Rob a cat of one of its nine lives and your own will be shortened by half.

How long I laid there listenin I cain’t say. I kept my ear on the trapdoor but never moved for fear of missin a sound or makin a sound.

I wanted to slide the door open and climb down, but Auntie’s warnin not to move out of my room no matter what happened kept me nailed to the floor.

A noise come, and then the sound of the pantry door openin.

The thunder bucket were too far away to reach. I set up, inched toward the table, and grabbed the pitcher of water.

Knock, knock, knock.

The trapdoor moved slowly. I set there, pitcher in hand, wonderin if somebody had learnt of our signal.

“Lark,” a familiar, hushed voice called. “Lark.”

The trapdoor slid open and Asa’s red head appeared. His big green eyes darted around the little room and back to me.

“Brightwell and Zenobia aren’t with thee? Where’s Auntie? What happened? The house is all torn apart,” Asa said, his voice shakin.

“Did you check the hidin spots behind the shelfs?” I asked.

Asa nodded. “They’re empty, and it looks like there was a fight down there.”

“I don’t know what happened,” I said. “I stayed put just like Auntie told me to. Now I’m goin to find out.” I stuffed my lucky buckeye into my pocket and Hannah doll into my rough shirt. I didn’t bother to pull on the shoes, just tossed them through the trapdoor and heard them thunk as they hit the floor.

“No, Lark, thee mustn’t leave until I find out where Auntie is and who was here. Father is coming home today; he’ll help us.”

“I’m better off doin than not doin. I cain’t sit not knowin what happened to my friends. We got to find out and help them.”

Asa shrugged his shoulders. “Thee knows what thee must do, but let’s make some plans so’s we don’t walk right into trouble.”

I dropped my legs over the edge of the door and moved my foot until I found the first shelf-step in the pantry, then backed down.

Asa follered and with one hand slid the trapdoor closed behind us. I looked up. The door disappeared seamlessly into the planks of the ceiling.

Asa reached the floor just a second after me. I pushed open the pantry door and looked around. Everythin had changed. I pulled on the shoes and we stepped into Auntie’s little kitchen, all tore apart, like a storm had blowed through. Had it ever been filled with candlelight and friends? The fireplace set dark and cold. Splintered chairs, stools, and benches; broken plates and kindlin covered the floor. The big applesauce pot that belonged beside the fireplace set upside down.

Meeoooww.

Asa and I looked around the room and tried to find where the feeble sound come from.

Meeeoooooowww. Louder now.

“Aw, it’s Moses,” Asa said. “She’s somewhere hiding.”

I picked my way slowly acrost the room, every step crunchin on broken pottery. Asa come behind me and reached to bolt the door, but the latch were gone, broken off by someone forcin into the house. He grabbed a heavy bench, dragged it to the front of the door, and tilted it on end and at an angle to wedge it closed.

My eyes couldn’t stop movin, takin in every corner of the room, searchin for signs, lookin toward the window where the curtain once hung.

Meeooooowww, again. We was close.

“Where is she?” I asked.

Asa walked to the big applesauce pot and turned it right side up.

Rrraaal. Moses cat sprang from under the pot and disappeared through the open cellar door, leavin a trail of bright-red paw prints behind her.

“We have to help her,” I said, “afore we go we have to tend her wounds for Auntie. She’s all the family Auntie has.”

“No, Lark. Auntie’s family is as big as Virginia. Why, her family is bigger than Virginia. She has family everywhere, and they’re all alive because of her.” His green eyes welled with tears. “But we do have to help Moses. Auntie loves her. The healing salves and herbs are over there,” he said as he pointed acrost the kitchen.

“Moses is stubborn and ornery,” Asa said. “I’ll go get her.”

He disappeared into the darkness of the sweet-smellin cellar.

“Moses!” he called. “Moses, come on out and we’ll fix thee up right good. Moses, come on out now.”

Familiar bunches of healin herbs hung from the beams, and small tins and pots perched along the shelf.

I reached for the thick green bunch of hairy comfrey, a handful of plantain’s tongue-shaped leaves, some arnica, and a tin of dried golden calends flowers.

Asa reappeared with Moses cradled in his arms. The cat’s head hung, her eyes open but filmy and lifeless. Looked to me she were hurt so bad it would surely shorten the life of whoever done this.

“Can thee help her?” Asa asked, holdin her out toward me.

A bloody cut acrost the cat’s side dipped into the light gray fur of her belly and stained it the pink of Mama’s old roses.

“This is one way I can repay Auntie for all she done for me,” I said as I laid Moses cat on the table.

“Auntie never wants repaying, Lark. Doing is good enough for her.”

I pushed my long braids behind my ears and tied them together in a knot, then bent over Moses.

“Asa, get me some water, please, and some of Auntie’s vinegar, and clean rags so’s I can bind her.”

He walked to the window, quickly looked outside, then slid the latch of the dry-sink door and lifted out some neatly folded sackcloth and a crockery jug of vinegar.

“You’re lucky Moses isn’t awake. She can be wild and mean if she’s hurt or sick,” Asa said as he tacked a dishcloth against the window.

“How’d she ever get herself a name like Moses?” I asked. I glanced around the kitchen lookin for shadows, listenin for anythin that meant trouble.

I slowly worked my fingers through the cat’s thick fur. Asa lifted the big teakettle from the crane in the fireplace and poured water and vinegar into what looked like the one remaining unbroken bowl.

Moses laid stretched out and never moved. I cleaned a deep gash in her side and belly, and half a dozen smaller wounds told the tale of dogs.

“Moses is named after a Maryland slave woman who ran herself to freedom in Pennsylvania. She called it the Promised Land.” Asa bent toward the cat and laid his hand between her ears.

“Moses thought freedom was all she needed, but it was bitter to her till she could share it. So she turned around and headed back to save others. Think on that. She went south when every slave trying to escape headed north.”

“Who is she?” I asked as I cleaned another one of Moses’s cuts.

“Her name is Harriet Tubman, but her nickname is Moses. Nobody knows how many slaves she’s led to freedom.”

I knew that name. I were scairt of her. When we was in town, I seen a broadside posted in Purcell’s Store that said she were “dangerous and a threat to slave owners’ rights.” It showed a picture of a small Negra woman with a dent in the middle of her forehead and a scarred-up neck. That picture didn’t look scary, but the words about her was.

The poster said that if you caught her the reward were a thousand dollars. A thousand dollars. The most money I’d ever seen all at once were ten dollars, and that near took the breath from me. I couldn’t believe there could be a thousand dollars anywhere or that anyone would pay that much money just to capture one little woman.

Now I knowed better. She weren’t dangerous, and she weren’t just one little woman. She were Harriet Tubman, Moses, and she were brave as I wanted to be, but braver than I ever could be.

The cat twitched. I rinsed the deepest cut with the vinegar and water, then laid on a handful of wet knit bone, arnica, plantain, and boneset mixed with calends. Carefully, gently, I wound strips of clean sackcloth around Moses’s body to hold the poultice in place. As I worked I sang:

“When Israel was in Egypt’s Land,

Let my people go!

Oppressed so hard they could not stand,

Let my people go!

Go down, Moses,

Way down in Egypt’s land;

Tell old Pharaoh

To let my people go!

No more shall they in bondage toil,

Let my people go!”

I stroked Moses’s fur, smoothed it back into place, and run my fingers over her side. “I’ll change the poultice again afore I leave tonight.”

Asa picked up a small rug and made a bed for Moses on top of the bench by the window. I carried her acrost the kitchen and settled her into place. She laid still—still as well water.

“Thee can’t leave tonight without my father and me,” Asa said.

“We need to foller their trail till we find them.”

Them. I couldn’t say the names. Auntie. Brightwell. Zenobia. It hurt my heart just thinkin them.

From outside on the front porch come shoutin and the sound of boots poundin up the steps, pushin and pushin at the door until the bench shifted and began a slow slide down the wall.

“The cellar,” Asa said, “the cellar. No time for the attic.”

I turned and run down the steep stairs into darkness.