31

Charlotte

I SHIELDED THE BABE WITHIN ME, then braced for Achan’s palm. My head whipped hard to one side, and I heard a sickening crack. I tried to grab hold of the bed to break my fall, but I missed and landed hard on the floor. Pain exploded across my abdomen. I was sure Achan had broken my jaw until he spewed a curse.

“Are you tryin’ to break my hand, you . . . ?”

The vile words, as common to him as breathing, no longer cut me to the quick. But like poison, insidious and slow, they still took a toll.

“I’m going to teach you what it means to defy my word, you lying little—”

He dropped to his knees, grabbed my chin, and jerked my face toward his, whiskey on his breath. I was tempted to look beyond him to the wall behind the armoire and the hope huddled behind it, but I didn’t dare. If he only knew . . .

“Crying isn’t going to help you, woman. I am your husband. I say when you can leave this house and when you can’t. Did I give you permission to leave?”

His countenance twisted in rage, he took on the look of the evil residing inside him. Nettie told me he had a demon, and I believed her. Along with the special language God had given her, he’d also bestowed a discerning spirit. And in Achan’s otherworldly gaze, I saw that darkness and shuddered.

“Answer me!” he shouted, spittle flying. He squeezed my jaw till I thought it would shatter. “Did I give you permission?”

“No,” I whispered.

“Where did you go?”

“To Withers Fabrics.” I fought to catch my breath. “I-I bought material to make some gowns for the baby.”

“We’ll just see about that when I ask Withers himself. And you bet I will.”

I’d made certain Harley Withers had seen me the previous afternoon when I stopped by his shop on the way home. Same as I’d made certain no one saw me coming and going from the alley to the deserted building behind the telegraph office. I knew if Achan discovered I had left the property, he would follow up on my story. What I didn’t know was who had seen me and told him.

“Where else did you go?”

“Nowhere else,” I answered quickly, as Nettie had advised. “Honest people,” she’d said, “trip over their words when they go to lyin’. Like their lips ain’t used to the poison of it. But you can’t do that, ma’am. Not with Achan. You gotta be strong and look him square in the face and tell him you ain’t been nowhere else. Even swear to it if you got to. Bible says a harlot woman told a straight-up lie when she hid some Israelite men, keepin’ ’em from bein’ killed. And she’s named as one of the Lord’s kin. You think on that when Master Crowley is starin’ you down with all that hate he got inside him.”

My gut twisted. “I didn’t go anywhere else, Achan. I promise.”

He grabbed the front of my shirtwaist. “You’re lyin’. I can feel it. And I’m going to get the truth even if I have to beat it out of you!”

He hauled back with his fist, and I knew the quick breath I took would be my last.

Someone pounded on the door and the hinges squeaked, bringing him up short. Without looking, I knew who it was. Who it always was.

“Master Crowley! Lucius Warner sent word, sir. Says you’s to come right quick. Needs to see you in town ’bout somethin’ important!”

Like a vision in the doorway, Nettie’s tall, reedy body floated and swayed like a cattail in the breeze. “Run, Nettie!” I tried to say, but the words got lost in a bubble of blood and saliva.

Achan rose. “I’ve told you not to open the door until I say, you worthless—”

Nettie didn’t flinch when he struck her in the face. Nearly as tall as he was, she stood her ground, and not for the first time I wondered why God did nothing to save her. I had made my bed, deciding to marry Achan Fortner Crowley three years ago. A desperate and doomed decision. But Nettie did nothing to deserve his vileness or the world she was born into. A world I feared I would be leaving soon, not of my will. But how could I leave her behind with him? We’d come so far together and with so much at stake.

“Yes, sir, but Mister Lucius, he says they needs you!” She looked down and away, not because she wasn’t strong enough to match his stare, but because even a fool like Achan would see the quiet strength in her and find threat in it. As well he should.

I peeked toward the armoire, hoping the wall was thicker than I remembered. That it blocked out the sound. It had been years since I’d been inside the room. And heavy with child, I could not climb the ladder now. So Nettie had taken the risk of storing up what we needed. Tonight was the night. The train would run again. To the North. To freedom. Just as it last ran on the very night my beloved Jonathan died five years ago.

Fourteen tickets, Nettie told me. Fourteen passengers. I couldn’t imagine that many people crammed into so small a space. Slaves from different plantations across the area. Three of them children. The danger did not escape me. But so much blood had been spilled in this war. A war stretching almost two years now. How could I not do everything within my power to right this heinous wrong. O Lord God, be with us this night. May your light shine in the darkness for us, but may the darkness hide us from all evil.

With a curse, Achan yanked open the armoire and grabbed his jacket. At the same time, it sounded like someone or something fell on the other side of the wall.

Achan stilled.

The fear in Nettie’s eyes matched the dread in the pit of my stomach. Panicking, every muscle in my body screaming, I reached for the corner of my bedside table and pulled down hard until the oil lamp and books came crashing down. The glass globe shattered. Achan spun back around.

I slumped against the bed as though I’d been attempting to stand, and I didn’t have to feign fear when he towered over me.

“You are one pitiful excuse for a woman, Charlotte Crowley. Good thing you had money, or I’d never have taken a second look at you. Now clean up this mess before I get back!” He slammed the door as he left.

Nettie was beside me in a blink, her hands on my face. “We got to get you away from him, Miss Charlotte. He gonna kill you for sure. But that was quick thinkin’ with the table. And brave, too. But I’m so sorry ’bout your lamp.”

I trailed her gaze to the spilled oil and shattered glass, the lamp an heirloom from Jonathan’s family and a wedding present from him. “To light your way in the darkness,” he’d said, neither of us comprehending what real darkness lay ahead. Now he was buried, with our precious children, under the massive oak canopy, and I wondered if I would join them there one day or die an old woman far from this place.

“Jonathan would understand,” I whispered, wincing at the pain in my jaw. “Besides, we couldn’t risk Achan discovering what we’re doing. And I haven’t been able to help as much as I wanted.”

“You helped aplenty.” She frowned. “You the one who met with the agent in town yesterday. Made sure all the plans was set to go.”

“No. We did this together, Nettie. Together.”

She brushed the hair back from my face. “You the one who took the beatin’ for it.”

“You’ve had your share too, Nettie. And far worse.”

I looked into her eyes and saw the damage Achan had brought upon her and so many others. And God help me, I hated him for it, even as I knew I’d need to forgive.

Nettie gripped my hand and, like a thousand times before, something silent passed between us. A cord drew taut inside me, like a boat moored to the shore when the tide ebbs and the waves threaten to pull it out to sea. And yet the line holds fast. That’s what Nettie had done for me all these years—held me fast, kept me safe and sane, soldiering on. If not for her, I’d have willingly set myself adrift years ago, smashed upon rocks of grief and heartache from the deaths of my five children who now waited for their mother in eternity.

“I love you, Nettie,” I whispered, vividly remembering tugging on her skirt when I was just a girl, trying to get her attention, which she always bestowed as if I were the most important thing in her day.

“I love you too, Miss Charlotte.”

She’d called me that all my life. I gave her the look that I did from time to time, reminding her of what we both knew. That the ground at the foot of the cross of Christ was level—that everyone was created equal—even if half of this fledgling country at war said it wasn’t so. All the world’s so-called wisdom could not change that truth.

I leaned into her touch, still clutching my belly, praying the child was still alive. Yet something didn’t feel right.

As if she knew what I was thinking, she gestured. “Let’s get you back into bed and I’ll check.”

My legs buckled, and she lifted me from the floor to the mattress. “Even with child, ma’am, you hardly big enough to make a dent in the down.”

She gently examined me, moving her hands over my abdomen with all the expertise of a midwife. She pressed an ear to my belly for what felt like forever, then looked up. My breath caught at the stark concern in her face.

“Do you think—?” I couldn’t bring myself to speak the words aloud.

Tears filled her eyes. “The Lord Almighty hisself must be shieldin’ this little one from Master Crowley’s blows,” she said quietly. “Ain’t no other reason you not goin’ into labor right now. I’m tellin’ you, he got plans for this child. Now let’s just keep prayin’ and trustin’, you hear me?”

Through tears, I nodded. She leaned down and kissed my forehead, and the maternal love in the gesture nearly undid me.

“So, everything is ready?” I asked after a moment.

“Yes, ma’am.” She pulled a cloth from her skirt, dabbed the blood from my mouth, then glanced at the clock on the mantel above the fireplace. “Soon as night falls, this train will run.”

I grasped her hand and held it to my chest. “When it comes time for your ticket, Nettie, I want you to take it and go. Whether the baby and I can come with you all or not. I want you out of this place and away from him. Promise me you’ll go no matter what.”

She knelt by the bed and covered my hands with hers. “I’m promisin’ you now what I been promisin’ you for years, Miss Charlotte. Ever since your daddy put you in my arms when I’s just a girl myself and I looked into them sky-blue eyes of yours. You with that hair so fair, lookin’ like angel dust all sewed up together.” She laughed softly. “Didn’t matter how much my people poked fun at me for carin’ so much ’bout a scrawny, sickly, little white baby who’d be dead soon enough. I told God I’d watch over you long as he let me. And I ain’t goin’ back on that promise. Not ever. So once you birth this child and you’s able to travel, the last train will leave from this depot. And you and me and that sweet little one? We gonna be on it, headed for the Promised Land.”