different role. From the time before she lost her eyesight and long afterwards, she was the source of all information that went in and out of the city. News came to her, and from it she charted routes for conductors, made sure the cargo also made it to their chosen destination, and provided assignments for retrievals down south. A few of those assignments ended up in Hetty’s hands, although they were undertaken rather reluctantly, because helping Bernice took away from the search for Esther.

Despite the old woman’s friendship to Cora, Hetty was surprised to see Bernice here. Bernice did not suffer fools lightly, and Charlie had been one of the biggest, even on his best days.

“You hit all the right notes, but it was sloppy. If you ran a proper funeral home.” Bernice stood up, planting her cane into the ground with care. “You’d never stay in business long, based on today’s performance.”

“I heard no complaints.”

Bernice shrugged. “Because they don’t care about the dead, just the show. You’d been better off letting things fall apart so you could properly mourn.”

Cora nodded along with her friend’s words. “You didn’t need to do all this. You’re Charlie’s family as much as anyone. You deserved to have a moment to mourn, and have that time respected without people asking for assistance.”

“I’ve mourned.”

“You have not had even a spare moment to do so. They expect you to be strong, to not show a bit of weakness no matter what you’re going through.” Cora held Hetty’s gaze, the affection in her eyes softening what could have been stern words. “Don’t accept the burdens they cast onto you. They don’t take them on themselves for a reason.”

“Someone has to take them on,” Hetty said. It was a fight to keep her voice calm, to neither hurt her friend nor gain the scorn of Bernice Tanner. Cora’s words had the air of an observation. An observation held back until it could be delivered at the right moment without dismissal. “If not me, who else?”

“Plenty of others,” Cora said. “Unless this is the path you choose.”

“It is.”

“Then I hope you do so for the right reasons.”

“And get your just rewards,” Bernice added. She pointed her cane toward the graveside, the brass tip uncannily landing on the burial party. “You do too much work and no one knows it.”

The pallbearers that brought Charlie’s casket to the graveside were all unfamiliar, except for George and Clarence. Benjy stood in the background. Even from a distance, she could see smudges of dirt he hadn’t managed to hide. His jacket wasn’t as dirty as the rest of him but was still mussed.

No one seemed to have noticed. They probably thought he was the cemetery caretaker.

As things progressed, Hetty finally got her first clear look at Marianne. She stood flanked by her three children with an older woman in her shadow. While her black dress was unremarkable, it was paired with a lace veil, making her a beautifully tragic figure, trembling as Charlie was lowered into the grave.

Then one of the pallbearers started to draw star sigils in the air.

Cora gasped along with a few in the crowd. “They’re going to use magic to bury him,” she said, voicing their unspoken horror. “That’s not right!”

“By the stars, it isn’t,” Bernice growled. “You bury the dead with your own two hands, and nothing else.”

Benjy was already moving forward with his shovel even before George turned to the first man and said a few stern words.

It was brief, but Hetty saw anger in the man’s face. She didn’t know him, but he had the face of someone who knew he was handsome and made sure everyone agreed. That flash of anger was hardly flattering, although he backed away as Benjy stepped forward.

Together, Benjy and George buried Charlie, with only token shovelfuls of dirt from the others.

The crowd dissipated as they did their work, heading out of the cemetery to the repass that waited at the Loring home.

Hetty lingered a bit, watching as the man who dared to shift dirt with magic moved behind the graveside and bent over to—

“Henrietta,” Cora called. “Are you coming?”

“I am,” Hetty said, forced to turn away before she could see what the man might have been up to. “I’ll be right there.”

 

---

At the Loring home, Hetty was promptly abandoned by Cora and Bernice for other conversation.

Left to her own devices, Hetty milled around, making polite conversation. From the people that knew her, she received compliments on her work for the funeral, condolences for the loss, and questions about what would happen with Marianne and the children. While none was a conversation she wanted to have, particularly since the compliments of the funeral service skated close to insult, these interactions were much preferable than when Alice Granger called her name.

At first Hetty thought herself mistaken.

Many voices sounded alike in this crowded room, but at the sight of the butterfly brooch at Alice’s neck, Hetty knew what she saw was the truth.

Alice stood there in a dark gray dress wearing gloves of a similar shade. Between the coloring of the dress and her hair twisted into a style that was a growing fashion around town, she looked like she belonged in the room. She certainly was at ease, even more so than the last time Hetty had seen her.

The shock of seeing her was enough that Hetty didn’t even try to hide it. “Why are you here?”

“Everyone knows Charlie Richardson,” Alice said with a little shrug. “I didn’t know him personally, only by reputation. He was a young healthy man who died suddenly. I grieve his loss. I heard he’d gone missing before he died. If only he was found sooner.”

“You’re quite impatient. You just hired me yesterday.”

“Time moves fast,” Alice reminded her. “I wouldn’t have contacted you if I had plenty to spare.”

“What about the will to search? Do you not have that, either?” Hetty asked. “Like a lizard, you can change your colors to blend in with your surroundings.”

“And it always suits me,” Alice replied. “Try to shame me all you like. My sister did much the same, and she knew where to cut. But it’s not my fault. People see what they wish to see, and often with little effort on my behalf.”

“Did you come here because you thought your threats failed?”

“I’m not here for you,” Alice said. “You’re just a nice surprise.” To prove her point, she turned her back on Hetty and walked right into the crowd of mourners.

Hetty considered following, but strands of piano music tugged at her ear. She listened for a moment until she made a connection to its sudden appearance.

Seated at the upright piano in the corner, Benjy danced his hands along the ivory keys, and slow, melancholy notes drifted into the air.

The first time Hetty heard him play was when they disguised themselves as traveling musicians to gain access to a plantation. While Benjy dazzled the room, Hetty sneaked into darkened corridors looking for a ledger of some importance. She nearly missed her cue. Music had been noise to her for so long, that she was surprised to find herself nearly lost in the gentle melody. Although she could now admit it might not have been the music at all.

Hetty leaned against the piano’s lid, and Benjy’s eyes flicked up in her direction.

“Did you see her?” Hetty asked.

“See who?”

“Alice. The woman with the missing sister.”

Benjy shook his head. “Impatient, isn’t she? Though I’m surprised she was able to blend in with this crowd.”

“Why are you surprised? Look at who’s here.” Hetty waved a hand at the smartly dressed men and women, many of whom were born free in the city, or had come into some fortune that let them hide every trace of any unsavory past. These folks were rich, powerful, and tended to associate only with each other.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Benjy remarked.

“We don’t belong here. We belong to the past Charlie tried to scrub away. There was no mention of him being a runaway, not even once throughout the ceremony. It was struck from his personal history, and that means he struck us away too. You weren’t even a pallbearer.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me,” Hetty said. “We knew Charlie better than anyone, and I’ve got people asking me to fetch them water.”

“You should have changed into a better dress.”

Because she knew he was only teasing, Hetty let that comment pass unremarked.

She wasn’t even sure why she was so upset. This wasn’t anything she didn’t already know. At some point over the years, her friends started associating more and more with the luminaries of town, and only Hetty and Benjy’s past as conductors kept them even on the periphery of that circle.

“Can we leave early?” Hetty asked.

“You’re asking?”

“Don’t want to disappear and leave you to the wolves. After all, you’re convinced all our friends might be tied to Charlie’s murder.”

“Not all,” Benjy said, rather earnestly. “Penelope would have poisoned him and made the death look natural. Pastor and Mrs. Evans—”

“You can’t consider them!” Hetty exclaimed.

“They were at the same dinner with the Waltons.” Benjy grinned. “But they’re implausible as well. They had a deathbed vigil they attended shortly afterwards. No time at all for murder. Oliver has no motive that would make sense. And Thomas, of course, is impossible, as he is not in town.”

“Why not add Marianne and Darlene to this list?”

Benjy didn’t stop playing, but his hands moved slower as he considered his next words. “Because it’s an emotional choice instead of a logical one. Especially when they are more involved in this than the others. This case was never going to be easy.”

“Which is a reason we should do this together,” Hetty said. “Burdens lessen when they are shared. Or will you better understand this with a story?”

He snorted. “I’m curious at how you’ll tell it. Would it be a story told with animals? Of mice banding together to scare off a lion? Or ants that carry a bounty of food home? Oh, I know just the one: It’ll be about birds that roll a pumpkin home?”

“It’ll be a story about three impossible tasks the husband can’t figure out until the wife shows him the trick.”

His lips twitched up into a smile. “You just made that one up.”

“Where do you think my stories come from?”

“You heard them in the quarters and at your mother’s side as you shelled peas. You collected them from old aunties and uncles with more dreams than memories of African kingdoms. And most of all, you gathered them from the fancies of others wanting nothing more than to pass the time.”

“That’s one part,” Hetty murmured, “and it’s a very small part. A story is a living creature, and they need a personal touch to live on. You breathe in your woes, your loves, your troubles, and eventually they become something new. They aren’t the books you love so much. Stories change with the tellers.”

The music had stopped. Not for long, but long enough for her ears to note it before it started again.

She waited for him to protest, to offer up some argument, but he only shook his head.

“You win,” he said as his fingers glided into a new song. “I won’t make another move on this case without telling you first. A promise I can start fulfilling right away, as the next suspects on the list are fast approaching.”

As she questioned how he even saw them, Hetty fixed her face into something suitable for the occasion.

Darlene and George slowly made their way to the piano. Darlene’s glasses glinted in the light, but her eyes were as dry as her husband’s.

The last time Hetty had seen the pair together was the evening she and Benjy had visited their home—the night Marianne and Charlie had turned an impromptu gathering into a social event that had reduced Darlene and George to guests. The event itself was little reason for murder, but maybe it was a spark sprung from tinder composed of grievances. Grievances Hetty would have little idea about. These last few months had passed with Hetty spending as little time as possible in the Richardsons’ company. She had no idea of any of their interactions, not even from a reliable secondhand opinion. Penelope was not fond of Marianne, and Oliver had ceased to attend any social event once Thomas left.

George and Darlene stood at an angle from the piano so they could easily speak to both Hetty and Benjy.

“I would say it was a pleasure,” George said, “but these are not the best stars to meet under.”

“Though we’ve met under worse,” Benjy replied.

“Yes,” George said with a small laugh, “that’s true. Luckily those days are long behind us and we’re free to meet under good, bad, or worse circumstances.”

“George,” Darlene interjected softly.

“Oh yes, that sounds quite rude, I apologize,” he said. “Have you had the opportunity to speak with Marianne?”

“Not today,” Hetty said. “You wanted to talk to her?”

“Just a few questions about a matter she was privy to.”

“If I see her before you do, I’ll tell her exactly that,” Hetty said. “Vague words and everything.”

“It doesn’t involve you.” George bristled. “You made it clear you don’t want anything to expand your horizons with the aid you give back to the community.”

“For the final time, George, I am not teaching at your school.”

“You should consider it. You might get paid well working for that dressmaker, but wasn’t part of the reason you ran away to avoid serving others?”

“George!” Darlene protested. “Don’t be rude!”

“I’m not wrong, am I?” George swung toward his wife and then back to Hetty as he spoke. “If you’re going to slave away—”

“I thought you had plenty of teachers,” Benjy interrupted, playing louder now. “You and Darlene, plus two others.”

“One is no longer with us.” George stopped scowling at Hetty long enough to look in Darlene’s direction. “We let her go. Not a good fit.”

Hetty was growing bored talking about the school. She understood its importance. Learning her letters and numbers opened up the world for her. But while George’s heart was in the right place, he was going about it the wrong way. The students were taught various subjects, but they did not learn. Nor were they inspired to seek knowledge unless they already had the taste for it. Like Sy Caldwell, or the shy poets that caught Darlene’s eye. Telling George all this was a mistake, one she dearly paid for each time he asked her to teach a class. Still it didn’t stop her from giving him her opinion.

“Poor teachers are what you end up with when you get recommendations from your rich donors. They always have a younger sibling that fancies themselves knowledgeable of the world because they took some fancy courses.”

“You think you’re better than them,” George snapped.

“I think you’re so worried about running the school, you’ve forgotten its purpose. When you are not doing that you’re chatting up people who would never look your way if you didn’t have something to offer. I bet—”

“Why, there’s Clarence,” Darlene called rather desperately. She waved and called his name until he turned their way. “Clarence, thank you for hosting the repass.”

“It was all Eunice’s idea.” Clarence’s eyes went around the little group at the piano. He drew close but remained on the edge of the circle. Clearly he had heard bits of their conversation. “Nothing to do with me. I preferred it be held at the church, especially with all these people. It’s such a mess.”

“You’re a better man than me,” Benjy said. “With all this, you won’t have your home to yourself for quite some time.”

“It’s expected,” Clarence said. “We are celebrating the life of a great man who knew so many.”

“Many is an apt word,” Hetty said. “Who was that man that tried to shift dirt with magic? I don’t know him.”

“That was Isaac Baxter. He’s the president of E.C. Degray,” Clarence said.

“That doesn’t give him the right to do such a thing,” Hetty huffed. “It’s not proper.”

“Funny for you to say that when you sew magic into clothes simply because you can,” George grumbled.

“Some things you just don’t use magic for. That’s one of them.”

“Have any of you met Charlie’s mother yet?” Clarence asked. “She’s quite a character, much like he was.”

Darlene shook her head. “That poor woman. She finally learns where her son is only to miss him by days.”

Hetty stiffened even before the piano music halted after an earsplitting crash.

“Charlie’s mother is here! He found her?” Benjy declared, half rising from the piano bench.

“Didn’t your wife tell you?” Clarence asked as Darlene and George swung toward Hetty, both equally confused. “Letters got lost in travel, which was part of the delay. His mother was not far from where he knew her last to be. Terrible all around for every­one, and they’re the lucky ones.”

“Not always lucky,” George pointed out. “When people were sold, they were good as dead. You’d likely never see them again, so you moved on with your life. When the past shows up it causes problems. That puts me in my mind one of my night classes. Class was interrupted when a student’s wife showed up. Let me just say it was not the one he was currently living with!”

Darlene hissed. “Don’t tell that story here!”

“Charlie would enjoy this more than anyone.” Ignoring his wife, George turned to them. “This student of ours had been married back in the old days, but he’d gotten sold, and so they lost track of each other. He comes here after the Surrender and marries a new woman, starts a new life. Never looks for his first wife, or says he does, but I don’t believe it. Neither does the first wife. She listens to all this and starts throwing books at him.”

“It’s not funny,” Darlene said. “It’s horrible. How would you like it if I had a husband that showed up, claiming rights on me?”

“Well, you would have been too young for that,” George said with confidence. “You were a child when your father bought your freedom. Although Hetty would have been old enough for such a thing. What do you say? Does Ben have something to fear?”

“You do if you don’t stop treading on dangerous ground,” Hetty said.

This didn’t seem to dissuade George. “It’s a simple question.”

“I don’t know how it was on the farm you ran off from,” Hetty said, “but on the plantation I was at, marriages only happened to make more hardworking slaves.” She ran a finger along the cotton band at her neck, pressing against the scars the fabric hid. “I was too magic for that to happen.”

“Some marriages were by choice,” Clarence said, rather thickly.

Their gazes turned to him, and Clarence cleared his throat, but he did not say a word more.

“What happened with the student?” Benjy asked George. “Did he choose his past or his present?”

“From what I can tell he’s taking time to choose his future carefully.”

“Wise man,” Benjy said, and the music started up again.

Clarence mumbled excuses and disappeared without anyone trying to stop him. With him gone, it left Darlene and George to linger uncomfortably, unable to make the same excuse to leave. George nudged Darlene’s shoulder and whispered a word into her ear. Darlene gave an almost imperceptible nod, then said to Hetty, “Shall we get something to eat?”

Leading her away from their husbands, Darlene waited until they were by the laden table before speaking.

“Why didn’t you tell him about Charlie’s mother?”

“It wasn’t an important detail,” Hetty admitted, staring at the piles of good and hearty food.

“Does he know of the other secret you’re keeping?”

“What secret?”

“Trouble.” Darlene snatched a plate from the table. “Trouble that places you in a situation that has nothing to do with you. No matter what you heard, you need to leave it alone.”

“I can’t leave it alone,” Hetty said at once, even though Darlene’s words could mean so many things. Some harmless. Some terrible. “You can’t expect me to.”

“Leave it alone. This is my advice. Do with it what you wish.”

Darlene went on to fill a plate with food, but Hetty stood there rooted in stunned silence.

She wanted to take Benjy’s suspicions with a laugh. That naming their friends as suspects was all part of the process of him discovering Charlie’s murderer. But those words. Those were damning words that couldn’t be explained away.

One thing was clear. Darlene might be her friend, but until they found Charlie’s murderer, she had to question as much as she could.

Like the story Darlene told her yesterday about Marianne and the strange man. It matched up in some places with the spiel Marianne had told her, but it was also different. And there were Darlene’s reasons for telling her in the first place.

Darlene, who the other night was quick to say let the past be past, and stay out of Hetty’s investigations, was now suddenly very eager to drop information into Hetty’s lap. Were there other reasons than just being helpful? What about the missing page in the sketchbook? It could be a drawing Darlene wanted to keep. Or maybe something less innocent. What if it was a spell?

At this twist of her thoughts, Hetty welcomed the sight of Penelope across the room. But only for a moment. A second glance found Penelope stuck between an awkwardly placed table and a man who moved forward every time she leaned backwards.

He turned his head slightly, and once Hetty saw the beard, she recognized him as the man from the cemetery who’d tried to enchant Charlie’s burial dirt.

“I must insist,” he was saying. “It may be short notice, but this will be well worth your time. You’re such a beautiful singer.”

“I have work.” Penelope leaned as far back as she could. “Mr. Baxter, I can’t—”

“Call me Isaac,” he said. “And I trust you can do more than just sing on your own. I felt the Holy Spirit through your singing, and that is a gift that must be shared.”

Penelope smiled. “Don’t let Pastor Evans hear you say that.”

“Sing for me, for all of us—you won’t regret it.”

“I’m afraid I must decline. I have other engagements that day, Mr. Baxter—”

“Isaac,” he corrected Penelope, once more grabbing ahold of her arm.

“Penelope!” Hetty cried, elbowing her way through the crowd toward them. The first moment she could, she grabbed Penelope’s arm, pulling her from Baxter’s clutches. “I’m so glad to see you! I need your help with something urgently! Remember what we talked about earlier?”

“Oh, yes.” Penelope nodded rapidly. “I’m sorry I forgot. Another time, Mr. Baxter.”

Baxter made noises of protest, but Hetty whisked Penelope away into the crowd before he could stop either of them.

“What was that about?” Hetty asked.

“Isaac Baxter wanted me to sing at this excursion tomorrow.” Penelope waved a hand. “It’s too sudden for me to make any sort of promise.”

“Nothing worse than a man who can’t take no for an answer. I wouldn’t have been as polite as you.”

“You have a shorter fuse than I do,” Penelope said, her smile fading a bit. “And you have a husband to shelter you.”

“I suppose there are some advantages of being married.”

“And plenty of disadvantages.” Penelope downed the rest of her drink. “You should hear my cousins. From their talk you would think they were considering sprinkling arsenic in their husbands’ coffee.”

“I can see Clarabelle and Jobelle complaining but not—” Hetty stopped, remembering the strands of gossip Maybelle often brought her. “Penelope, is Maybelle here?”

Penelope pouted. “Is my company not good enough for you?”

“It’s just with that shoe shop of hers, she knows so many people, and I wanted her to ask around about a missing person.”

Penelope nodded. “You wanted her help in looking? Who is it? I’ll tell her.”

“A woman named Judith. A servant, maybe a former servant?”

“It’s quite a common name, and quite a common profession. You only have that?”

Hetty nodded. “And the fact she’s teaching Sorcery.”

“That’s quite risky.” Penelope frowned. “Is she in trouble?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Anything your cousin hears will be useful. I’m sure Maybelle will find something. She’s good at this sort of thing.”

“And if she can’t, I’ll ask myself. It’ll keep me busy.”

“The shop is not busy enough?”

“It’s plenty during the day, it’s just those evening hours.” Penelope dropped her eyes. “I know I overreacted last night, but the thought is still there. What if they were involved—what would you do?”

“I’d be impressed by their acting ability. Considering neither are particularly convincing no matter what play they are cast in.”

Her friend would not be deterred. “If they did do it, what will you do about it? What should I do?” Penelope persisted.

“Nothing I would tell you here.”

Penelope swallowed, and then nodded, understanding at once.

“Then you must tell me later. I promised a visit to my aunt. Rosabelle is sick again.”

“I wish her well,” Hetty said, “and, Penelope, if you can’t stay in your apartment with peace, you can always stay with us.”

“I appreciate that,” Penelope said, “but I would try Oliver first. There is more space in his home.”

“You might not have the choice.” Hetty wrinkled her nose. “After he left us scrambling about, it might be his funeral you’ll be attending next.”

A small laugh lightened Penelope’s features, even though Hetty had not meant her words as a joke.

Parting with her friend, Hetty headed back to the corner occupied by Benjy and the piano. Halfway there, she spotted Cora Evans standing next to Benjy. The music stopped for a moment as Cora handed him something. Hetty didn’t see what it was because she got distracted by someone tapping her on the shoulder to ask about drinks.

Hetty pointed in a random direction and turned back, but Cora had already been swallowed back into the crowd. Benjy was alone once more.

“I wondered where you went,” Benjy said as she sat down next to him on the bench. “Did anything catch your ear?”

“The excursion is still going ahead as planned,” Hetty replied, “even without Charlie.”

“It’s probably too late to stop it.”

“If we go, we might find out why.”

Benjy appeared to be considering her words, but he didn’t have a chance to give an answer.

Hetty heard footsteps behind them and she turned slightly to see Marianne moving toward them in the crowd.

“There you are!” Marianne’s voice boomed over their heads, louder than the situation merited. “I was looking for you! I wanted to make proper introductions.” Marianne swept her hand toward the rather formidable older woman standing next to her. Her eyes gleamed with unspent tears, and her face had echoes of her son’s in it.

Benjy stood up at once, and Hetty was on her feet moments later.

“This is Beulah Robinson, Charlie’s mother. Mother, these are friends of Charlie’s. Benjamin and Henrietta Rhodes. They helped the Vigilance Society bring runaways to Philadelphia and onward. I forget how many trips, but they brought back several dozen people and never lost a passenger. Charlie used to call them the conductors.”

Beulah studied them as if they were an untidy stitch on the end of a hem.

“You took my son north.”

“Yes, he was one of the first—”

“You should have left him alone,” Beulah said, then continued, her voice shaking. “I knew where he was before. That he was just the county over on the Baker plantation. But he gone up and disappeared one night like smoke. You might have done him and others a good turn, but it would have been well to wait for the Surrender. Then our family could have stayed together. All you did was risk death by running. What could there be gained from such foolhardiness?”

“Freedom,” Hetty said.

“And what did you give up to get it?”

A vision from the past flashed before Hetty’s eyes. The rush of water, and her sister slipping away from her.

“It was a risk well worth it,” Benjy replied. His hand looped into Hetty’s, placing a gentle but firm pressure on it, pulling her back into the room. “For some, if they stayed, they faced things worse than death.”

“Trust me, I know far better than you ever will,” Beulah said. “What do you think happened to those that stayed behind? Many suffered the sins of a few. All these conductors. They were looking for a fight and didn’t care about the harm it caused, and they still are. Pushing people to vote, staging protests, making too much noise, attracting too much attention, and then they die.”

“Nothing changes if we stay quiet and don’t raise our voices,” Hetty retorted.

“If you stay quiet, you live to see another day.”

“Mother!” Marianne exclaimed.

Beulah patted Marianne’s hand absently. “It hurts, but what I say is true. My son involved himself in the affairs of the conductors and died before I could see him again. Because of them. He’s dead, and nothing will ever change that.”

Alarmed, Marianne sputtered out apologies that Hetty didn’t heed. She didn’t even notice when Marianne and Charlie’s mother moved out of sight.

A glass could have shattered above Hetty’s head and she would not have moved. All she could hear were those words—harsh words, and sad words, too.

Could it be true?

Could Charlie’s association with the Vigilance Society and the direction it took in finding a new purpose in these times of freedom . . . could that have been the cause of his death?

There were deaths in this city—deaths in both the north and south—due to tensions between the races. Was Charlie’s death one of them? Or was it simply a case of hate, and that these questions about his gambling, their concerns about him being a terrible landlord, and even the cursed sigil—were all these just red herrings with no relation to his death? That there was no plot, no murderer at all, that what happened was just a random act of violence with no clear answer?

Could his death be Hetty’s fault? He wouldn’t be here if they left him behind.

Distantly, she heard Benjy calling her name, softly at first, and then with an impatient sigh he tugged her arm. He pulled her along after him as he strode out of the room. Unable to impede his progress, the crowd sprang apart like the parting of the sea.

The crisp air outside brought Hetty out of her daze. Taking several deep breaths, she unfurled her hands from the unsightly fists she had made.

“That was certainly interesting,” Benjy remarked. “I know people think things like that, but to say it to our faces, that’s certainly a first.”

“Perhaps we deserved it. People were punished when others ran away,” Hetty said faintly. “Some got their freedom, but those they cared about, that got left behind . . .” She trembled. “They paid the price.”

“You’re worrying about unknowns again. Don’t let what she said bother you. We helped people who were probably going to run with or without us.”

“We barely knew what we were doing,” Hetty protested, “especially at the start.”

“Why do you think I tagged along?”

“You never tagged along.” Hetty found herself smiling. “You wanted to come.”

“I couldn’t let you get killed. Mrs. Evans instructed me to keep you out of trouble.”

He chuckled softly at his own joke, the gentle rumble encouraging Hetty’s own laughter. She obliged, if only to hide a stab of disappointment. He always gave a different reason whenever the question came up as to why he came along on that first trip. The reason varied depending on his mood and who asked, but he never gave the answer everyone assumed.

It had never bothered Hetty before, because she knew it wasn’t true. But it would have been nice to hear, even in a teasing tone, that he followed her that night because he couldn’t bear to see her set off alone.

“Hetty,” Benjy asked, sobering a bit. “Is something wrong?”

“I’m hungry,” she said. It was the first thing that came to mind, but it wasn’t a lie. Obediently, her stomach growled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since before they started preparations for the funeral.

“You never did bring back plates,” Benjy said.

“Shall we go back?” Hetty hoped he would say no. Food might be freely available, but the cost was walking back into that house to face all those watching eyes.

“No. I know a better place.”