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1847, North Carolina
Everybody said they were a peculiar knot of people, those Quakers near the edge of town. Dressed in plain grey as they were, they kept to their own and spoke in strange ways. Most regarded them as a curiosity, though a harmless one.Katie didn’t think much about them, or at least she tried not to. Slaves didn’t have thoughts. Though she couldn’t help but remember the boy who’d found her in the rain and gave her bread, starving because Sheriff Thread hadn’t given them any food for four days because of her father’s “insolence” that had led to his being beaten to death. If he’d lived they would have sold him down to Louisiana to the cane plantations. She wasn’t sure that would have been any better.“Behave, girl,” Thread would growl sometimes. “Don’t want to ruin you cutting cane.” As if she was a lily-white girl sitting around doing nothing—from dawn until dusk she was busy as a maid doing everything from scrubbing laundry to running errands. Though at least she was thankful she’d blossomed into a woman without the master touching her. He was a harsh man, but Thread didn’t do that. Their previous master had loved it. They said Thread had never married and clearly his was a bachelor house. Maybe he didn’t like women at all that way. He didn’t seem to like much of anything—slaves, horses, hounds—unless he could control it and make it fearful.She’d stare at Thread sometimes, thinking of her bow hidden out in the woods and how Gale said they’d never be free without striking back, and her fingers itched to do murder. Couldn’t read, maybe, but she’d heard enough about what happened to rebellious slaves, though. She went to go buy more bread from the Quaker-Bakers—the name they’d given them in town couldn’t help but make her laugh, nobody ever called them the ‘Mellarks’. The youngest was working the counter again, with his shaggy blond hair and his soft smile.After she’d made her purchases, clutching them to her chest, she headed for the general store, repeating the list of things Thread had told her under her breath. Shaving soap. Ink. Pen nibs. Candles. Boot laces. “Hey!” Her entire body stiffened at the sound of a white man’s voice hollering after her and she instinctively wanted to run. Nowhere to run, they’d set the dogs on her.So she turned and saw the young Quaker-baker, Peter, in his gray garb. “Yes, sir?” she said politely.He shook his head and smiled slightly in a way that lit up his face. “I tell thee again, Friend Katie, there’s no need for titles. Call me ‘Friend’ or ‘Peter’ if thou will.”“Yes.” She couldn’t call him either. So she’d just call him nothing and hope that satisfied him. “What did you need, s—?”“Thy change was incorrect,” he said, holding out his hand. “I miscounted.”She stared at the two pennies he’d dropped in her palm. He’d miscounted, and he could say it so casually. Of course he could—it was nothing to him. But come back two cents short and she’d have been whipped within an inch of her life for the sake of his carelessness. “Thank you,” she said mechanically, wanting to scream at him for it.He studied her and a flash of something like hurt came across his features. “I think that thee has no liking for me.”“You don’t know nothing, sir,” she told him. He was foolish and ignorant, not malicious, but that could be as harmful in its way. “Now may I go?”“Thou should need no permission from me or any man—thou is one of God’s own creatures, the same as any other.” She couldn’t help a bitter laugh at that.He stepped closer and his voice went lower. “If thou would be free, Katie, I would help thee. To go to the north—or even the west.”“My father talked to your lot years ago. They said it wasn’t their place to meddle,” she said bitterly. “Ain’t that your thing, you Quakers? You don’t ever want to fight.” Gale laughed at that idea. People who won’t stand for anything? Useless.“I’ve thought on it for a long time. I don’t wish to fight. We Friends came here hoping to help make a peaceful end to some of the bondage. But I look around me and I think that sometimes fights are thrust upon us.” He stared at her intently with his blue eyes in a way that disconcerted her. “So, may I help thee to freedom?”“Why?” she asked. What price would he demand for his help? He’d always been kind but he was a man now, and men were different from the boy who’d sneaked her some bread. “Because thou should not exist like this and it pains me to see it. And because I love thee.” Shocked at that, she almost dropped her parcels.