to earth."
Alvin remembered now how a question had nagged at Arthur the whole time he was with Audubon, a question that he could never quite frame in a way to get the answer he needed. Now Alvin had the answer for him. "She is waiting for you, Arthur Stuart," said Alvin. "With wings or without, your mother bird is still alive, waiting for you when the time comes."
Arthur Stuart nodded. "I think you're right," he said. "I feel her sometimes in the sky, so high I can't see her, but she's looking down and she sees me." He looked to Alvin and Margaret for reassurance. "That's not silly, is it?"
"They'd have to have a thousand angels watching her every minute in heaven," said Margaret, "to keep your mama from watching over you."
Arthur Stuart nodded. "When I see her," he said, "that's when I'll find out my true name."
"All names are true on that day," said Alvin. "When we see each other for what we really are."
Margaret said nothing. She took no comfort in thinking of a day of resurrection far in the distant future, for she had never seen that day in any heartfire. All her visions ended, sooner or later, in death. That's what was real to her.
Real and yet not terribly important. She felt her own swelling abdomen, where the baby's tiny heartfire was growing. As long as she had enough time to see this through, to bring this girl into the world and raise her to adulthood, she'd have no complaint when death came for her.
The ferry pulled in and the people from the New Sweden side disembarked noisily. Alvin, Margaret, and Arthur walked back to where Fishy, Gullah Joe, and Denmark and his wife waited for them. Fast as they were traveling, news had already reached them of mass hangings of rebel slaves in Camelot. They feared the worst - John Calhoun's proposal to hang one in every three. But it turned out to be only twenty.
Only twenty.
In addition, a warrant had been issued for a scoundrel named Denmark Vesey, an illegally freed half-Black who had plotted the whole thing, meeting every slave ship that came to port. Well, that would never happen again. Blacktown was cleaned out and the laws concerning the movements of slaves without their masters were going to be tightened considerably. The days of soft treatment were over for the slaves of the Crown Colonies. They'd learn who was boss.
Once the stories crossed the Potomac, however, they changed. The facts were the same, but now the story was told with growing anger. Even Blacks want to be free, that's what the Northerners said. Whatever they might have planned, they didn't kill a single White. And now the Crown Colonies are cracking down even harder on these poor souls. Enough. The line had to be drawn. No slavery in the western territories. And no more rights for Slave Finders in the United States. Repudiate the treaty. If the Congress we've got won't do it, then we'll elect one that will. Never again will a human being on northern territory be the property of another man. People might not know it yet, but this was the rumor of war, and soon enough these seeds would bear fruit. Margaret had spent many months trying to forestall it. Now she knew that war was the only hope of ending slavery. Dreadful as it might be, it was a war that had to be fought. And here in New Sweden, the chatter of war was from the right side. It was her people talking.
Overhearing such conversation at a roadside inn, where the whole party could sit at a table together, Black, White, and all in between, led Denmark to lean back in his chair, fold his hands behind his head, and say, "It be good to be home!"
All along the road, Alvin worked steadily at trying to heal the damage to Denmark's wife. Margaret assured him that all her memories were still in her heartfire, somewhere, hidden from Margaret because they were hidden from the woman herself. It was slow, meticulous work, healing only a few nerves at a time, a few tiny regions of the brain. But they could all see the improvement in her. She limped less and less. Her hands became more deft. Her speech became clearer. She remembered more and more.
There came one morning when she woke up screaming from a terrible dream. Fishy was with her, but Denmark soon came at