this one,” I said.
“No,” she said. “Can only run. But I must know how and I must know to what.”
* * *
—
We did not speak much after that, as both our time was now much occupied with what had been said and the events of the day. But when we arrived back at Lockless, we found Thena seated at the edge of the tunnel with her head in her hand. There was a bandage wrapped around her head. She was in her work dress with no coat. Caroline was nowhere to be seen.
“Thena!” I said.
“Yeah?” she said.
“What happened?” Sophia said. “Where’s Caroline?”
“Inside sleeping,” Thena said.
Sophia darted into the tunnel. I squatted down and touched the side of Thena’s temple where a spot of blood had pooled in the bandage.
“Thena, what happened?” I said.
“Don’t know,” she said. “I—I can’t remember.”
“Well, tell me what you do,” I said.
She squinted her eyes. “I-I don’t…”
“All right, all right,” I said. “Come on, let’s get in.”
I put her arm over my neck and lifted, and as I did, I saw Sophia coming back out of the tunnel.
“She fine. Asleep, just like Thena said it,” she said. “Look like Thena put her in your bed, and…I can see why.” Then Sophia started to cry and said, “Hiram, they took it. I know what they was doing. They took it.”
We walked a few steps and I felt Thena’s feet begin to drag. So I picked her up in my arms and carried her. “Hold on,” I said. We passed Thena’s room first and what I saw was a half a chair on the ground and splinters everywhere. I walked past there to my old room, where I saw Caroline just beginning to stir. Sophia pulled the covers off and picked her up. I laid Thena down in her place and pulled the cover back over her.
I turned to Sophia. “The hell happened?”
She shook her head. She was still crying.
I walked back to Thena’s room. It looked like someone had taken an axe to everything—the bed, the mantel, the one chair, it was all smashed. And then I looked over and saw the true aim—Thena’s lockbox, which was splintered in two. Kneeling down, I saw some old souvenirs—beads, spectacles, a couple of playing cards. But what I did not see was the laundry money that Thena had so dutifully deposited every week, as her payment on freedom. I stood there for a moment trying to understand who would do such a thing. I had heard stories of old masters making such deals and then reneging, keeping all the money for themselves. But this made no sense with Thena—who was old, and willing to compensate Howell for her freedom and relieve him of her care. And the violence of it, the axing, spoke of someone who had no other means to compel Thena, and I knew, right then, that whoever had done it had to be Tasked.
You don’t ever know how much you need your people until they are gone. By then Lockless was down to perhaps twenty-five souls. But it was not as it had been before, when, though there were more, we were all known to each other. Now I only knew a few of them on the Street and knew fewer still down in the Warrens. In the old days there were men, slave-doctors, who could have seen to Thena. But they were all gone, sent out, and we were left to ourselves. I thought of Philadelphia, and the warmth I felt knowing there was always someone, and I felt that a kind of lawlessness had now descended upon Lockless. Whom would I tell of the assault on Thena? My father? And what would be his answer then? To send more across the bridge? Could I even believe that the right perpetrator would be sent?
We made our share of changes over the next week. We moved, all of us, out of the Warrens and down to Thena’s old cabin in the Street. It was where we felt our safest, and all it meant for me was that I would rise a bit earlier in the morning to get to my father in time for my duties. We did not leave Thena alone. Sophia took up the washing and I assisted as I could on Sundays, hauling up the water, gathering the wood, and wringing the laundry. Thena was mostly back to normal after a week. But the terror of that assault changed her, and