He said things like that now and then when Weylin gave him a hard time, or when the overseer, Edwards, tried to order him around. This time, I thought it was Edwards. The man had stomped out of the cookhouse as I was going in. He would have knocked me down if I hadn't jumped out of his way. Nigel was a house servant and Edwards wasn't supposed to bother him, but he did.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Old bastard swears he'll have me out in the field. Says I think too much of myself."

I thought of Luke and shuddered. "Maybe you'd better take off some time soon."

"Carrie."

"Yes."

"Tried to run once. Followed the Star. If not for Marse Rufe, I would have been sold South when they caught me." He shook his head. "I'd probably be dead by now."

I went away from him not wanting to hear any more about running away-and being caught. It was pouring rain outside, but before I reached the house I saw that the hands were still in the fields, still hoeing corn.

I found Rufus in the library going over some papers with his father. I swept the hall until his father left the room. Then I went in to see Rufus.

Before I could open my mouth, he said, "Have you been up to check on Alice?"

"I'll go in a moment. Rufe, how long does it take for a letter to go from here to Boston?"

He lifted an eyebrow. "Someday, you're going to call me Rufe down here and Daddy is going to be standing right behind you."

I looked back in sudden apprehension and Rufus laughed. "Not today," he said. "But someday, if you don't remember."

"Hell," I muttered. "How long?"

He laughed again. "I don't know, Dana. A few days, a week, two weeks, three ..." He shrugged.

"His letters were dated," I said. "Can you remember when you received the one from Boston?"

He thought about it, finally shook his head. "No, Dana, I just didn't pay any attention. You better go look in on Alice."

I went, annoyed, but silent. I thought he could have given me a decent estimate if he had wanted to. But it didn't really matter. Kevin would receive the letter and he could come to get me. I couldn't really doubt that Rufus had sent it. He didn't want to lose my good will anymore than I wanted to lose his. And this was such a small thing.

Alice became a part of my work-an important part. Rufus had Nigel and a young field hand move another bed into Rufus's room-a small low bed that could be pushed under Rufus's bed. We had to move Alice from Rufus's bed for his comfort as well as hers, because for a while, Alice was a very young child again, incontinent, barely aware of us unless we hurt her or fed her. And she did have to be fed-spoonful by spoonful.

Weylin came in to look at her once, while I was feeding her.

"Damn!" he said to Rufus. "Kindest thing you could do for her would be to shoot her."

I think the look Rufus gave him scared him a little. He went away without saying anything else.

I changed Alice's bandages, always checking for signs of infection, always hoping not to find any. I wondered what the incubation period was for tetanus or-or for rabies. Then I tried to make myself stop wondering. The girl's body seemed to be healing slowly, but cleanly. I felt superstitious about even thinking about diseases that would surely kill her. Besides, I had enough real worries just keeping her clean and helping her grow up all over again. She called me Mama for a while.

"Mama, it hurts."

She knew Rufus, though. Mister Rufus. Her friend. He said she crawled into his bed at night.

In one way, that was all right. She was using the pot again. But in another ...

"Don't look at me like that," said Rufus when he told me. "I wouldn't bother her. It would be like hurting a baby."

Later it would be like hurting a woman. I suspected that wouldn't bother him at all.

As Alice progressed, she became a little more reserved with him. He was still her friend, but she slept in her trundle bed all night. And I ceased to be "Mama."

One morning when I brought her breakfast, she looked at me and said, "Who are you?"

"I'm Dana," I said. "Remember?" I always answered her questions.

"No."

"How do you feel?"

"Kind of stiff and sore." She put a hand down to her thigh where a dog had literally torn away a mouthful. "My leg hurts."

I looked at the wound. She would have a big ugly scar there for the rest of her life, but the wound still seemed to be healing all right-no unusual darkening or swelling. It was as though she had just noticed this specific pain in the same way she had just noticed me.

"Where is this?" she asked.

The way she was just really noticing a lot of things. "This is the Weylin house," I said. "Mister Rufus's room."

"Oh." She seemed to relax, content, no longer curious. I didn't push her. I had already decided I wouldn't. I thought she would return to reality when she was strong enough to face it. Tom Weylin, in his loud silence, clearly thought she was hopeless. Rufus never said what he thought. But like me, he didn't push her.

"I almost don't want her to remember," he said once. "She could be like she was before Isaac. Then maybe ..." He shrugged.

"She remembers more every day," I said. "And she asks questions."

"Don't answer her!"

"If I don't, someone else will. She'll be up and around soon."

He swallowed. "All this time, it's been so good ..."

"Good?"

"She hasn't hated me!"

10.

Alice continued to heal and to grow. She came down to the cookhouse with me for the first time on the day Carrie had her baby.

Alice had been with us for three weeks. She might have been twelve or thirteen mentally now. That morning, she had told Rufus she wanted to sleep in the attic with me. To my surprise, Rufus had agreed. He hadn't wanted to, but he had done it. I thought, not for the first time, that if Alice could manage to go on not hating him, there would be very little she couldn't ask of him. If.

Now, slowly, cautiously, she followed me down the stairs. She was weak and thinner than ever, looking like a child in one of Margaret Weylin's old dresses. But boredom had driven her from her bed.

"I'll be glad when I get well," she muttered as she paused on a step. "I hate to be like this."

"You're getting well," I said. I was a little ahead of her, watching to see that she did not stumble. I had taken her arm at the top of the stairs, but she had tried to pull away.

"I can walk."

I let her walk.

We got to the cookhouse just as Nigel did, but he was in a bigger hurry. We stood aside and let him rush through the door ahead of us.

"Huh!" said Alice as he went by. "'Scuse me!"

He ignored her. "Aunt Sarah," he called, "Aunt Sarah, Carrie's having pains!"

Old Mary had been the midwife of the plantation before her age caught up with her. Now, the Weylins may have expected her to go on doctoring the slaves, but the slaves knew better. They helped each other as best they could. I hadn't seen Sarah called to help with a birth before, but it was natural that she should be called to this one. She dropped a pan of corn meal and started to follow Nigel out.

"Can I help?" I asked.

She looked at me as though she'd just noticed me. "See to the supper," she said. "I was going to send somebody in to finish cooking, but you can, can't you?"

"Yes."

"Good." She and Nigel hurried away. Nigel had a cabin away from the quarter, not far from the cookhouse. A neat wood-floored brick-chimneyed cabin that he had built for himself and Carrie. He had shown it to me. "Don't have to sleep on rags up in the attic no more," he'd said. He'd built a bed and two chairs. Rufus had let him hire his time, work for other whites in the area, until he had money enough to buy the things he couldn't make. It had been a good investment for Rufus. Not only did he get part of Nigel's earnings, but he got the assurance that Nigel, his only valuable piece of property, was not likely to run away again soon.

"Can I go see?" Alice asked me.

"No," I said reluctantly. I wanted to go myself, but Sarah didn't need either of us getting in her way. "No, you and I have work to do here. Can you peel potatoes?"

"Sure."

I sat her down at the table and gave her a knife and some potatoes to peel. The scene reminded me of my own first time in the cookhouse when I had sat peeling potatoes until Kevin called me away. Kevin might have my letter by now. He almost surely did. He might already be on his way here.

I shook my head and began cutting up a chicken. No sense tormenting myself.

"Mama used to make me cook," said Alice. She frowned as though trying to remember. "She said I'd have to be cooking for my husband." She frowned again, and I almost cut myself trying to watch her. What was she remembering?

"Dana?"

"Yes?"

"Don't you have a husband? I remember once ... something about you having a husband."

"I do. He's up North now."

"He free?"

"Yes."

"Good to marry a freeman. Mama always said I should."

Mama was right, I thought. But I said nothing.

"My father was a slave, and they sold him away from her. She said marrying a slave is almost bad as being a slave." She looked at me. "What's it like to be a slave?"

I managed not to look surprised. It hadn't occurred to me that she didn't realize she was a slave. I wondered how she had explained her presence here to herself.

"Dana?"

I looked at her.

"I said what's it like to be a slave?"

"I don't know." I took a deep breath. "I wonder how Carrie is doing-in all that pain, and not even able to scream."

"How could you not know what it's like to be a slave. You are one."

"I haven't been one for very long."

"You were free?"

"Yes."

"And you let yourself be made a slave? You should run away."

I glanced at the door. "Be careful how you say things like that. You could get into trouble." I felt like Sarah, cautioning.

"Well it's true."

"Sometimes it's better to keep the truth to yourself."

She stared at me with concern. "What will happen to you?"

"Don't worry about me, Alice. My husband will help me get free." I went to the door to look out toward Carrie's cabin. Not that I expected to see anything. I just wanted to distract Alice. She was getting too close, "growing" too fast. Her life would change so much for the worse when she remembered. She would be hurt more, and Rufus would do much of the hurting. And I would have to watch and do nothing.

"Mama said she'd rather be dead than be a slave," she said.

"Better to stay alive," I said. "At least while there's a chance to get free." I thought of the sleeping pills in my bag and wondered just how great a hypocrite I was. It was so easy to advise other people to live with their pain.

Suddenly, she threw the potato she had been peeling into the fire.

I jumped, looked at her. "Why'd you do that?"

"There's things you ain't saying."

I sighed.