his face that this was by design. There were always so many secrets.
We went into the home and climbed up to the second level, where he reached up and grasped a metal ring, attached by a hinge in its wooden housing in the ceiling, and pulled gently, until the ceiling opened up and a ladder slid down. We then climbed up the ladder, into the rafters of the home. Raymond walked to a corner where I saw several small wooden crates. He selected two. We carried them back down out of the rafters, closed up the ceiling again, and took them down to the drawing room.
Raymond opened the crates and said, “Have a look, Hiram.”
Reaching in, I found an assortment of paper, correspondences with fugitives—filled with kind words, familial reports, and grave intelligence on the movements of Ryland’s Hounds, the plots and intrigues of the Slave Power, and most often, requests for the liberation of relatives. I saw that he marked those that he had acknowledged and those he hoped to. There was great value in these papers, and he had crates of them, much to be learned about the actions of our enemies, but should our enemies ever acquire them, much to be learned of our own. In the wrong hands, countless agents would be exposed.
“The stories here are beyond anything anyone could ever believe—even those of us who are actually party to them,” Raymond said. I was still filing through them, amazed at the array. It seemed that there was a testimony from nearly everyone who’d ever run from the Task and been rescued by the Philadelphia station. It occurred to me that my own interview with Mary Bronson likely was contained there. “It is good to remember why we do what we do. I have worked with agents of all persuasion and I cannot say that they are moved by the purest of motives.”
“Possible that none of us is pure,” I said. “Possible we all got our reasons for doing what we do.”
“Indeed,” Raymond said. “Can I say that without the connection of my family, I would be here right now? Involved as I am? Of course not. And family is what we promised you, is it not? Your beloved Sophia—who ran with you, in a manner not so different from all those stories contained in my files, indeed, not so different from my very own parents.”
“Somewhat different,” I said. “We never got to a point of seeing things clear. We were very young. It’s odd to say it as such, I know. Ain’t even been a year since I was captured. But there was something there, something we were nursing that I do believe would have bloomed into family. But maybe not. Maybe I imagined it all.”
“Well,” he said. “At the very least, you are owed a chance to find out.”
“I believe so.”
“It is not the simplest of matters, this business with Sophia. But you have been toyed with too much, Hiram, and so I will make the statement concerning you directly and then give you the rest of it after.”
I took a deep breath, preparing myself.
“We have yet to make contact with her—it is a delicate matter, as you can imagine, one that will require some time. But Bland has devised a plan for her conduction. Indeed, he has volunteered to handle the thing personally. But there is a complication here—not with Sophia, but with us. You have caught us at a particular time, as we are occupied with another operation,” he said. “Otha has spoken to you of his wife?”
“Lydia?” I asked.
“Yes, Lydia. And not just Lydia but their children…my nieces and nephews. It has long been our plan to see them out. Otha appeared to us as though out of a dream. We had thought him lost. But through fortune and the grace of God, he returned to us. And as happy as he has been to be back among us, and as happy as we have been to have him, we are not whole.
“Lydia is in Alabama. Her owner has defied all our entreaties to pay for her freedom. And worse, we believe those entreaties have only raised his suspicions and made him watchful. Lydia and the children are truly in the coffin, Hiram, and with each day there, the coffin closes a little more.”
“I understand,” I said. “Everyone—but everyone in their time.”
“Yes,” Raymond said. “Everyone in their time. But there is more still. This operation is not just