32

LILLY

Friday, June 15, 1838

Late evening

Despite the dark, the sand felt warm where Lilly, Priscilla, and Madeline had lain curled like nesting baby birds. The earth held the summer sun’s heat. Brought to awareness by voices calling in the night, they now sat.

“Hello?”

“Help has arrived.”

“Where are you?”

The ragged survivors came to their feet, waving their arms and scraps of clothing as bulky human forms took shape beyond the crest of a sand dune. The next moments were a blur to Lilly. Their rescuers brought cornbread, fried bacon, coffee and jugs of cold water; there were warm blankets and soft clothes. Someone counted out loud—eighteen survivors huddled in the sand. They grasped at the food and drink. The women took shelter behind blankets held high, slipped out of their tattered garments and donned dresses that were either too big or too small.

“Slowly,” said a deep voice in the dark. “Don’t drink too fast. You don’t want to get sick.”

“Where are we?” Mr. Couper’s disembodied voice asked over the wind and waves. He sounded strong again.

“I’m Mr. Redd. You are in Onslow County, North Carolina, on a tiny spit of land we call the Bermudas.” A disembodied lantern light swung across the ground and up to sunburned, distorted faces. “When you are revived, we will take you in rowboats across Stump Sound—safe as can be—and there you will find warm beds and welcome hospitality. The town is preparing for you even now.”

“The other passengers?” The question came from Lilly’s lips between tiny bites of cornbread and sips of water. She could hardly stop herself from stuffing herself to the point of nausea.

“We know of no other survivors.” Another voice came from a man whose long, stern face was lit with the light and shadows of the lantern he held. “And there is a great squall coming our way. We pray, the whole town prays, for more who might come to shore.”

Lilly was adept at reading tones of voice—over the past two years it had meant her survival. And this man, his eyes flickering in the fire, held no hope for the remaining passengers.

They ate and drank in silence for a few moments, the moon hidden like a discarded flower in the milky sky. Lilly thought of the gardenia bush behind the kitchen house. It was a part of home she’d loved before Adam tainted it. And now he was gone: the thought curled around her warm and rich as the coffee in her belly.

For the first time in their lives Lilly threw her arms around her nursemaid. Here taboos fell away. A relief as immense as the waves that had flipped their boat overcame Lilly.

Half an hour later, they stumbled toward rowboats that waited for them. Priscilla and Lilly held hands as Madeline slept in a warm, dry blanket like the ones Priscilla had also wrapped around Lilly and herself. They followed the silent group, their feet sinking into the sand. Lilly dug her toes down to feel the solid earth, to convince herself that they were safe. She would never get on a steamboat again.

The beach spread before them, bleached as white as the linen sheets Priscilla hung from the laundry line. Grasses and hillock swelled and fell in shadow. The Sound, a sliver of sea, separated them from town—they would need to cross water again.

Lilly knew that each survivor was alone with thoughts of who and what was lost. It was too much to calculate, too great a devastation to allow for speech.

“You, Negro,” a deep voice called out. “Come this way.”

They were separating them, the Negroes from the whites: Solomon, his burns even now shimmering in the dark; and Priscilla, her slave yes, but now also her irreplaceable companion. They had survived the darkest day and night; they had allowed Adam to perish and they had saved Madeline.

“No!” Lilly’s voice rang strong, echoing across the spit of sand and the silver ribbon of water they must cross to Onslow County. “She stays with me. She goes where I go.”