me," she said.
"You want to know what it's like?" said Arthur Stuart. "Just ask your ma how thrilling it is every time she sees you find out whether somebody's sick, and whether they'll die of it."
"How could you ever get used to something like this?"
"I'm not trying to get used to it," said Arthur. "I'm trying to learn to do it."
"Why? Why do you need to know, when he can do it so much better?"
Didn't she have any idea how hurtful it was to say such a thing? "Well, it's a good thing I did learn something, don't you think?" he said. "Or we'd have to have a bunch of watchmen out tonight, and in this group, how many reliable guards do you think we'd find?"
"So you really made the fog? He didn't do it?"
"He started it, to show me how. I made the rest."
"And you can do it tomorrow?"
"I hope so," said Arthur Stuart, " 'cause we got to leave this fog behind. If we stayed a second night here, this plantation wouldn't have anything left to eat and the Cottoners would starve."
"They won't starve-they don't have all those slaves to feed now, remember?" She lay back on the grass. "If I could travel with him, I would be happy every minute of every day."
"Don't work that way for me," said Arthur Stuart. "About every other day, I stub my toe or eat something that makes me queasy. Otherwise, though, it's pretty much ecstasy."
"Why do you tease me? All I'm doing is telling you what's in my heart."
"He's a married man," said Arthur Stuart. "And his wife is my sister."
"Don't be jealous for your sister," said Dead Mary. "I don't love him that way."
Yes you do, thought Arthur Stuart. "Glad to hear it," he said.
"Can you help me?" she said.
"Help you what?"
"This globe of crystal water he made, that I've been carrying with me-"
"As I recall, you had a couple of boys who were sweet on you pushing that wheelbarrow most of the day."
She waved his tease away. "I look in it and what I see frightens me."
"What do you see?"
"All the deaths in the world," she said. "So many I can't even tell who is doing the dying."
Arthur Stuart shuddered. "I don't know how the thing works. Maybe you only see what you've been trained to see. You already know how to see death, so that's what you see."
She nodded. "That makes sense. I was going to ask you what you see."
"My mother," said Arthur Stuart. "Flying. Carrying me to freedom."
"So you were born in slavery."
"My mother spent all her strength and died of it, getting me away."
"How brave of her. How sad for you."
"I had family. A couple of families. A black one, the Berrys, they pretended they were my real parents for awhile, so folks wouldn't tag me as a runaway. And the Guesters, the white family that actually raised me. Alvin's mother-in-law, Old Peg, she adopted me. She meant it, too. Though I reckon Alvin's been more my father than Peggy's father was. He's an innkeeper, and a good man. Helped a lot of slaves get to freedom. And he always made me feel welcome, but it was Alvin took me everywhere and showed me everything."
"And all before you were twenty."
"I don't reckon we're done yet," said Arthur Stuart.
"So you can tease me, but I can't tease you?"
"I didn't know you were teasing."
"So you don't speak all the languages." She laughed at him.
"If you don't mind, maybe it's time for sleep."
"Don't be mad at me, Prentice Maker. We have a lot of work to do together. We should be friends."
"We are," said Arthur Stuart. "If you want to be."
"I do."
He thought, but did not say: Just so you can use me to stay close to Alvin, I reckon.
"Do you?" she said.
Does it matter what I want? "Of course," he said. "This is all going to work better if we're friends."
"And someday you'll help me understand what I see in Alvin's globe?"
"I don't even understand what I see in my soup," said Arthur Stuart. "But I'll try."
She rolled onto one arm and leaned toward him and kissed his forehead. "I will sleep better knowing you're my friend and I can learn from you."
Then she got up and left.
You might sleep better, thought Arthur Stuart, but I won't.
Chapter 10
Mizzippy
Alvin found it hard to hear the greensong in this place. It wasn't just the disharmony of field after field of cotton tended by slaves, which droned a