If you hear a chicken sneeze at three in the morning, you’ll be awake until the sun rises, and you’ll lie awake the next night.

After dark, Brightwell disappeared through the trapdoor and backed down the pantry shelf-steps. Zenobia and me both leant over and watched him open the narrow door and put his eye up against the bright crack of light.

“C’mon down. All safe,” he said as he reached up, grabbed our waists one at a time, and swung us to the floor.

When we walked through the pantry door, the warm kitchen welcomed us. Auntie walked back and forth carryin food to the table and callin for her cat to come for supper.

We set down together and held hands, and tonight I knew what to do. We said our silent prayer and then began our meal.

Between bites we talked—nothin about what was goin to happen durin the night, nothin about us never seein each other again; we just talked about the North and the peoples who had made a new life there. Some of them, with the help of others, were slowly findin family they thought to never see again and helpin to move them north too.

“Just a few years ago thee would have found shelter in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, any number of places, but not now—not with the Fugitive Slave Act. Now the slave traders and marshals can hunt runaways anywhere in the country and return them to their owners,” Auntie said as she passed a board of bread to me.

“Maybe someday, after I work and make some savins, maybe I can find my ma and papa and my baby sister,” Zenobia said. “Move them to the Promised Land to have a free life too.”

I didn’t know where she would begin to look, but if anyone could find someone, I knowed it would be Zenobia.

By the time we’d ate our supper and washed the dishes, I couldn’t feel no more sorrow. I were so tired I could barely stand, barely talk, but Brightwell and Zenobia wanted to show me their hidin spots afore we all went to sleep.

Brightwell walked to a small door acrost the room, opened it, and picked up a candlestick. The three of us made our way down the steep steps and into a cellar that smelt of beeswax, lavender, roses, and sage.

“Them smells so powerful,” said Brightwell, “there ain’t a dog nowheres that could sniff us out down here.”

Thick bars of soap set curin on tall shelves that lined the walls. Dozens of pairs of candles, joined together by white wickin, hung over a long rack fitted with wooden rungs. The windowless cellar with its stone-cobbled floor were cool as an autumn mornin.

Zenobia walked to the tall shelf on the right side of the room. She reached high behind the wooden framework, slid her hand down, and moved her finger back and forth against something.

Snap. The shelf slowly opened.

Inside a cubbyhole cut into the stone walls of the foundation were a thick pallet, some blankets, and a pillow. The space were just big enough for Zenobia to lie down.

Brightwell showed me his hideout behind the other shelf. It were bigger than Zenobia’s and his pallet bristled with straw. He patted it and said, “One more night on this, then we on to find free soil.”

He would find his free soil, but he wouldn’t be findin it without me.

Brightwell and Zenobia said good night as we hugged, three of us at once, lingerin, as though we could hold on to this time forever. Then they turned, and without lookin back, crawled into their little hidin spots and pulled the shelves closed.

I climbed upstairs, shut the cellar door, and looked around for Auntie. She come from the small bornin room beside the kitchen and motioned for me to foller her.

Auntie walked over to a bucket bench by the side of the fireplace, lifted a loose board in the seat, and pointed inside.

“Here is a sack of food. This hidden pouch has thy knife, a letter, and some money,” she said as her tiny hands flew across each piece like birds on the wing. “Here is a medicine kit, more clothes, and high shoes.”

I fingered through the clothes, found Grandpa’s knife hid in a side pouch, and looked over to Auntie.

“What’s happenin, Auntie? Am I leavin? Why is all this here for me?”

Auntie just patted at me. “I will explain more to thee tomorrow, Lark. Thee must be ready for anything,” she said quietly. “Thee must listen to the night. Read it well. This time thee mustn’t move out of thy hiding place no matter what happens. I’ll give thee the signal when it is safe to come down.”

She walked acrost the room, pecked a small kiss on my cheek, and bent to stroke her sleepin cat.

I reached up to the spot where her lips had touched on me—two years since Grandpa passed, two years since I’d felt a kiss—then walked into the pantry and climbed the shelf-stairs. The trapdoor slipped silently into place. When I looked around at the little room, it felt like safe to me, like what I thought a home might be.

I started to take off my clothes, but then thought the better of it. What if I needed to leave fast? I pulled off my shoes and set them beside my narrow bed, pinched the wick of the sputterin candle, and stretched out with Hannah doll beside me. Although I didn’t think I could still myself enough to sleep, I did, and without a dream.

I slept hard but woke to a loud sound. What was it? Did the chicken sneeze and wake me? I set up and stared into the dark, makin sure not to settle into the creakin spot in the middle of the bed. Then come noises and voices downstairs.

Were Yardley come to pick up Zenobia and Brightwell?

I slid off the bed and laid on the floor, put my ear to the trapdoor, and listened so hard I sweared I could hear the Catoctin Crick ragin inside me. Then come screamin and the sound of shoutin, dogs a-barkin, and the crash of pottery. Then come nothin.