If graveyard dirt falls on your feet or your shoes and you don’t wipe it off, you’ll soon be put into your own grave.

Asa closed the shelf and follered me up the stairs to the kitchen. Poor Moses, there she laid on the bench, her rug ripped from beneath her. The poultice set all akilter, and blood were oozin from her side.

“I let you and Auntie down, Moses. I should’ve taken you to the cellar with me.”

The cat’s ears flicked back and forth, but her eyes never opened.

I looked around the kitchen afore I set to work. The door were already propped closed. A heavy rope wound from the broken latch and hitched to a thick iron hook buried in the wall.

Asa brought the teakettle over and poured clean water into the bowl. When I dipped the rag into the water and dabbed at the gash, Moses’s side rippled in pain.

“Sorry, girl, so sorry, but I have to do this,” I said as I repacked the cut with a poultice and bound it to her body.

Asa stood beside me, smoothin at Moses’s head and talkin soft to her. “I’ll take her over to my house so she will be safe,” he said.

“Are you sure your father will be home today?” I asked. “Can’t anyone else help us?”

“People are most afraid to help now. Two Friends had their homes seized, and they were run out of town for stealing slaves. Since then people are a mite more cautious.”

Asa bent down, picked up the rug and Moses, and stood in front of me. I unwound the rope, pulled it out of the iron loop, and pushed the door open.

“Lark, thee won’t be safe here now. Our meetinghouse is just down the road. Thee must change into the clothes Auntie left and take shelter there. As soon as it is dark someone will come with a wagon to move thee north,” he said. “Father and I will go after Auntie, Zenobia, and Brightwell.”

There weren’t no way on this green earth that they was movin me anywhere except on the road to find my friends. We couldn’t waste no time now. We had to find them and save them somehow.

“Nobody is movin me north,” I said. “Not when my friends are in trouble. You best come to the meetinhouse and pick me up so’s I can help. You don’t come for me and I’ll go on my own. I couldn’t never forgive myself if, if …” I didn’t even want to think on the bad.

Asa clucked his tongue, shook his head, and walked onto the porch carryin Moses cat like a baby. I looked around the yard to make sure no one were watchin us. When I turned back, Asa had melted into the shadows and disappeared in the trees.

I glanced around the room and walked over to the bucket bench. When I lifted the seat and looked into the hidin spot, I found a store of goods: a fancy new travelin sack, Grandpa’s knife, and more clothes—fine, city-girl clothes, colorful as a mallard drake, with a green silk bonnet trailin long ribbons, and soft, black side-button high shoes. A small envelope held a letter introducing me as Abigail Harlan, the daughter of a storekeeper and farmer.

Beneath a thin shimmy laid a paper scribed with the words “Thee must wear these clothes and keep your hair hidden under thy bonnet. Thy father has posted thy description. All are looking for a young red-haired girl. Be safe, sweet girl, and don’t be afraid to be hidden in plain sight.”

What did Auntie mean, hidden in plain sight? How could I hide when I were drest up like I were goin to meet President Buchanan? I’d have to think on them words.

The door to the bornin room stood open. Auntie’s spinnin wheel and work stool set in a pool of late-afternoon sun. Her niddy noddy and skeins of gray and brown yarn hung from pegs. A splint-oak basket set on its side—shears, needles, linen twine, and woven fabric all spilt acrost the floor next by a spiny hetchel. I bent down, scooped everythin back into the basket, and set it aright for Auntie’s return.

No more dallyin. I went back to the bucket bench, took off my shoes and rough country clothes, and shook my lucky buckeye out of the pocket. The shimmy slipped down easy over my head. It smelt of Auntie’s lavender. I stepped into the fancy dress. My first fine dress. All my clothes was always handed down from my brothers and from the church, but these fit like they’d been made special for me. I run my hands acrost the smooth blue fabric; in my whole life, I had never felt clothes so soft against my skin.

I picked up the fancy shoes, felt the soft leather, and slipped my feet into their tightness. My land, how would I ever be able to climb a tree or run in such? How would I even be able to walk? Step by step. Mile by mile, just like Moses. I dropped my lucky buckeye into my pocket, folded the country clothes neat-like on top of the shoes, and tucked them below Hannah doll in my travelin sack.

Dark were comin on. I picked up Auntie’s fresh loaf of bread, some meat, and the last of the summer peaches and stuck them into my sack.

I don’t know how I done it, but I untied the door again and opened it for the last time, never lookin backward. How could I just walk away from the first place that had ever felt like home and family to me? But I had to.

I walked the narrow road to where I come in over a week ago. Straight back along the fence, the tall hollyhocks swayin and starin at me. Past the buryin ground, makin sure not to get any dirt on my shoes so’s I wouldn’t end up there in the ground too. On toward the long stone meetinhouse standin on a little rise above the town.

I walked up three thick granite steps and tugged at the big double doors, but they didn’t move. Was they locked? I pulled again and felt some give on the left door. It shifted, stuck, swolled by the rains, then fought against my tuggin. I pulled harder and the bottom of the door dragged, then scraped against the threshold and creaked open.

Inside, the sweet smell of flowers met me, and somewhere close by the slow tuck-tuck, tuck-tuck, tuck-tuck of a clock sounded its heartbeat.

In the dim light, I picked my way up an aisle surrounded on both sides by rows of tall wooden benches.

I settled myself and my sack down on a side bench that faced acrost to another row, stretched my legs, and tried to wiggle my tired toes.

“Mama,” I said, “how do folks wear such shoes and get any good walkin done?”

Mama didn’t answer, but hearin my voice fill this peaceful place helped me to settle in.

The smell of the bread made me hungry, but supper alone weren’t the same as supper with Auntie, Brightwell, and Zenobia. I could see all their faces—Brightwell grinnin at me after he near scairt me to death in my attic room. Zenobia sittin on the big sycamore branch and swingin her long, skinny, heron-bird legs over the crick. Auntie, I could see Auntie’s blue eyes twinklin when I reached for the biscuit afore our silent prayer.

“Auntie, Zenobia, Brightwell, how about I keep talkin with you just like I do my mama and grandpa? That would be some good comfort to me, keep me from missin you so much till I find you again.”

I felt better already.

Just as I reached for the heel of the bread, I heard a sound. I stopped, listened closely, and then—a slow, dragged-out scrapin and familiar creakin. The door! The door to the meetinhouse were openin. I waited to hear if Asa or his father called out to me, but they didn’t. Someone pushed against the stuck door and stepped inside.