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rides, and I hope you understand that if he vomits, I am not prepared to hold a bag to catch it."

The driver considered this for a moment. "You keep that curtain closed, then. I don't want no trouble."

Fishy looked at Margaret, incredulous. Then she leaned over and pulled the drapes closed on one side of the coach while Margaret closed them on the other. Once they were closed off from public view, Fishy sat on the padded bench beside Calvin and grinned like a three-year-old with a spoon full of molasses. She even bounced a little on the seat.

The window opened again. "Where to, ma'am?" asked the driver.

"I'll know it when I see it," Margaret said. "I'm quite sure it's in Blacktown, however."

"Oh, ma'am, you oughtn't to go up there."

"That's why I have my brother-in-law with me."

"Well, I'll take you up there, but I don't like it."

"You'll like it better when I pay you," said Margaret.

"I'd like it better iffen you paid me in advance," said the driver.

Margaret just laughed.

"I meant to say half in advance."

"You'll be paid upon arrival, and that, sir, is the law. Though if you'd like to throw me out of your carriage, you are free to summon a constable. You can ask him about having a slave seated in your carriage, too, while you're at it."

The driver slammed the window shut and the carriage lurched forward, quite roughly. Fishy whooped and nearly fell off her seat, then sat there laughing. "I don't know how come you White folks don't ride like this all the time."

"Rich people do," said Margaret. "But not all White people are rich."

"They all richer than me," said Fishy.

"In money, I'm quite sure you're right." And then, because she was enjoying Fishy's delight, she also bounced up and down on her seat. The two of them laughed like schoolgirls.
* * *

Denmark felt the knife in his pocket like a two-ton weight. It was a terrible thing he'd been planning to do, killing a helpless man like that, and it was made all the worse by the fact that White lady knew he meant to do it. He was used to being invisible, White people paying him no mind except now and then to give him a little random trouble. But this woman, her idea of trouble was specific. She knew things about him that nobody knew, not even Gullah Joe. She scared him.

So he was glad to get away, glad to wander the streets of Blacktown until he came upon a door and suddenly he knew this was the one, though he couldn't have said how he knew, or why he didn't remember it from before. He set his hand on the knob and it opened easily, without a key. Once he was inside and the door shut behind him, he remembered everything. Gullah Joe. The struggle over the name-strings. No wonder he was supposed to kill that White man! The thing he did, unraveling some poor slave's name and cutting it loose to wander who knows where...

But he did know where. He whooped with laughter. "Gullah Joe, you won't believe it! I met the Black girl what got her name cut loose by the devil you caught!"

Gullah Joe glared at him. "Be maybe you not shouting me business so all can hear it in the street, they."

"She goes by the name Fishy," said Denmark, close enough that he didn't have to shout. "I don't think it was no accident that White boy cut her name loose, cause she be rented out to his sister-in-law."

"I think you telling me you find this White man?"

"I did, but he ain't dead yet."

Gullah Joe slapped the table hard. Denmark was startled and his jocular mood fell away. "You lose you courage?"

"She knew I was coming," said Denmark.

"A woman, she!"

"She got him down to the battery, all them White folks around, you think I'm going to show that knife, let alone cut a White boy with it?"

"Boy? This White man be maybe him a child?"

"No, he a man, but he be young. Bet he don't shave." Denmark remembered how Calvin looked. So empty. Like his woman. That White witch knew all about her.

Against his will, Denmark looked for her. There she was, mending clothes in a corner. She didn't look up. It took all her concentration just to get the needle into and out of the cloth. She used to be hot-hearted like that Fishy girl. Maybe I could have won her over fairly, if I