but just as we did, I saw Mars running toward us, hollering, holding a bag in one hand and waving wildly with the other.
“Hey now!” he said as he approached us, and I greeted him with a smile and a doff of my hat.
“Heard you would be leaving us for a while,” he said. “Wanted to give you a touch of something.”
And at that he handed me the bag. I opened it and saw a bottle of rum and gingerbread wrapped in paper.
“Remember,” he said. “Family.”
“I remember,” I said. “Goodbye, Mars.”
When we arrived at the station, the train was there idling and the passengers were making last preparations to board. Scanning among the crowd, I saw my contact, a white agent who would second me should anything prove amiss. I turned to them all and said, “Well, this appears to be my train,” and then embraced each of them. I walked down to join the milling crowds below and presented my ticket, boarded, and found my place in the car, one distant enough that I could no longer see this new family of mine, for I feared what might happen should I be forced to watch them fade from me. And I thought of Sophia then, and I thought of how much I would like to bring her here, to meet these people and hear their wild adventures, to eat gingerbread by the promenade, and watch white men wave from unicycles. And then I heard the conductor shout and the big cat roar, and my descent into the Southern maw began.
* * *
—
Long before we crossed the border, before Baltimore, before the sight of the conductor walking the aisle, inspecting every colored, before the mountains of western Maryland broke into Virginia, I felt the change. To task is to wear a mask, and what I now saw clearly was that I would miss Philadelphia because in that city of noxious fumes, I had been the truest version of myself, unbent by the desires and rituals of others, so that now the change I felt overtaking me—my chest tightening, my eyes lowering, my hands open and loose, my whole body slouching in its seat—was a kind of total self-denial, a complete lie. And when I stepped off the train, at that Clarksburg station, I could feel the shackles clamping down on my wrist, the vise tightening around my neck. Having lived as I had, having tasted my own freedom, having seen whole societies of colored but free, I felt it as a weight beyond anything I had ever known.
By the following evening, a Tuesday, I was back at Bryceton, installed in my old cabin. Corrine offered me a day to myself. I spent most of it walking in the woods, imagining myself walking in Philadelphia, as I’d so often done. I thought again of how much I wanted to take Sophia there, and thinking further, how much I wanted to take Thena there, and it occurred to me on that day that I was happy to have returned, for I never wanted to again breathe free air with those two in chains.
Bland had promised me he would convince Corrine to rescue Sophia. But Bland was dead. And so I must, on my own, somehow convince Corrine to liberate them both. There were obstacles to this beyond the death of Bland. Sophia was the property of Nathaniel Walker, personal property, so that any such rescue would raise his ire, and raise suspicions. Thena was of such an age that the Virginia Underground would likely oppose her rescue, for it was felt that a life of freedom should first be given to those able to make the most use of it. But I had told Kessiah we would have it, and I was determined to make it so.
I met Corrine and Hawkins early the next morning in the parlor of the main house, and walking through that doorway, memories of times past, and my first visit to Bryceton, and the unveiling of its incredible secrets, struck me. And I saw my old tutor, my Mr. Fields, my Micajah Bland, laughing as Hawkins related some story, and I saw him turn to me with the gravest look imaginable, and in his eyes I saw all the terrible knowledge that would soon be put upon me.
“Hiram,” Corrine said, as we settled down in our chairs. “When you tumbled into the river with Maynard, you achieved two effects. The first of these was