Running Out of Night (16 page)

“No, Lark. You cain’t,” Brightwell said. “This be best. Auntie say Friend Yardley can fit two in the hidin place, but he don’t have no room for three of us. And your pa’s dogs knows your smell. They could find you most anywhere. Auntie and her brother still tryin to piece out how to move you from here.”

“Where you goin?” I asked, lookin from one to the other.

“We goin to Philadelphia to meet a Mr. Still and a conductor, then north to the Promised Land,” Zenobia said.

Promised Land? Did that mean heaven?

“But what about me?” I asked. “Where will I go for a new life? Won’t we always be friends like we promised?”

“We always be friends,” said Zenobia, “even if we never
see each other again—just like my family always be my family, even if I never find them again. You white, Lark. You’ll be Miss Abigail Harlan. You gots a better chance to find your freedom.”

I couldn’t think on that. I would not let them leave me behind.

The food set on the tray, and though I hungered, I couldn’t take a bite. I felt like a huge lump of earth laid right in the middle of my stomach and filled it up to my heart.

I
f 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
.

A
fter 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.

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

H
ow 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.”