So this was it. I truly was now back under. I felt an odd relief in this, for the chafing of my clothes put me in connection with all those who chafed under the Task. I knew that Corrine had set the slave deed, the deed to my soul, afire, but this had no meaning in a place where the whole society thought me a slave. And I recalled then Georgie Parks, whose specious freedom was pinned to the arrest of any other colored who should aspire to rise as he did. I was not Georgie. I could not truly torch the deed that held me until the Task itself was torched.
I met Hawkins at the stables and we brought the horses around to the main house. We waited there in silence for Corrine, and when she walked out with Amy, I truly understood the majesty of the Virginia station’s endeavor. I had now seen two different versions of Corrine, so far from each other as to not even seem to be the same person. There was Corrine of the Virginia Underground and the New York Convention, with her hair tumbling down to her shoulders, with a wild and free laughter. And then there was this Corrine, prim, walking before us as though royalty, her face impeccably painted, with that rose-like glow about her that all women of Quality sought. But she was still in her mourning clothes and now the ensemble had grown more elaborate, a black bustle trailing behind her, a black veil so long that when it was lifted and thrown back, it fell down to her waist. She must have caught my surprise, and Corrine could not help but giggle. Then, with an assist from Amy, she pulled the mourning veil over her head and the game was afoot.
It was a funny thing, seeing the country again from this angle. To see the woods I had sometimes raced through, and all the geography I had navigated during the rigors of training. I could see all the birches, ironwoods, and red oaks alive in their beautiful fans of russet and gold. The mountains just beyond us, with their overhangs and clearings where the world opened up and you could see the bounty of this deathly season clear for miles. But in my heart I felt the fear of having returned to slave country and that this world now had eyes on me.
By late afternoon, we had arrived at Starfall, and I knew, almost instantly, that the decline that had been in motion when I left had now accelerated. Everything was too quiet. It was a Thursday, a day of business, but as we rode into town, our only greeting was the wind whipping leaves up Main Street. We passed the town square, which had been in another time a place of bountiful activity, and I saw that the wooden platform, where the highest men of Quality would address the town, had splintered and rotted and been left in disrepair. Buildings that once advertised fur-traders, wheelwrights, and emporiums now stood empty. We drove past the racetrack, and I saw that the pine fencing from where I once watched the races had collapsed and the green field had begun to invade the turf.
I looked over to Hawkins, who was driving and seated beside me, and said, “Race-day?”
“Not this year,” he said. “Maybe not ever again.”
We stowed the horses at the stable, and then walked across the street to the inn. When we walked inside, this is what I saw: a large room filled with ten whites, Low by their appearance, seated throughout. None of them were in conversation with each other, preferring instead to be off to themselves nursing their lagers or their private thoughts. To the far right, cosseted in a small anteroom, there was a clerk, attending to his ledger. No one took note of our arrival. There was something odd at work, though I could not place what. I stayed behind Corrine and followed her over to the clerk, who never lifted his head.
Then she said, “How goes the Kentucky comet?”
Now the clerk looked up, paused a moment, and said, “Derailed this morning.”
At that Corrine looked over at Hawkins and nodded. He moved quickly to the door and locked it. Two of the men sitting at the tables now looked up from their lagers, stood, and went to the windows, where they drew the Venetian blinds. And that was the second time, in one