Yellow Crocus: A Novel (18 page)

She clutched the shell tight in her hand. In a fury she flung it into the tall grass in front of her. Her eyes followed the arc of the shell. The moment it left her hand regret flooded through her. She crawled after it, into the grass. She desperately pushed aside the green stems. Tears poured from her eyes. Sharp blades cut her hands until they bled. Her fingers became red and swollen from pushing aside the grass. After nearly an hour, long after her tears had dried up, she found it. Relieved, she collapsed to the ground and clutched the shell and string to her chest. Then she ran inside to get ready for supper before her parents realized she was missing too.

Two nights before

Mattie lay in bed with her mind racing, going over every last detail. Jordan, drugged with valerian root, slept soundly next to her. Dried meat and a bladder of water were packed away with other essentials in an old burlap seed sack tied shut with heavy twine. Stolen boots sat under the cot waiting for Mattie to fit her feet into them and escape. Only three things were left to do: pray to God, say her goodbyes, and head out.

“Dear God, please watch over us tonight. Keep us safe and guide us to freedom. I promise once we there we gonna help other folks get they freedom too. Thank you, Lord. Amen.”

Her grandfather tied Jordan tightly against Mattie’s torso with a heavy cloth.

Poppy whispered, “You go hard, girl, and don’ look back. You strong, you can do this. Emmanuel got you a good home in Ohio. You gonna make it.” His voice broke, but he looked straight into her eyes. “I don’ ever want to see you again, you hear me? You gonna be free. Your family the first ones of us that got away. You makin’ me proud.”

Blinking the tears from her eyes, Mattie gave him a hug to last a lifetime and left. Quietly making her way to Rebecca’s cabin, she worked the latch without knocking and slowly opened the creaky door. Rebecca was sitting up, waiting for Mattie, ready for their goodbye.

“I gonna miss you so much,” Mattie said. “You gotta come some day. All of you.”

Tears streamed down her cheeks as Rebecca whispered, “Mattie, I ain’t got it in me, but you do. You gonna make it. Here you go.”

Rebecca handed Mattie traveling papers written in Sarah’s distinct handwriting. Mattie had given up a portion of her rations for six months to trade for the paper and ink necessary to create this ticket to freedom. They declared that “the bearer of these papers, Georgia Freedman, a free African, is traveling to Clarksburg, Virginia, to visit her kin.” Mattie folded the forged document carefully and squirreled it in the bodice of her dress.

“Can you do somethin’ for me?” Mattie asked as she pulled a black string out of her bodice. On the end dangled one of the shells from her necklace. “Give this to Lisbeth, okay?” Mattie whispered. “She ain’t gonna understand why I gotta leave her. You help her, ’kay.” Mattie’s tears flowed freely.

The two women embraced tightly. Rebecca whispered into Mattie’s ear, “I gonna pray for you every night. For always.” As they pulled apart, Rebecca looked intently at Mattie and spoke emphatically, “You get word to us you made it, promise?”

“Promise,” Mattie confirmed. “Goodbye.”

“Bye.”

Without a backward glance, Mattie journeyed away from her home toward freedom, leaving behind the bones of generations of her ancestors and their captors.

Dinner was excruciating for Lisbeth. Neither Mother nor Father spoke of any runaways, so clearly they did not know Mattie was missing. Doing her best to hide her sorrow and anxiety, she answered their queries with the explanation that she had a headache. It was not a falsehood. She had cried so much in the afternoon that she had given herself a headache. Lisbeth felt great relief when Father excused her from the ritual of gathering in the drawing room and sent her to bed early.

Kneeling by her bed for her nightly prayers, Lisbeth whispered to God, “Please, God, make Mattie change her mind and return. No one knows she is gone yet so she will not be in trouble. Tell her I want her back. Amen. Oh, and bless Mattie, Jordan, Mother, Father, Grandmother, and Jack. Amen.”

Lying in bed, her head on her soft pillow, Lisbeth clutched the shell necklace tightly in her right hand. She quietly sang to herself,
Go to sleepy little baby, Go to sleepy little baby
, as she drifted off to sleep.

The next morning Lisbeth sat in the rocker and gazed out the window by her bed, hoping desperately that Mattie had returned in the night. When the door to Mattie’s cabin opened at the customary time, Lisbeth stood to get a better view. Poppy came out, all alone, looking more stooped than ever as he made his way to his work. No Mattie. No Jordan.

In the breakfast room Mother spoke privately to Lisbeth. “Lisbeth, I have sad news.”

“What is it, Mother?” Lisbeth asked nervously, extremely conscious of the shell necklace in her pocket.

“Mattie is missing. We fear she has run away. I do not know what she is thinking, taking that baby away from her safe home to go into the woods and heaven knows where. Your father is confident she will be found, but we thought you should know. I know you are quite fond of her. However, it shows you what I have explained before. You cannot trust any of them no matter how well you think you may know them.”

“Yes, Mother. Thank you for telling me,” Lisbeth said, keeping her voice as neutral as possible. “I will pray for them.”

“Yes, we must all pray for their return.”

Lisbeth nodded, though she did not share her mother’s certainty about what to pray for.

Stumbling west through the underbrush in the forest, Mattie made it to Herring Creek in two hours. The heavy boots protected her feet as she waded through the stream for a mile before getting out on the western bank, but soon she felt blisters rise on her heels and ankles. Ignoring the pain, she trudged through a forest of cedars, cottonwoods, and river birches for another mile, then backtracked to the stream, headed two miles north, then west in a crooked path through the dense forest until sunrise. Climbing into the branches of a sycamore tree, Mattie breastfed Jordan before dosing her again with valerian root, and then she waited. Waiting was a hard but very essential part of this journey. Internally Mattie sang, prayed, and imagined. She pictured herself holding Samuel. She thought of the home Emmanuel had waiting. She practiced introducing Jordan to her father and brother. She did everything but think about getting caught. And when images of being captured intruded upon her mind, she quickly pushed them away. The day passed slowly, and they set out again at nightfall.

And so they went, heading north and west. By night Mattie walked, by day she hid in trees, bushes, caves—any shelter where she could imagine they were safe. Mattie’s dried meat and hard tack ran out after five days, so she foraged bits of food from the forest—elderberries, gooseberries, paw paws, black walnuts. It was just enough to keep up her milk for Jordan.

After seven days, she came upon a dirt road in the midst of the trees. Using the stars as a guide, she followed the road north, staying hidden in the brush, until she came to an intersection. Though it was the middle of the night, she moved more deeply into the forest searching for a cave marked by a faint charcoal star. After finding it, she settled in and waited for what was to come next.

Chapter 16

L
isbeth went through each day in a fog. It was hard to concentrate on her studies. At dance lessons, she acted terribly, even to Mary. She was disoriented without the anchor to her life. Each morning and evening she stared out the window looking for a sign of them. She longed for Mattie’s return, but even more she yearned to know her Mattie and her Jordan were safe. Desperate for news, she sought out Rebecca for information.

“Rebecca, you will tell me if you hear from Mattie?” Lisbeth implored.

“Lisbeth, if we hear they safe in Ohio it not gonna be for a long, long time,” Rebecca explained. “If they caught and brought back, you probably gonna know as soon as I do.”

Hope rustled in Lisbeth’s heart. “Do you think it is possible they will come back?”

“If that happen, they gonna be paraded in front of everyone before they sold South.”

“Sold?!” Lisbeth exclaimed.

“Yeah, sold. To Alabama or Georgia. She ain’t gonna get a second chance.” Rebecca’s voice caught. “They gone from here for good.”

“No, that is not true!” Lisbeth insisted. “I will ask Mother and Father. I can get Mattie to promise to never leave again. They will believe me!”

Rebecca shook her head in disbelief, but did not argue with the young mistress of the plantation.

Before the sun had fully risen, Mattie heard the low call of an owl. She returned the call. It came back doubled. She responded in kind. After the third call, she came out of her cave to look at the road. A tired old horse, hardly more than skin and bones, with open sores on its dirty white hair, was harnessed to a creaky wagon. Driving the hay-filled wagon was a middle-aged white man. Small, with narrow eyes and pockmarked skin, he did not look at Mattie as she and Jordan emerged from the forest.