Our cab bounces over a dirt road. The grass along it is long and wet with morning dew. It’s cold, and through the windows I can see the horses snorting white steam. The inside of the cab smells like wax and the stale vapors of Mr. Spencer’s drink. He’s sleeping again, even though it’s morning and the sun is beating through the window and the grassy hills are a radiant yellow. He sleeps a lot, and his hands shake. More than a tremble, more than last year.
John coughs and leans into my arm.
“Where we goin’ now?” he asks.
“Don’t know.”
“Don’t he tell you nothing?”
“Doesn’t,” I correct him. I lean into his face and whisper, “And you know he doesn’t tell me anything.”
John smiles. He’s small for his age, and his eyes remind me of our mother’s.
“Well, where were we before?”
“New York,” I answer, though we were far away from the city with tall buildings I’d seen in books.
He sits up and peers out the window.
“Sun’s that way, so we’re heading south. You reckon we’re in Florida by now?”
“That’s too far. We’re probably still in New York. It’s a big state.”
“Quiet, Liza,” Mr. Spencer says, kicking his foot against our seat. He licks his lips and crosses his hands over his chest. “We’re going to Pennsylvania.”
I don’t know how long he’s been listening to us.
Pennsylvania, John mouths, smiling at me.
I think back to what Mr. Spencer told me last night.
“Where we’re going is the jewel of the east,” he had said. I could see his shadow blocking out the sliver of moonlight under the door. “A hidden gold mine. Riches beyond our grandest dreams if we can prove ourselves. Their endorsement will mean steady work wherever we go. Don’t ruin it, Liza.”
John stares into my eyes, seeming to read my thoughts. His head bounces up and down with the movement of the cab.
“What else did he tell you?” he asks.
It’s hard to remember. He said other things to me, but I didn’t listen to him, just repeated, Don’t ruin it, Liza, until the words lost their meaning.
“Nothing,” I whisper.
We’ve been with Mr. Spencer for nearly three years now, and the man is still a mystery to me. He’s our closest living relative according to the courts, first cousin to our father. He’s a liar and a fraud, but I think the biggest con he ever pulled was convincing the judge he was a respectable adult, able to take care of children. He presents himself well in small bits, and I admit I was taken in, too, by this thin man in the black suit, long gray beard and hair combed right down the middle with thick grease.
“I will teach you business,” he said that first day as soon as we were out of the courthouse and back out on the street, drawing out the word like a hissing snake.
Mr. Spencer was a photographer then, much as he is now, and a rotten one at that, though it paid for his way of life. Those were the days you could call yourself a photographer just by owning a camera, and he happened to have two identical ones, which I always guessed he stole from a shop or won in a card game.
He didn’t have an eye for proper photography—his landscapes were poorly framed, and his portraits were blurry and dark, which is probably why it’s come to this, cheating people out of their money for our photographs.
Now, we ride on to our next stop, where a fresh batch of people are waiting.
We’ve been traveling all through the night, first in a small carriage out of the city and then on a train that took us in tunnels carved through mountains and out into rolling farmlands. When the train stopped, a horse-drawn cab was waiting for us at the station, and it’s almost like we’ve stepped back in time, far away from the cities and towns we’ve traveled to before.
We didn’t stay long in that last place. Things always go bad eventually, no matter where we go. Someone calls Mr. Spencer a fraud and then others join in, daring him to take a picture with equipment they provide, before I can do my work. Mr. Spencer refuses, of course. He makes up some excuse, and we pack our bags before they chase us out of town with sticks and guns and unchristian words. I’m good at sensing when something’s about to go wrong, can feel it in my stomach like a pot of boiling water, and things were starting to bubble. I think of the man in the alleyway who approached me and John. Are you with Mr. Spencer? I just have some questions, he said.
That’s always how it starts. Some questions.
Through the window of the cab, the trees sink behind us. It doesn’t look like anyone’s following us, and Mr. Spencer seems to know what I’m thinking.
“That detective is far behind us,” he says. His eyes are open now and staring through me. “We don’t have to worry about him anymore. Did he see you?”
“No,” I lie. What’s his secret? the man yelled before John and I ran and hid.
“Are you sure?”
“I promise.”
I itch in my black dress, and John closes his eyes as the cab rattles on. We travel for hours, moving over giant hills and through lanes surrounded by trees until we get to uneven roads that lead to fields peppered with small farms and barns.
When the sun is higher in the sky, it hits the window just right and the inside of the cab starts to heat up. I wish I didn’t need to wear this awful dress, but this time is different. This time he can’t let on that he knows me. Stop number nineteen.
Mr. Spencer knocks on the side of the cab and tells the driver to stop.
“You remember the plan?” he asks me.
“Same story as in Lansing?”
Mr. Spencer nods. “You’re a runaway. But don’t talk so much this time. You can never keep your stories straight.”
I nod, thinking back to the directions he whispered to me through the door, before we ran in the dead of night.
He opens the cab door, and I hop outside and open the trunk. My brown suitcase is wedged between Mr. Spencer’s case and the side of the cab. It’s a big old thing, and it takes me three strong tugs to get it out.
The horses kick in place, impatient.
“Bye, Liza,” John says. He has tears in his eyes, and I feel bad leaving him alone with Mr. Spencer.
“Don’t cry, silly, I’ll be there real soon. You won’t forget me, will you?”
He smiles and mouths, I love you.
I love you, too, I mouth back.
“Go that way,” Mr. Spencer whispers, mindful of the driver’s attention. He waves his hand like a hatchet toward the woods of red and orange trees. “We’re four miles out, maybe five. You’ll know it when you see it. Biggest house around. Wait until the sun is going down. I should be settled in by then.”
He knocks again. The driver whips the reins, and the horses start to pull. I blow a kiss to John, and the driver looks at me with a raised eyebrow, but he knows better than to ask questions. He’s been paid not to. The cab moves on, down the road until it’s little more than a dot.
I’m alone now, and I let the silence sink in, listen to the birds and rustling leaves.
Slinking into the woods, I catch my dress on a thorny vine, and it leaves a long rip down the side. I circle back, run through the thorns again, watch as the small spikes tear the silk fabric and cut the skin across my knee. Blood runs down my leg.
Would the girl that owned this dress before me ever notice it was gone? Probably not. She had dozens in the dresser, and she never saw me sneak into her room. Anyway, she’s far away now. I take one more trip through the thorns until I’m thoroughly scraped, and then I keep walking, watching the sun, heading in the direction Mr. Spencer pointed.
It’s been so long since I’ve eaten, and my whole body tingles. Some berries grow from a bush, but I know better than to eat them. I grab a few and squish them between my fingers, smear the red on my cheeks and wipe the remainder through my hair.
Deeper in the woods, there’s a stream surrounded by poison ivy. Mother told me how to spot it by counting the leaves, and I carefully step around it and through the water, but my legs start itching all the same.
“It’s all in your mind,” I say out loud. It feels good to hear something out in this silence.
I have time to waste, so I sit on the bank and run my toes in the cold water and watch for animals deep in the woods. I see a rabbit hopping over twigs, and the dark tail of some bigger creature running away from me. I have a brief thought of being eaten alive, torn apart by a pack of ravenous wolves. Mr. Spencer wouldn’t ever think of me again, I’d bet. John’s the only one in the world who would care, and what would Mr. Spencer do with him if I wasn’t there? I’m the only one keeping him alive.
More rustling comes from the trees, so I press on. The woods look the same in every direction. I can’t see the road anymore. Which way did I come? Mr. Spencer said it was four miles out, but I don’t know how far I’ve gone, and how would he know, anyway? I’ve never heard him mention Pennsylvania in his stories, so I suspect he’s never been here. I force myself to breathe.
Don’t ruin it, Liza. Don’t ruin it.
The stream must lead somewhere, so I walk beside it, and by the time I break out of the woods, I’m good and dirty and I have a bunch of small rips on my dress. The blood on my knee has dried a dark red all the way down to my ankle.
There’s a hill of long grass to the right and I scale it, digging my feet into the earth. My suitcase is heavy, and I pass the handle back and forth between my hands when one side starts to hurt. The sun is high in the sky and I’m tired, but there’s still a long wait until it’s dark and I can make my appearance.
Following the dirt road, I see a small lane branching off through pokeweed, leading to a barn surrounded by long wooden fences. Cows graze around and chew and sleep.
There’s no one around. Maybe that’s a good place for a runaway to hide.