and wait for a spell. Down on the landing, the slaves would unload trunks and goods and bags of mail onto the ship. When ten o’clock came, the passengers crossed the street and the slaves helped the ladies over the gangplank. The boat never left till the Guard showed up. Always two of them, sometimes three, they passed through the ship—first deck, second deck, pilot house, bottom to top. One time they opened every humpback trunk before it went onboard. That’s when I knew they were searching for stowaways, for slaves.
The Thursday boat went all the way to New York, and then you got on another one going to Philadelphia—I’d learned that from reading the Charleston Post and Courier, which I’d swiped from the drawing room. It printed all the schedules, said the tickets cost fifty-five dollars.
Today, the steamboat landing was empty, but I wasn’t up here in the alcove to watch the boat, I was up here to figure a way to get on it. All these weeks I’d been patient. Careful. Yessum, yessum. Now I sat here with the palmettos clacking in the wind and thought of the girl who bathed in a copper tub. I thought of the woman who stole a bullet mold. I loved that girl, that woman.
I went over everything I’d seen out there on the harbor, everything I knew. I sat with my hands still, my eyes closed, my mind flying with the gulls, the world tilting like a birdwing.
When I stood up, every one of my limbs was shaking.
The next week when Hector was handing out duties for the day, he told Minta, go strip the bedding in the house and take it out to the laundry house. I thought quick and said, “Oh, I’ll do that, poor Minta’s back is hurting her.” She looked at me curious, but didn’t argue. You take a rest whatever way you can get it.
In the alcove that day, a picture had sprung in my head—dresses. I saw the black dresses the missuses had worn to mourn their husbands. I saw their spoon bonnets with the thick black veils and their black gloves. These things came to me clear as the bright of day.
When I got to missus’ room, I tugged off the bed linens, listening for footsteps on the stairs, for a cane poking its way, then I opened the last drawer of her linen press. I’d folded away missus’ mourning dress, her bonnet and gloves my own self all those years back. I’d packed them in linen with camphor gum to keep out the moth eggs and laid them in the bottom drawer. Reaching back there, I worried they were long gone, that what warded off the moths had drawn the rats, but then my fingers brushed against the linen.
I peeked inside the parcel. It was still the grandest dress I’d ever made—black velvet stitched with hundreds of black glass beads. Some of them had come loose and were scatter-rolling in the linen folds. The veil on the bonnet had two spider tears that would have to be fixed, plus I’d forgot the gloves were fingerless mitts. I’d have to sew fingers on them. I whisked everything into the bed sheets, bundled it up, and tied a topknot. Leaving it outside the door, I hurried into little missus’ room.
Her funeral outfit was stored nearly the same way in her bureau but with cedar chips instead of camphor. I didn’t know how we’d air out all these rowdy smells. When I got her dress, hat, and gloves rolled tight in the sheets, I threw both of the bed bundles over my back and went down the stairs with my cane, straight to the cellar room.
That night after me and Sky had dragged the bed over to block the door, she tried on missus’ black velvet dress and stood there with the buttons undone. Thick-waist as missus was, I’d still have to let the bodice out for Sky, add six inches to the length and two to the sleeves. She was her daddy’s girl, all right.
Little missus was normal size, but there was enough room inside her dress for two of me.
The only thing we didn’t have was shoes, proper shoes. What we had was slave shoes and that would have to do.
I started to work that night. Sky fetched threads and shears for me and watched every stitch. She sang the Gullah song she liked best, If you don’t know where you’re going, you should