The Loom (30 page)

“You’ve been eating all right out here? Have you had enough food? I could have Annie bring what you want.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m worried about you in there. Is he…” John blew out a breath. “Is he touching you?”

“No. No, he isn’t. He hasn’t.” Not her body. Not her heart. No one touched her like he did. “John, I need to tell you, I need to tell you why I left you.” It hurt to look into his eyes and say it but she kept staring, held his gaze until her eyes streamed. “I left that day because I wanted to be free, married or not. Even though I loved you, I always…”

“Loved it more.”

The words pierced. So difficult to admit, even harder to say. “Loved it more.”

“And now?” He waited.

“But now.” She sat up on her haunches and moved closer to him. She needed to be closer. “But now I know.” When the words came, she bowed her head. “Now I know.” She looked at him, swiped her hair back from her forehead, but when her fingers grazed the scar, she stopped. “You’re the only one who can see this thing and I’m not ashamed.” She laughed. “You’re the only one.”

“I love you.” He said the words simply but they rose, lifted, engulfed her. “I do.”

“Even after—”

“I do.”

She laid her head in his lap and wept. Soft strokes on her head healed her heart. He was all she needed. “What have I done?”

“You can make it right.”

“I don’t know how. Where would we go? Run together? Would we run away together?” But now in her condition it would prove much more challenging. “He wants to marry me. I told him I was planning the ceremony, but I won’t.” He had to know. “I won’t do it.”

“What do you want, Lydia? You have to choose.”

She sat up on her knees.

“What do you want?” He was looking at her, waiting.

“I want you.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

He stared at her.

“I want you, John. It’s you.” She looked into his eyes. “It’s you I want. I need you.”

His face, his eyes, were serious like they were the first day they sat with their people.

“Do you know what you’re saying? You’ve got to lose everything to be with me. You certain about that? This place is beautiful, Lydia.”

“Yes. Yes. I’ll give it all up.”

She lay against his chest.

“Do you love me, Lydia?”

“Yes, I love you.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, I love you, John. I do.”

He held her away from him and looked into her eyes. “Do you love me?”

Her heart was grieved because he asked her a third time.

“Yes. Yes, John. I love you.”

He caressed her face.

“Are we going to leave? Run away?”

“Trust me.”

“You never did tell me about the second time you ran. What happened?”

He pulled her closer. “Something drew me back.”

Through the forest Lydia walked hand-in-hand with the one she loved. Amid maple and redwood, a milky-white shimmer danced on the river before them. She slipped her fingers free from John’s and moved toward the bank, its splendor drawing her closer until she stood staring at the pearl of moonlight and the black velvet stream, her reflection against her husband’s. She shone bright in his beauty.

When she leaned forward, John snatched her back, his grip strong around her.

“Don’t worry. I’m better now.”

“I should’ve gone another way.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.” She turned to him and gazed at the image of herself in his eyes. “I’m much better.”

John nodded, grazing her brow with his lips. He fastened the top button of her cloak and lifted the hood over her head like a veil. A loose auburn strand fluttered against her cheek. Gently, he caressed it behind her ear. “Let’s walk.”

They strolled along the river, their fingers interlocked, swinging between them. This time with him was what she had been missing, what she had needed for weeks. It was what she had needed her entire life. She looked up at the man by her side, thought of his child in her womb, and smiled.

“I have something to tell you.”

“What is it?” John squeezed her hand and froze. “Did you hear something?” He swung around, his stance wide and crouched.

Before she could turn to see, he pushed her forward. “Go, Lydia, go!”

“Wait just one minute there, Lydia,” a man said.

She froze, her back to the stranger, but she tilted her head slightly to see out of the corner of her eye.

A man in a large straw hat swaggered toward them. Henry. She closed her eyes and prayed. Please, God. Please!

“What you two doing out here?” He swished a wad of chewing tobacco from cheek to cheek, then spat. Brown saliva dripped down the side of his moustache. He wiped it with the back of his hand and flung it to the ground.

“Nothing,” John answered. “Nothing, sir.”

Another man with a tall, thin frame in a plaid jacket stepped out from the shadows. How many were there?

“You ain’t trying to skip on out of here, now, are you?”

“No, sir. We were just talking a stroll.”

“A stroll? Look at this, Rex. We got ourselves a clever Colored.” Henry chuckled, ribbing his buddy. “Who taught you your letters, boy?”

Rex and Henry. Jackson’s boys.

“Sir?”

“Who you belong to? Let’s see here? We close to Whitfield’s land. You Whitfield’s boy?”

John didn’t answer.

Henry stepped forward.

“You hear me, boy?”

“I hear you.”

“You answer then. Jack Whitfield your master?”

“You’re asking who I work for?”

The men howled and slapped each other on the back. Henry straightened, narrowing his eyes. “You don’t work for nobody.

You a slave. You serve, boy. You got that?”

“Who’s this you with?”

Lydia tugged the hood farther over her head.

“What the—” Rex walked up closer to her, but John stepped between them. “You ain’t with no White woman, are you?” He flipped open a switchblade. “I don’t want to have to kill nobody tonight.”

“Neither do I.” In one quick motion, John kicked the knife out of the man’s hand. It landed in the leaves upright. Lydia could see Rex running and tumbling forward out of the corner of her eye.

“Run!” John grabbed Lydia’s hand and pulled her through the thicket. Terror pumped power through her lungs.

John’s muscular legs lifted with ease through the tangles of the woods. Lydia was at his heels, pushing, pressing forward, slapping tree limbs out of her path.

They sprinted through the forest, Lydia several steps behind him. Her lungs burned, and a piercing pain seared her side. She squeezed her hand around her waist, but it slowed her. Had they run a mile? Lydia looked back. They were far from the river. No one in sight.

“John…,” she breathed.

He stopped and allowed her to catch her breath.

“We got to make it back to the house. We’ve got to get you back safely. It’s not far.”

Another mile, maybe, but in the dark, how long would it take?

“We’ve got a little ways to go. Maybe halfway there.”

A little was all she had left. She leaned forward, her hands on her knees. She wanted to sit but was afraid she wouldn’t be able to rise.

John stretched his legs.

Escaping together might not be the best thing, she thought. She was slowing him down considerably.

Huffing, he bent over, his hands on his waist. He looked up and swiped a trickle of sweat from her forehead with his thumb.

His eyes surveyed their surroundings. “We better go. You all right?”

“I’m good,” she lied.

They ran until she collapsed. She managed only short, quick breaths. “This is as fast as I can go. I can’t catch my breath.” She was suddenly worried about the child in her womb.

“I’m sorry, baby, but we got to keep moving.”

“I can’t. I can’t move.”

“Well, I’m not leaving you.” John’s hand braced her arm and pulled her to her feet like a rag doll. “Even if I have to drag you.”

Lydia winced. The twisting of her flesh and the pressure of his pulling ended in a pop they both heard, a flash of lightning only she felt. She screamed as she fell to the ground, her arm motionless.

“Lydia!”

John knelt beside her and touched her shoulder. She cried out.

“Shh. I know, I know. I got to put it back in place, Lydia. You hear me?” He lifted her chin. She couldn’t stop shaking. The pain seared. “It’s going to be bad, but you’ve got to keep quiet. As quiet as you can, understand?”

John placed one hand across her collarbone and the other across the back of her lifeless limb. Swiftly, he shoved the joint into the socket. She screamed. He covered her mouth and curled into her.

“I’m so sorry, Lydia, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—” John’s head whipped around. “Listen.”

She rubbed the throb and held her breath. She could hear it. Faint, but certain. Barking.

“We’ve gotta run!” John swept Lydia into his arms and ran, tripping over tree branches, stumbling over rocks.

She shut her eyes, clamped her arms around his neck tighter, and prayed, amazed at what fear could ignite. Most times it just sat yellow in the pit of her like a trembling child, but now it sizzled red hot through her veins. They were in the middle of a childhood nightmare: pitch-black darkness—where had the moon gone?—rustlings, wild animals, whistling wind, and evil men who wanted blood. A nightmare she had lived once before. She could hardly breathe.

The hounds were getting closer, but before she could determine their direction, John’s foot slid and knocked them off balance.

Dear God, help us!

The dogs were closer.

“Get on, Lydia.” John knelt over. She climbed on his back but he rose before she could steady herself. She rolled over and landed on her hurt shoulder. She bit back a scream. She’d never felt such pain.

“Lydia, get on, hurry. They’re coming!”

She pulled up and threw her leg across his back and flung her arms around his throat. She clung to him, her head bobbing forward as he sprinted toward the back of the house. Lydia kept her gaze behind them. She saw small circles of light coming through the shadows of the trees when she tumbled off his back to the ground.

“John, they’re coming!”

“Run inside, Lydia, go!”

“John!”

“Go!” He ran off into the woods as she raced up the steps.

Against the inside of her bedroom door, her heart thumped hard against her chest, her shoulder throbbed, her hands shook, but she was breathing. She was alive.

Rex huffed through Jackson’s front door on Henry’s heels, drenched despite the cold weather. The warm blood at his fingertips lit him hotter.

“What is it?” Jackson frowned, dismissing the butler. The tie straps of his silk housecoat hung loose at his side, dragged against the floor as he swung the door behind them. Hanging and dragging. Exactly what he wanted to do with that boy.

“We’re looking for a Colored and we need your help.”

“ ’Course.” Jackson nodded. He’d be glad to. “What happened? What’d he do?”

“Cut me.” Rex spat out the words through a clenched jaw, lifting his shirt. “Now it’s time for me to do some cutting of my own.”

Jackson swore under his breath and ignored the men on his heels.

“So what are we going to do?” Henry asked.

“Kill him.” Rex shook his fist. “String him up, hang his body out for the world to see.”

Jackson couldn’t focus. He was desperate for a drink. Rum, whiskey, anything to kill the root. He should’ve had plenty left.

Already he had scavenged the cellar but found nothing but empty kegs. He searched behind bottles of oil, among pots and pans, rummaging through the glass cabinet in the corner, flipping over wooden crates trying to find a taste, just one taste to calm him.

The constant toothache had stolen his appetite for everything he once craved. For months he enjoyed nothing, but now it was much more serious. It was robbing him of his hearing. He could barely make out words over the vibrating throb. Leaning against the counter next to Henry, he gave his ear three hard slaps and opened and closed his mouth, trying to break up the fog.

“That tooth still got you, eh?” Henry crossed his arms, brown chew stains smeared along his right cuff. “You better do something about that thing before it kills you.”