The Candle Star, by Michelle Isenhoff, Chapter 20

If you’re new to The Candle Star, you can start at Chapter One.  Each week I’ll also link to the previous post.

This is it, the LAST CHAPTER!  If you stuck with me all the way, thank you!  I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed sharing it.

The Candle Star

by Michelle Isenhoff

Chapter Twenty

Emily waited at the foot of the hotel steps, wearing her second best gown and holding a tremendous bouquet of roses.  Shannon’s sister stood beside her, and the lobby swarmed with red-haired nieces and nephews mixed in among the dark faces of Julia, Malachi and Zeke.

Isaac sat at the piano dressed in his best suit with his riot of curls neatly combed.  He played once through an old hymn, and as he moved smoothly into Fur Elise, the bride appeared at the top of the stairs.  She floated down to the beautiful melody, eyes shining, hair falling in ringlets onto a soft blue gown.  Isaac couldn’t take his eyes off her.

Shannon had been overjoyed when Emily finally pruned off the last of her pride and abolished the uneasy truce.  Then it hadn’t taken much effort for the young woman to talk Emily into staying for the wedding.

After the ceremony they would feast on Julia’s delicious cooking, and that afternoon Emily’s train would leave for home, but for now Emily stood contentedly within the circle of her patchwork family, blooming like the roses in Shannon’s garden.

~

Emily changed into her new traveling suit and laid one last petticoat on the pile overflowing the top of her trunk.  She couldn’t imagine how she was going to close the lid.  Why was it that on returning a trunk always seemed smaller?

Only a few items remained on her bed, and most of these she shoved into her handbag.  That left only a stained strip of white linen – Rachel’s bandage.

The cloth had been laundered, and now Emily rolled it into a tight ball and shoved it into a corner of her trunk.  It would serve as a reminder to look for “little things” on the plantation.  She did not want to forget the color of blood.

A knock sounded at the door and Isaac peeked in.  “Almost ready?”

She nodded.  “But it will take a miracle to latch this trunk.”

“You don’t weigh enough,” he told her.  “Allow me.”

He sat on the lid, and when it closed – groaning – she fastened the lock.

“Now let’s pray the catch doesn’t spring open and litter the compartment with ladies’ undergarments,” he joked.

She laughed, thinking such a scene could be entertaining on the long train ride.

“If you’re all set, there’s something I’d like to show you before you leave.”

Emily gave the latch one final inspection before following him into his office.  The top of the Dutch door was firmly closed.

Isaac sat at his desk and pressed a small panel.  The secret compartment popped open, and he removed the journal with the star embossed on its cover.

“Only Julia, Shannon and Malachi know the contents of this book, but as the newest conductor at this station, and as my most trusted niece –”

“I’m your only niece.”

“Not anymore,” he grinned.

“–descended from the same dubious lineage, the niece most like me in thought and temperament, I assumed you might like to know exactly where the Milford family fortune went.”

He opened the journal to a random page and held it open for her to see.  Dated March 14, 1855, it looked just like all the other entries she remembered.  She read through the list, “Joe, Solomon, six sacks of apples, three hundred pounds seed corn, three plows, twenty spades, twenty hoes, woolen cloth, fourteen buckets.”

The next entry, dated two weeks later, looked much the same.  “Anna, Thomas, Daniel, five lanterns, fifteen gallons kerosene, oxen yoke.”

Emily took the book and thumbed through several more pages.  Some entries had names and no items, others listed just materials, but still she could make no sense of the notations.

“You still don’t understand?”   He turned to the very last entry.  Dated a few weeks before, it read, “Rachel, Willis, four axes, ten hammers, one crosscut saw, twenty sacks feed.”

The light finally dawned.  Emily flipped to the beginning.  It was dated fifteen years before.  She gawked at her uncle.  “Is this why you moved to the north?”

He nodded.  “I had an uncle who was a very wise man.  He saw what I was becoming and offered to take me under his wing for a time.  My father readily agreed.  So I spent two tough years learning to work and gaining a new perspective on life.

“It was my uncle who first introduced me to the Underground Railroad.  Together we helped more than forty runaways pass right under my father’s nose.

“When my parents died I inherited the estate, and my first act as the new master was to free every slave.  Then I sold out.  Of course, much of the value of the estate was in slaves, and my father had several creditors.  So most folks, including your father, assumed I was foolish and broke.”

“But you had enough to buy this hotel,” Emily figured.

“And some left over, which I have put to use outfitting former slaves when they settle in Canada.  With the help of many individuals, both black and white, supplies are collected and transported across the river.”

“And you did this while Mr. Burrows boarded in your house?”

Isaac laughed.  “He’d be proud to know how many black families he’s financed!”

“Does my mama know what you’re doing up here?”

He smiled gently.  “Do you think she would have let you come?  No, she thinks I’m a misplaced southern gentleman with no eye for business, but she did recognize the changes wrought by my uncle’s hand.  And I think she’ll be very proud of you.”

He closed the book and replaced it in its hiding place.  “I’ll see to your trunk.”

~

Emily sat in the window seat and faced the cinnamon-colored depot.  She had exchanged a dozen final hugs, accepted a huge basket of food from Julia, and promised Malachi she would send for his books immediately.  Then Isaac slipped her a parcel wrapped in brown paper.  “Just something little to remember us by,” he winked.

The train let out a sharp whistle and lurched into motion like a beast awakened from slumber.  Emily waved to her family until the train inched around the curve and the bustling waterfront was lost to sight.

As the train picked up speed, Emily opened her gift.  Inside she found a small book of Longfellow’s poetry.  She laughed out loud and held the volume up for Zeke to see.  But the old man had already fallen asleep, his gray hair resting against the back of his seat, his mouth open slightly.

Emily smiled fondly at him and lost herself in the beauty of cadence and rhyme.

***********

 Author’s Note

Sometimes when writing historical fiction, the line between truth and imagination blurs.  I’d like to take the opportunity to identify some factual people and events mentioned in The Candle Star.

Michigan played a very important role in the Underground Railroad, the network of secret routes escaping slaves followed to Canada.  Seven lines crossed the state, most running through Detroit.  My inspiration for The Candle Star came from the true account of a Detroit man named Seymour Finney who hid runaways in his barn while hosting slave catchers in his hotel.  The railroad stock advertisement Zeke read was taken from an 1853 Detroit UGRR broadside now kept by the Detroit Public Library.

The most important historical figure to appear in my story was Frederick Douglass.  A former slave, he rose to become one of the most eloquent and influential American orators of his day.  He really did speak in the Second Baptist Church of Detroit on March 12, 1859.  There is no record of what he said that day.  The words I have written for him are actually his own, taken from several of his speeches, lumped into one address and shaped to fit this story.

George deBaptiste was another real-life character.  His steamship, the T. Whitney, frequently carried human cargo to safety.  Mr. deBaptiste hosted Frederick Douglass in his home where he met with the famous abolitionist, John Brown, before the address at Second Baptist.  The church, the first in Michigan to be started by free Blacks, was instrumental in assisting thousands of runaway slaves to freedom.  It still operates in Detroit today.

Sir George Cayley, an engineer from Scarborough, England, was the first person to discover the principles of flight.  In 1853, he built and successfully tested the first manned glider.  It probably wasn’t recreated and demonstrated five years later at an American state fair, but it could have been.  All the other inventions mentioned at the fair were also time-accurate.  Flying Tom Landless is fictional.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was one of America’s most noteworthy poets.  He was alive and very popular when this story takes place.  The quotes are taken from his poems “Autumn,” “The Building of the Ship,” and “To the River Charles” in that order.

Finally, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the book mentioned by Emily in chapter 3, was published by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852 and helped to popularize the abolitionist movement, which aided the nomination of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency, which in turn led to the Civil War in 1861.

If you’d like your own copy of The Candle Star, click on the picture on the left.  On my website, I also offer a variety of resources, including study questions, vocab, social studies extension ideas and primary source materials – all aligned with GLCE’s and Common Core standards.  (Click on the “For Teachers” page at the top of my blog.)  The materials are being collected in an 8.5 x 11, reproducible booklet, but a free ebook version will be available for preview.  I wanted them done today, but they will probably be available Monday (1/16/12). Thanks for reading!

The Candle Star, by Michelle Isenhoff, Chapter 19

If you’re new to The Candle Star, you can start at Chapter One.  Each week I’ll also link to the previous post. 

We’re almost to the end.  Next week is the LAST CHAPTER!

The Candle Star

by Michelle Isenhoff

Chapter Nineteen

They’d hardly started when a booming voice hailed them.  “Milford!”

Emily recognized Mr. Thatcher at once.  She willed her uncle to drive on past, but he pulled up the horses and addressed the mill owner.  “Hello, William.  What’s going on?”

“Nothing, nothing.  Just on my way to a card game.  But I ran into Burrows near your place.  He’s looking for a couple runaway kids.  Told me to keep my eyes open.”

“Sure.  He told me, too.”

“He’s a good man, that Burrows.  There ought to be stiffer penalties for helping slaves sneak through here.  What’cha got in the wagon?”

Emily gulped and prayed the others would remain still.

“Not much.  John Harrison couldn’t meet the steamer today so I picked up his order, but I wasn’t about to deliver that saw on horseback.”

Mr. Thatcher guffawed loudly.

“I’ll keep a look out for anything suspicious,” Isaac promised and slapped the lines on the horses.

Emily dared to breathe again, and too soon the wagon jerked to another stop.  Malachi tapped her knee and shimmied over the edge of the wagon bed.  She followed as quickly as she could.  Her uncle kept his eyes to the front as if, by not looking, he could protect them from other unwelcome glances.

Emily met Rachel’s eyes as she dropped to the ground.  “Good luck,” she whispered as the wagon started up again.  She took a steadying breath and caught sight of Malachi waving her into a dark doorway.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the strip of linen in her hand.

She held it up.  Her hand was shaking.  “Rachel’s bandage.”  She hastily tied it around one of her shoes, praying it would fool the hounds yet hoping it would not.

Her teeth began to chatter.  The night was mild, but her shift was short and thin and her legs were bare.  “What do we do now?”

“Follow me.  Stay in the shadows as much as possible and move quickly.  The pick-up point is a few miles off.”

“What happens if Burrows finds us?”

“We run faster.  Come on!”

They fled between buildings that looked far less forbidding by the light of day.  The darkness felt heavy, and the occasional passer-by turned to watch them flee.  But the road was smooth and straight, and they covered ground quickly.  After they crossed the railroad track the buildings began to thin.

The land broadened and the road narrowed, becoming muddy and rutted as they passed between farms.  Emily tripped and slid, glancing behind, gasping for breath.  She had never raced this far, and she was thankful now for all the hard work that had made her muscles strong and taut.

Finally Malachi slowed.  “We should have some time before Burrows finds our trail.  Let’s catch our breath.”

They didn’t stop but hustled along at something less than a run.  Soon Emily’s breathing regulated enough to ask a question Rachel had prompted.  “Malachi, if our slaves at Ella Wood really hate it there, like Rachel said, why do you suppose Zeke stayed after Uncle Isaac freed him?”

“Zeke chose to follow your mother.  That’s an important distinction.”

“But if he was free, why not go do what he wanted?”

“Think about it, Emily.  Slavery was all he’d ever known.  He was an old man when your uncle freed him.  How many choices were open to him?”

She changed the subject.  “How far do we have to go?”

“Straight along this road, then cut over to the river.  We’re probably nearing halfway.”

“Good.”  She jogged along, feeling more at ease.  “I watched you change Rachel’s bandage.  I think you’ll make a fine doctor.”

He smiled.  “And I think –”

A distant baying cut him off and tightened his smile.  Fear dumped itself into Emily’s gut like it was poured from a pail.

“Let’s go!”

Malachi rocketed down the road, and Emily struggled to keep her feet under her in the mud.  She watched Malachi nearly go down in front of her.  A moment later, he clambered over the rail fence alongside the road.  “The field is flatter,” he said, helping her over.

They struggled through a meadow choked with last year’s growth and picked up speed over a hayfield.  They passed through field after field, tearing through briars, sliding through mud, pushing through woods, flitting from tree to tree – dark and silent as black moonbeams.  Emily’s legs burned and her breath came in great, gulping pants, but the memory of Rachel’s slashed leg kept her pounding ahead of the dogs, hoping Malachi knew where he was going.

The sound of baying grew steadily louder behind them.

“This way!”  Malachi veered off the road and splashed into a small creek.  “Maybe they’ll lose our trail in the water.”

The creek wasn’t deep, but the bottom was uneven, and it splattered all the way up Emily’s thigh.  She clenched her teeth against water still as cold as winter’s breath.

They followed the creek under a fence and through a field of cows.  Startled from their warm spring beds, the cows lunged to their feet and ran lowing across the field.

In the open space, the stars unrolled across the sky; the scorpion, Hercules, and the great dipper all in their familiar places.  And above them all, the North Star was the hinge that held them in position.

The North Star!  The Candle Star, guiding them, showing the way!  Now she knew Malachi was indeed holding them to their direction.  They were headed east.

The creek rounded a bend and flowed beneath a canopy of trees.  By this time Emily’s feet had gone quite numb, and in the dark she tripped over a fallen log and fell headlong into the water.

She came up spluttering and shivering, choking on the water streaming down her face.  Malachi dragged her out of the creek and up the bank and set her down in a patch of grass.

“Are you okay?”

She nodded, unable to speak through her chattering teeth.

“Emily, I’m sorry.  I never should have let you come.  It was foolish of me.”  He smacked his fist on his knee in frustration and anger.  “I sure wish you hadn’t stumbled through that barn door this afternoon!”

Emily was regretting that very thing, but there was nothing to do now but keep moving.  She raised herself to her feet, shivering violently.

“M-Malachi,” she chattered, “what will happen if w-we’re caught?”

“You will return home, to your parents’ embarrassment.”

“And you?”

He shrugged.

“You’d g-go to jail, wouldn’t you?”

“If I’m lucky.”

She gasped, suddenly realizing the cost of Malachi’s gamble.  “You could be taken as a slave!”

“Mr. Milford would never allow that.”  But his voice was strained.

“W-what if he didn’t know?”  Why had she insisted on coming along?  She was only slowing him down.

“Come on, we still have a lot of ground to cover.  And take that rag off your foot!”

She saw he had already discarded his.  She yanked the bandage loose and tucked it inside her shift.

She could hear the dogs, getting closer and closer.  She saw again a vision of the bloody slash on Rachel’s leg, and she ran.  Over fields and fences and streams, wondering just how far they had traveled.

She ran like a stalked creature.  She thought of the stories her brother told of hunting in the woods back home, of how raccoons could outwit a dog.  Sometimes they would escape by climbing above the reach of a dog’s nose and traveling tree to tree like a squirrel.  Other times they might run along a fence rail and drop back to the ground far from the point they climbed up.  They would even double back.  They were wily creatures, raccoons.

Just then they broke out of a glade of trees.  Moonlight bathed the field beyond, illuminating a barn at the far end.  A barn with an odd silhouette.  With a jolt, Emily recognized it.

“Malachi, is this where we came for the state fair last fall?” she panted.

“I think so.  Yeah.  I see the platform on top of the barn where that the fellow in the glider rolled off.”

Her heart leaped.  “Come on, I have an idea!”

She raced toward the barn, hoping the tall platform meant the heavy guy wires were still there, supporting the structure, stretching fifty yards beyond the barn.

They were!  She almost tripped on one as they approached.

Malachi hesitated.  “If we go in the barn, we’re sitting ducks.”

“Not in the barn, ON it,” she corrected.  “Climb!”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he mumbled as they grabbed hold of the scaffolding and began pulling themselves up.

It didn’t take long.  From the top of the platform they could look out over the surrounding fields.  The river sparkled not far away.

“Look!” Malachi exclaimed in a loud whisper.  “The dogs!”

The baying was loud and clear now.  Both animals could be seen only a quarter of a mile away.

Emily found where the guy wires attached to the scaffolding.  She grabbed hold of the thick cable, swung her legs around and started shimmying down.

“Are you crazy?  What are you doing?” Malachi hissed.

“I’m being a raccoon.”

“You’re what?”

“If we can fool Burrows’ hounds into thinking we’re in the barn, it will take some time for the men to come up and realize we’re not.”

Malachi sucked in his breath and quickly latched onto the cable behind her.  Before the dogs came galloping across the barnyard, the children were racing through the trees on the far side.

The hounds set up a racket inside the barn, and Emily and Malachi hugged each other joyfully.

“How far?” Emily whispered.

“Just down the road and to the river.  We’re almost there.”

“Good.  I’m about played out.”

Seven minutes later, a rickety barn loomed up in the darkness.  They could still hear the hounds baying in the distance.  Malachi called out and Isaac drove out of the barn.  “Get in.”

They wasted no time.  Isaac slapped the reins and the team took off down the road.  After safe distance, Isaac pulled over.  They were on a bulge of land that jutted out slightly into the river, and they had a good view of it rolling back in either direction.  Lights in Canada twinkled across the expanse of black velvet water, and Belle Isle sprawled low in front of them.

Isaac turned to them, his voice tight.  “Emily when I saw that child get out of the wagon in your dress-” his voice caught.  “What were you thinking, girl?”

She lifted her chin defiantly.  “Can’t you guess? You’re the one who told me we’re just alike.”

After a tense moment, Isaac’s chuckle dropped softly around them.  “Fool girl,” he muttered.  “I ought to take a hickory stick to your backside.  When we get home, you scoot in that house and change, and don’t you dare tell Shannon what you’ve been up to.  She’d filet us both.”

Malachi jumped out of the wagon, squinting downriver, and Emily let the silence run on.  “I don’t think Shannon would care.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Emily shifted uncomfortably on the seat.  “I’ve been pretty awful to her.”

Isaac pursed his lips and nodded.  “Yes, you have.  But she loves you.  Give her a chance.”

Malachi’s shout broke the moment.  “There!  Do you see it?”

“See what?” Emily craned her neck.

“The lights on the steamer.  It’s moving out into the river.”

“I see it!”

“They made it!  They’re all safe!”

“How can you tell?”

“See the red light up on top of the ship?  That’s the signal that everyone is accounted for.  Mr. deBaptiste will cross to Canada before heading down to Cleveland.”

They watched the lights on the ship grow smaller.  Then Isaac twitched the reins.  “Let’s get on home.  I intend to be sitting in my office when Burrows comes in the door madder than a bear with consumption.”

Read the LAST CHAPTER!

The Candle Star, by Michelle Isenhoff, Chapter 18

If you’re new to The Candle Star, you can start at Chapter One.  Each week I’ll also link to the previous post.

The Candle Star

by Michelle Isenhoff

Chapter Eighteen

That afternoon Emily attempted some knitting – Julia had taught her how to make socks – just to maintain a sense of normalcy, but her hands shook so badly that she had to undo as many stitches as she created.  She tried homework, even opened her mother’s book of poetry.  Finally she gave up and took a walk.

The air was warm and the sun shone brightly as Emily twisted between high buildings.  Ordinarily she would admire the fine architecture, the intricate cresting and carved cornices, but today she just felt closed in.  She saw eyes at every window – curious eyes that watched to see where she would go, what she would do, who she would meet.

She hadn’t seen Malachi since noon, nor had her uncle returned.  She wished someone would tell her what was going on.  Unable to wait any longer, she sought them out.  Slipping into the alley beside the barn, she found the door and stepped inside.

She peered into the gloom which had deepened as the sun sank behind the skyline.  “Malachi?”

“I’m here,” he answered.  He was bent over a bundle.  There was no sign of the runaways.

She closed the door and could hardly see.  “What’s going on?  What do we do?”

Malachi straightened.  “We wait for your uncle.”

Emily’s eyes were beginning to adjust to the dimness.  “Where are they?”

“Who?”

“You know who!”

“Willis and Rachel.  They all have names.”  He gestured toward the hay.  “They’re sleeping.”

Emily glanced around the barn.  It looked the same, still smelled of hay and musty timbers, still housed the horrid wagon, but it had changed.  Now it housed a secret, like the desk in her uncle’s office.  And even though it was hundreds, maybe a thousand miles from southern plantations, two slaves had found their way to it.

“How’d they get here?” Emily asked.  “Here, to this very spot, to you?”

“It’s a station.”

“A what?”

“A safe house on the underground railroad.”

She had heard the term before, in a whispered phrase that had fallen dead when she approached the slave cabin.  And she’d heard it uttered with anger and derision by the overseer of a neighboring plantation.  But her father never spoke about such things.

“It’s the last station,” he continued, “and operated with signs and codes so you never would have known it was here if you hadn’t stumbled inside.”

They heard a soft rustle.  “Can I see them?” she asked.

He led her to the back of the barn.  It had grown quite dark.  The black children were curled under their blanket, nestled into the back side of the haystack.  Willis slept, but Rachel fastened her eyes on them.

Emily approached tentatively.  “Hello.”

The girl remained motionless.

“Do they speak English?” Emily whispered.

He nodded.

“Then why doesn’t she respond?”

“You probably sound like her mistress.  Rachel, this is my friend, Emily.”

Rachel’s eyes flickered.  “You dress like Ol’ Miss, too.”

Emily looked down at her favorite gown.  She had forgotten to change out of it after dinner.  She smiled gently at the girl.  “But I’m not your mistress.”

Rachel eyed Emily distrustfully.  “You a fine lady, miss.  You gots slaves too?”

The question startled Emily.  “My father…uh, yes I suppose I do.”  Her face blazed in the dark barn.

“Why you helpin’ us?”

Emily grew more flustered.  She glanced down at the bandage on the girl’s leg, at the blood.

“Don’t none of yo’ people like being yo’ slave.”

In the same situation, Emily wondered if she would be as fearless as Rachel.  “How did you dare to run in the face of such horrible penalties?” she asked.

“It take more courage to stay.  Marse, he wanna make more slave babies.”

Emily felt her throat constrict.

“We should redress that wound,” Malachi announced, and stood to find the materials.

The blood looked black in the gloom.  “What happened to your leg?” Emily asked.

“Houn’ two nights past.  Willis club it wid a stick.  Ain’t kilt though.”

It hadn’t killed the dog.  Emily had seen both bloodhounds that afternoon, one sporting a thick bandage.  They had accompanied the slave catchers.  She hoped they were far north.

Malachi returned and carefully removed the old dressing from Rachel’s leg.  He smeared on a smelly salve and wrapped it snuggly in a new length of cloth.  Then he stood.

“It’s just about time.  Mr. deBaptiste’s steamship is docked at the river and will be leaving in about two hours.  These two need to be on it, along with some others I know of, but Burrows complicates things.  If he’s poking around, I’ll lay a false trail and lead him out of town.”

“How?”

“I’ll swap clothing with Willis.  Tie some to my feet to leave the scent.”

“Will that fool a bloodhound?”

“They’ll smell it.  Don’t know if they’ll follow it, but I have to try.”

“What will I do?”

Malachi was quiet a long time.  “I was going to ask you to come with me, but I spoke hastily this afternoon.  It’s not a good idea.”

Emily bristled.  “Why not?”

“Because…” he looked her up and down.  “Because it’s not safe,” he finished lamely.

He didn’t think she could do it, she realized, just like he hadn’t thought she could muck out the barn.  Her eyes flashed.  “Malachi Watson, you think I can’t keep up with you?  That I’m not brave enough?”

He looked at the wall, and at the hay, but not at her.

“I’m going!” she exclaimed hotly, and she began tugging at the sash on her dress.

He scowled, “Emily, you don’t know what you’re getting into.”

She started on the buttons.

“Your uncle will never let you.”

She fixed him with a wicked glare and he could see the battle was lost.  With a sigh of resignation, he woke Willis and they shambled to the other end of the barn.

As she gloated, Emily suddenly remembered the fine material under her fingers.  She hesitated, caressing her beautiful gown.

Beside her, Rachel made an I-thought-so kind of noise.  Emily locked eyes with her and shimmied out of the dress.

The slave girl quickly removed her own shift and stepped into Emily’s pantalettes, petticoat and gown and stood with her brown feet sticking out the bottom.

Emily looked regretfully at her shoes, tossed in the hay.

“Keep ‘em,” Rachel told her.  “You need ‘em more’n I do.”

When they stepped from behind the hay, Willis’s eyes grew round.  “Rachel, you’s a fine lady!”

The girl shyly spread out the smooth fabric.

Malachi handed them each a bundle.  Emily couldn’t be sure, but they appeared to be wrapped in familiar gray cloth and tied with shapeless, knitted mufflers.

Just then, the big door slid open to reveal the silhouettes of Isaac and both horses.

“Where’s Burrows?” Malachi whispered.

Emily could hear her uncle hitching the team to the wagon.  “He left on a wild goose chase, but he’s back already, and mad as all get out.  You ready?”

“Yes.”

“We should have found someone to trade with the girl.  Two would be better.”

Malachi opened his mouth, but Emily silenced him with a shake of her head.  “Her name is Rachel,” he said instead.

“Well, get her and her brother under the tarp, and cover yourself as well.  I’ll drop you first.  When I get there, I’ll stop the wagon for a five count.  If you head due east, the hounds can’t help but cross you on their way to the river.  I’ll wait for you in the old Beubien barn.”

The wagon bed was already arranged with a pile of hay.  Several lumpy sacks sat off to one side, along with a few tools and a huge crosscut saw.  The tarp was draped haphazardly across the back and partially covered with the hay.  Isaac never even looked back as they scampered under it.

Emily scrunched up as small as she could make herself.  Willis’s knee was in her back, and the heavy canvas fabric stunk like mildew, but she hardly noticed.  Her heart finally realized what her body was about to do and began to thunder in protest.

She heard a sprinkling of hay scatter over the top of the tarp then the wagon swayed as Isaac climbed up and clucked to the horses.  And with a lurch, Emily embarked on the most terrifying night of her life.

The Candle Star, by Michelle Isenhoff, Chapter 17

If you’re new to The Candle Star, you can start at Chapter One.  Each week I’ll also link to the previous post.

The Candle Star

by Michelle Isenhoff

Chapter Seventeen

The next morning Emily felt as transparent as a window pane.  She went through the routine of eating breakfast, certain that Malachi and the others could read her duplicity.  Instead of lingering in the kitchen until it was time to leave for church, as she did most Sundays, she escaped to her room to pack.

Her trunk was still in storage in the barn down the road, so she carefully folded her clothing and left it in neat piles on her bed.  She wrapped some items she had collected during her stay – a few books, some lace from a shop window, the horse figurine from Melody Thatcher, an engraved pen – to secure them for her journey, but the entire time she was dreading her inevitable meeting with Mr. Burrows.

Church left her feeling downright guilty.  During the service, she could feel God watching her, frowning down on the deception she was living, but she couldn’t figure a way to weasel out.  No matter who she chose to please, she was bound to disappoint someone.

When the family arrived home, Mr. Burrows and his men were lounging in the lobby, their soiled clothing contrasting with the Sunday best of the others.  Shannon slipped away to help serve the noon meal.  Emily wished she could hide as easily, but Mr. Burrows rose and greeted them, addressing her specifically.

“Hello again, Miss Preston.  What a lovely gown.  It becomes you nicely.  I hope you will pleasure me by wearing it to dinner.  Isaac, she will be joining us, won’t she?”

“Of course,” her uncle conceded, catching her eye and communicating a stern warning.  He needn’t have bothered.  “Malachi can serve today in her stead.”

Emily looked down at the gown.  It was her favorite, the one with the layers of fabric on the skirt and the lacy bell sleeves.  She had kept it nice all these months, and its full skirt easily forgave her extra height.

Mr. Burrows turned to her.  “Miss Preston?”

Emily dropped a curtsey, hoping her smile didn’t wobble like her knees.  “I’d be delighted.”

“Excellent,” he beamed.  “Then my boys and I had best quit lounging and make ourselves presentable.”

Emily thought his smile looked predatory.  She knew he’d be pumping her for information, however delicately, and she felt like a canary in a cage with the cat sitting outside looking in.  The strains of Fur Elise follow her down the hall as she fled to her room.

The piles of clothing on her bed offered a perfect distraction.  She scooped up as much as she could carry and hustled for the barn.  As she passed through the lobby, her uncle never even looked up from the piano.

The windows of the barn were so dusty they looked as if they’d been painted gray, so she left the door open to cut through the gloom.  A sunbeam illuminated the wagon, and just beyond, in a corner, she spotted her trunk.

The barn felt cool and smelled musty, like a cellar in need of a good whitewashing.  Thick bricks muffled the sounds of life carrying on outside the walls, and Emily could imagine when the daylight faded the building would feel unmistakably tomblike.  The thought made gooseflesh break out on her arms, and she hastened to deposit her belongings.

The sudden flapping of a pigeon roosting under the eaves made her cry out.  It let out a soft cooing, and she sagged against the trunk in relief.  Mr. Burrows had her strung higher than a Thoroughbred mare.  She couldn’t let him get to her like this!

At that moment, the door creaked gently on its hinges behind her.

She stiffened.

A breath of sweet air swirled into the room, swaying her skirts and tumbling wisps of straw about her feet.  Of course the same breeze had simply nudged the door open wider, but her nerves weren’t acknowledging logic.

Emily locked her trunk and faced the door.  It was slanted against the wall with room enough for someone or something to hide behind it.  She was being silly, she knew, but if she didn’t take a peek and set her imagination to rest, all manner specters would follow her home.

She approached the door boldly, took hold and swung it closed.

Malachi suddenly jumped out and clapped a hand over her mouth.  Emily’s eyes bulged and a scream rose in her throat.  She fought for breath.

“I’m sorry, Emily,” the boy spoke softly, “but it’s important that you don’t draw attention to this building.  Promise not to scream?”

She nodded, her eyes still huge.

He moved his hand and turned to close the door tightly.

“Why are you doing this?” Emily whispered, drawing clenched hands to her chest.

In answer, he pointed to the hay piled in the back of the barn where two forms huddled, frozen, under a small blanket.  Two forms with black, terrified faces.

Sudden understanding dawned on her.  Malachi was harboring runaways!

“The piano, that haunting song Mr. Milford always plays,” he explained, “that’s our signal that the barn is occupied.  We try to keep folks away, but somehow you blundered in anyway.  Now that you know, maybe you can help us.”

“Help you?” she asked weakly.  In how many directions could she be pulled?

Malachi leveled her with a frank gaze.  “Emily, you are not the same person you were when you came here.  You’re deeper, kinder, humbler, and you understand about cages.  I’m asking you to help me, to help my people, to help Willis and Rachel.”

Emily looked into his coal black eyes and recalled that magic night at his church; the night Mr. Douglass had made the impossible seem possible.  She felt the stirring again in her heart, but it was one thing to listen to fine words being spoken from a podium.  It was something else altogether to act on them.

He pulled her to where the runaways huddled, a girl and a boy, about the ages of herself and Malachi.  Their faces were guarded, but they could not disguise their exhaustion.  Nor could they conceal the hardship of their journey.  It was written all over their tattered clothing and gouged into the soles of their bare feet.

But old ways die hard.  Despite the eloquence of Frederick Douglass and her respect for Malachi, Emily couldn’t help but wonder if she knew their master.

And what about Mr. Burrows?  How could she hide this from him?

She opened her mouth to tell Malachi that she could not help him.       And then she saw the wound.

The girl’s leg stretched out beyond the edge of the blanket, straight and taut.  A dirty bandage wrapped around her calf muscle seeped with fresh blood.

Blood as red as her own.

She looked again into the girl’s face, and this time she saw the shadow of a whip.  She felt the wrench of hunger and the scorch of a burning sun.  She heard the rattle of chains, felt their cold bite on her wrists.  She could smell the stench of sweat and blood and fear.

For the first time she saw beyond herself.  And she couldn’t walk away.

“Burrows?” she asked.

Malachi nodded.

She remembered her own journey north, how terrified she had felt on the train, how unfamiliar the sights and sounds were.  What if she’d had to travel all that way on foot?  What if she had been without Zeke’s protective guidance?  What if she’d been pursued, and capture meant torture or even death?

The pair had traveled far.  The river flowed only a few streets away.  She could walk there in ten minutes.

She glanced back at the wound, at the red, red blood.

“I’ll do it.”

Malachi’s words came low and urgent, “Be back this evening, just before dark.  Use the alley door.”

~

Emily arrived late to the dining room.  A brief glance showed her uncle sharing a table with Jarrod Burrows and his two thugs.  They had already been served plates of meatloaf with early lettuce and huge slices of crusty bread.  She marched to the table.  She knew what she had to do.

At her appearance, Mr. Burrows stood and pulled out the empty chair beside her uncle.  “Miss Preston,” he nodded, “I had begun to wonder if you took ill.”

Though her hands shook beneath the tablecloth, she forced a beaming smile.  “I’m sorry I’m late.  I have acquired quite a collection of trinkets during my visit and I thought to pack them in the bottom of my trunk.  But as my trunk is still out in the barn,” she said significantly, “it took a little time.”

Her uncle’s head snapped up and he scrutinized her keenly.

“They are all hidden away quite nicely,” she continued, “but I simply cannot pack the rest of my things until my trunk is delivered to my room.”  She said it like the spoiled, petulant child she once was.

Isaac smiled lightly and Emily knew he’d taken her meaning.  He looked around the table of men and gestured helplessly.  “I am correctly chastised for overlooking a woman’s luggage.  I’ll have it delivered promptly.”

“Thank you.”  She gave a toss of her hair.

Ezekiel appeared.  He set a plate before her and filled her cup from a cut-glass pitcher.  When he had gone, Mr. Burrows asked, “So you are leaving, Miss Preston?”

Emily took up her fork.  Her insides felt so queasy she didn’t know if she could swallow.  “Very soon.”

“You won’t even stay for this wedding Isaac has been telling me about?”

She paused a bit guiltily.  “I’ve been away so long already.”

Mr. Burrows turned to Isaac.  “You know, a man with your name and background would have had the ladies scheming for his hand long ago in Carolina.”

“A poor man, however, must rely more heavily on character,” Isaac replied.

As Mr. Burrows pondered this, Emily wondered again how her uncle had lost his fortune, but she kept up her act. “I’m going to marry the richest man in Charleston County when I get home,” she announced.

Mr. Burrows laughed out loud.  “Spoken like a true southern belle!”

Isaac raised a skeptical eyebrow.  “Aren’t you still a bit young?”

She ignored him.  “He has to have lots of money and lots of slaves.  And if a one of them tries to escape, I’ll promptly send for you, Mr. Burrows.”

Perhaps she’d gone a bit overboard.  The old Quaker couple had never been back, but she glanced around the dining room to make certain she hadn’t upset anyone else.  No one even sniffed.  In fact, she’d been so late to the table the room was already beginning to empty.

She lowered her voice.  “I have some information that may help you.”

Her uncle looked up sharply, but she wouldn’t even rat out Helen and Angelina.  Her only thought was to send Mr. Burrows as far from the river as he would go.  She cut her eyes at him craftily.  “I had almost forgotten what I overheard at school this winter.  Two of my classmates were whispering together about a fellow from Shyne’s Grocery up on Charlotte Avenue who sometimes makes special after hours deliveries.  I wondered later just exactly what it was he delivered.”

Mr. Burrows exchanged shrewd glances with his friends.  He pushed his plate away and stood, his polished smile in place once again.  “Miss Preston, I thank you.  You have been very helpful.  Isaac,” he nodded, “always a pleasure.”

With a flick of Mr. Burrows’ head, his two lackeys followed him upstairs.  Isaac winked at Emily before he also excused himself.  When they were gone, she sank into her chair and worked to calm the elephants stampeding just beneath her ribs.

Read Chapter 18.

The Candle Star, by Michelle Isenhoff, Chapter 16

If you’re new to The Candle Star, you can start at Chapter One.  Each week I’ll also link to the previous post.

The Candle Star

by Michelle Isenhoff

Chapter Sixteen

Spring returned with a demonstration of color.  Yellow daffodils poked their heads up along street borders, and spring violets appeared in boxes on a hundred different window sills.  Cass Park reawakened with a green blush as soon as the melting snow seeped into the soil, and Shannon worked, in preparation for the wedding ceremony to be held there, to merge the River Street Inn with the display.

Spring also brought a letter welcoming Emily home.

On an afternoon in April, one week before the train would carry her back to her beloved Ella Wood, Emily climbed onto the front porch and leaned pensively over the railing where she had watched so many sunsets.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to go home; leaving was just harder than she imagined it would be.  The people here had fused into a sort of family – not one bound by blood, but one pieced together like a patchwork quilt.  Each square was of a different cloth, a different color, a different pattern, and the result had grown as comfortable as an old shawl.

Julia came out on the porch carrying a rug which she shook over the rail.  “Miss Emily, will you go fin’ Shannon?  She out back somewhere.  Tell her we has a full house tonight and I need her to peel potatoes.”

“Sure, Julia.”

Emily found the maid digging in the garden’s rose room.  At her approach, Shannon sat back on her heels and breathed in the rich smell of damp earth.  “I love springtime,” she sighed, “the renewal of life after snow.”

“I’m just glad it’s not cold.”  Emily sat at the wrought iron table observing the manicured room with distaste.

Since that emotional day in the kitchen, Emily and Shannon held to an unspoken truce.  The maid was as gracious as ever but seemed cautious, seldom straying from safe topics.  The easy manner she once displayed had evaporated like a pot boiled dry.

“We haven’t seen the last of winter yet,” Shannon cautioned.  “It can still get downright frosty even into May.”

“Julia sent me to tell you she needs potatoes peeled.”

“Tell her I’ll be there in a few minutes.”  She pulled out a few more weeds, clawing the soil loose with her hand rake.  “I wish you could be here for the wedding, Emily, when the first roses bloom.”

Emily had resigned herself to the marriage.  In fact, she could even see how foolish she had been.  She just didn’t know how to tell Shannon.  Instead, she wrinkled her nose at the rigid trellises staked into the ground, climbing with last year’s spindly, leafless growth.

“Why don’t you let the roses grow where they want to?” Emily asked.

Shannon drew a pair of large shears from the folds of her dress.  “Because in a few years I’d have a big, ugly briar patch.”  She made a few snips at a vine, cutting off large sections that fell to the ground.

Emily’s eyebrows lifted.  “You’re going to kill it.”

Shannon smiled.  “Roses need to be pruned to make room for new growth.”

“But if you cut off all the branches, how will you get any flowers?”

“Old wood can grow rotten and diseased,” the maid patiently explained.  “Cutting it off actually produces healthier growth and bigger blooms.”

Emily grimaced.  “But do you have to tie them up?”

Shannon laughed.  “Miss Emily, roses are climbers.  They want to cover the trellis.  With a little guidance, they grow into strong, beautiful plants.”

Emily watched the woman snipping and tucking, tending the flower bed like a mother devoted to her children.  She shook her head.  Even roses had restrictions.

“Stay and finish your flowers, Shannon,” Emily said, rising.  “I’ll help Julia.”

She scrubbed her hands and face at the pump in the backyard then, wiping her hands on the seat of her skirt, entered the kitchen and tied on one of Julia’s aprons.  After only four potatoes, Malachi burst through the door.

“You march right back outside, young man, and enter my kitchen like a gentleman.”  Julia’s wooden spoon waggled a warning.

Malachi meekly obeyed.

Julia muttered, “Thank heaven his daddy can’t see what a barbarian I raised.”

Emily laughed as the boy entered a second time.  “Won’t you ever learn?”

He shrugged helplessly.  “Mama, can I go fishing?”

“Not before dinner, you can’t.  I need wood chopped and hauled inside.  Den I need you to help serve.  But after dinner you’s free.  You taking da Willis boy?”

“No, I figured I’d ask Emily since she’s leaving.”

“Den Miss Emily, after dinner you’s free too.”

~

The water flowed toward the west as though drawn by the orange, low-hanging sun.  Across the river, the green field that was Canada seemed to burn in the fiery rays.  Belle Isle floated low in the water two miles to the east.

 “River! that in silence windest

Through the meadows, bright and free,

Till at length thy rest thou findest

In the bosom of the sea!”

 

Malachi’s voice rippled over the scene and Emily recognized Longfellow’s tribute.  Her uncle had read it to them a thousand times.  The poem seemed to capture the beauty before her.

“Sure.  My brother used to take me sometimes, if I could catch him in a charitable mood.”

“Cultured southern girls are allowed to fish?” Malachi asked, raising his eyebrow playfully.  “I wouldn’t have guessed it.”

“Would I let that stop me?” she joked.

They fished in silence, the river swallowing up the colors of the setting sun.

“So what are you going to do when you get home?” Malachi finally spoke.

She knew what he was asking, and she had given it a lot of thought since their discussion at the state fair so long ago.  Boxes, she decided, didn’t have to be prisons.

“I’ll follow my parents’ wishes.  I’ll be charming, well-mannered, the belle of every ball.  And,” she cut him a sly glance, “I’ll seek out every school of art I can find.”

He grinned, his teeth white in his dark face.  “That’s the spirit!”

She shifted on the dock boards.  “So what will you do when I leave?”

He shrugged.  “Continue going to school and working at the hotel, I guess.  Same as always.”  He cast his line further into the river.  “I know nothing changes overnight, but sometimes it feels like nothing changes at all.”

“Maybe it would change faster if I wrote to the medical school in Ann Arbor and ordered their recommended texts – to be delivered to the River Street Inn, of course.”

Malachi’s mouth fell open.  “You could do that?”

“If I come home a proper young lady,” Emily laughed, “my daddy will do anything I ask.”

“Then I take back everything I just said about nothing changing, because you wouldn’t have done that last fall.”

She shrugged.  “You’re probably right.”

Malachi sobered and Emily could tell he had something else on his mind.  He started to speak, stopped, and started again.  “Emily, where you’re going, there are a lot more adjustments that need to be made than here.”

She narrowed her eyes.  “What are you getting at?”

“I’m just saying there may be things you can do.”

“Me?  I barely have control of my own life.”

“Little things add up into bigger things.”

“Malachi,” she challenged, looking him in the eye, “I cannot eradicate slavery.  Even talking about such a huge transformation terrifies me.  Everything I know…everything I grew up believing…” her voice drifted away.

He nodded sorrowfully.  “I know,” he said.  “Just look for the little things.”

~

Warm, welcoming lamplight issued from the hotel’s kitchen window, but Emily climbed the darkened porch steps.  “Go on ahead,” she urged.  “I want to sit out here alone for a while.”

Malachi collected her fishing gear and disappeared behind the house.

Emily leaned against the porch rail, looking away south as the sky darkened and the stars grew brighter.  Soon she’d be leaving for home, to a world as different from Detroit as China.

Would it take time for her to readjust?  Would anything ever be the same?  Could she do as Malachi asked?

The door opened behind her.  “Ah, Miss Preston, I’m so glad I found you.”

She turned around.  In the dim light of the doorway, she could make out the outline and features of a man.  “Mr. Burrows,” she welcomed.  “What a pleasure.”

“Indeed,” he returned, coming to stand beside her.  “How was your winter?”

“Long and difficult, I admit.  Detroit is nothing like home.”

He pressed his hands down on the railing, gazing up at the crescent moon.  When he spoke again, his voice had changed.  It was thin and brittle, like the jagged skim of ice around a puddle on a chilly morning.  “You couldn’t have spoken anything truer.  And that brings me to my proposition.”

Emily’s spine prickled.  She didn’t like his new tone.  It recalled to mind the hard way he had left at Christmas, and she couldn’t help but wonder at the fate of the captured man he had hauled away with him.

“A proposition?” she hesitated.

He faced her, and his features weren’t pleasant to look at.  She remembered the threats he’d left hanging last fall, the time he had returned, mud-spattered, to the yard.

“Every time I track my man to this city, I lose him.  It’s like that old magician’s trick, place the rabbit in the hat and Presto!  It disappears.  But each time my rabbit vanishes, I lose money.

“You’ve lived here.  You’re part of the community.  You go to church and to school.  You must have seen things during your stay.”

Emily wiped her suddenly-damp palms down her skirt.  “They treat me different,” she hedged.  “They know I’m not one of them.”

Mr. Burrows turned back toward the street, leaning hard on the railing again.  “But you have access to places I’ll never be allowed into.  All I ask is that you keep your eyes open.  Take notice of details.  Try to recall anything you’ve seen or heard that might help me find the holes my rabbits slip into.  You’re from a good, slave-owning family.  Will you help me?”

Emily swallowed painfully.  Jarrod Burrows was cultured and charming when he wanted to be, but she didn’t like the way he was lumping them together.  By accepting his offer, she knew she was taking part in the guns, the chains, the dogs, but she was too frightened to deny him.  She nodded weakly.

Mr. Burrows smiled then, and the gentleman returned.  “I knew I could count on you, my dear.  It’s certainly a pleasure to see you again.”  He bowed low over her hand and reentered the hotel.

Emily turned again to the south, but the beauty of the evening had grown dark.

The Candle Star, by Michelle Isenhoff, Chapter 15

If you’re new to The Candle Star, you can start at Chapter One.  Each week I’ll also link to the previous post.

The Candle Star

by Michelle Isenhoff

Chapter Fifteen

“Emily, spell ‘dictation,’” Mr. Marbliss called from the front of the room.

Emily’s gaze was fixed on the bare fingers of the maple tree across the street, though she didn’t really see them scratching against the side of the bakery in the breeze.  Nor did she see the baker walk outside and stand looking up at it with his hands on his hips.  She did see the midnight black eyes of Malachi staring unflinchingly at her from behind the stall’s half-door.  They were filled with something she couldn’t define.  Not hurt, exactly.  More like a sad disappointment that rendered her arguments to her uncle as hollow as the squirrel hole in the tree outside.  She’d only been able to hold his gaze a moment before fleeing past her uncle and out the barn door.

“Emily?  Are you going to join our spelling bee?” Mr. Marbliss quizzed.  “Emily!”

Her head jerked and a few snickers jangled through the room.  Someone, it sounded like Angelina, whispered, “Maybe she can spell ‘distraction.’”

“I’m sorry,” she answered, lifting her chin, “I didn’t hear the word.”

“It was ‘dictation,’” he repeated, a warning in his tone.

She spelled it perfectly, but on her next turn she missed “anyway,” to the sound of more mockery.  After that she did try to focus on her schoolwork, but it was hopeless.  Her mind kept pulling itself back to yesterday, and to the lead weight her heart had become.

That afternoon she avoided Malachi, walking a different route home from school, escaping for a long ride on Coal Dust, and taking her dinner to her room.  She even managed to miss him as she rushed through her chores.  But he knew her habits too well.  He found her bundled on the front porch watching her breath freeze against the very last hint of sunset.

“Hi,” he said, drawing his coat tighter around himself.  He sat on the railing and leaned back against the house with one long leg propped in front of him.

She didn’t answer, which brought to mind the one-sided conversations they used to have.  He didn’t say anything else for a long time, either.  They just sat there watching traffic pass on the road.  She began to shiver, wanting to return to the fire inside but unable to.

Malachi shifted on the railing.  “Emily, you remind me of a wild thing trapped in a cage.  I know how much you miss your home.  You’re drawn out here to this porch, looking away south, waiting to be set free.”

A wagon rumbled by filled with a load of hay.

“You’re not the only one waiting.  There are others out there, trapped like you, looking to the north, drawn by the Candle Star.”  He leaned out over the railing till he could see the bright light over the roof of the hotel.  “But they’re held by chains.”

He drew his head back under the porch roof and leveled her with a full, bold stare.  “Emily, do you agree that God made us both, just like he made black and white angels?”

“Of course I do,” she sniffed.  “I’m no heathen.”

“If you really believe that, you cannot justify any differences between us.”

“Oh, yes I can.  You and I are of completely different stations.”

He scoffed.  “Stations are man’s own invention, based on pride and power.  There’s no natural basis for it whatsoever.  We hurt the same.  We love the same.  Our only difference comes down to color.  We’re like two painted houses on the same street.”

“Why are you telling me this?  Why do you care so much what I think?”

“Because underneath that proud white skin you have determination and a good heart.  I respect you for it and consider you my friend.”

She looked away south.  “Don’t you have friends of your own race?”

He shrugged.  “Of course I do.  Lots of them.  But not all of them understand me.  I’ve been called a fool for holding your uncle – a white man – in high esteem.  My dream to become a doctor – a white man’s profession – has been called presumptuous.  I’m straddling two worlds, and not everyone can comprehend that I’m trying to make things better.  But you do.”

Her head snapped around.  “What do you mean?”

He stared hard at her.  “I mean, you understand about breaking out of boxes, trying what everyone says is impossible.  You’re doing the same thing yourself; resisting your parents’ plans, grasping for the opportunity to become an artist.  Golly, come to think of it, I’ve seen you buck about every restriction placed on you!”

She frowned.

He continued more earnestly, “But even within these pressures, we can control who we become.”

He looked up at the stars again.  “Your uncle once said that poetry is art because it’s bound beauty.  Maybe people are like that, too.  Maybe character is being able to find a way to grow and develop into exactly what we were meant to become, even when we’re crowded with limitations.  Maybe,” he paused a moment, reflecting, “maybe it’s even the limits that push us to become extraordinary.”

They sat together until complete darkness overtook the city and the rest of the stars popped out like jewels.  Emily’s teeth began chattering audibly.

“Emily, I’d like to take you to a meeting at my church tomorrow.”

“But tomorrow’s Saturday.”

“It’s a special meeting.  There’s someone I’d like you to hear.”

Malachi stood up from the railing and stretched out his hand to her.  “Come on, let’s go inside.”

Emily stared at the dark hand, the palm shaped just like her own, the flesh warm and alive and feeling just like her own, the fingers that struggled and grasped like her own.  And she reached out and clasped it.

~

The next evening was cold and clear.  Shadows were lengthening, but overhead the March sky still shone aquamarine.  Malachi led Emily through the city to a beautiful, red-brick church with a steeply-pitched roof, tall Gothic windows, and spires on both corners of the roofline.  Two smaller turrets perched on either side of a gabled entry so the building’s whole face seemed to point the way heavenward for those passing on Monroe Street.

Emily and Malachi weren’t the only ones entering the church.  A steady trickle of humanity streamed down both sides of the street and passed through the church’s double doors.  Inside, the sanctuary was a sea of black and white faces.  The pews were full and folks were beginning to crowd into the aisles.  The two children jostled their way to a front corner where they could just glimpse the podium over the flowers on the woman’s hat in front of them.

“So this is where you go to school?” Emily queried, taking in the brilliant colors of the windows and the rich, dark wood of the pews.  “It’s a sight better than mine.”

“We take pride in our church.  It was started by Blacks the year before Michigan became a state, and it’s grown steadily from there.  This building was finished only two years ago.”  He raised one eyebrow at her.  “Are you surprised?”

She didn’t answer but continued to admire the beautiful facility.

“Emily,” he said with a trace of impatience.  “You’ve now spent seven months in the North.  Do you really still think of free Blacks as a bunch of illiterate slaves?  Look over there,” he pointed, indicating a dark face.  “Mr. Lewis runs a fine bakery.  There’s Mr. Lambert, the tailor who owns a prosperous clothing store.  Up front, that’s Mr. deBaptiste, the barber who owns the steamboat.  Mrs. Willis, over there, is an excellent seamstress in demand by the richest folks in the city.  We’re an educated, important section of Detroit society, and,” he added pointedly, “every slave on your father’s plantation is capable of the same, given the opportunity to do so.”

Before Emily could form a response, there was a stirring on the dais and the crowd grew still.  An elderly black man with a presence of authority stood behind the podium.

“That’s our pastor, Reverend Davis,” Malachi whispered.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Second Baptist Church.”  The preacher’s voice resonated in the large room.  “We are deeply honored to host this gathering, and we are proud to have you stand with us before God and man to support the cause of freedom for every American.  But before I introduce our speaker, let us beseech our Lord together.”

As the reverend prayed, Emily peered out across the sea of faces and realized this was the dream Malachi worked for – black and white side by side; accepting, united and free.  The preacher’s words floated to the ceiling, low whispers hovered about the pews, and the vision of two races bowing equally before their Creator burned into Emily’s mind.

“Our speaker needs no introduction to many of you,” the preacher announced, “but he’s worthy of our highest recognition.  Please join me in welcoming the esteemed Mr. Frederick Douglass.”

The room burst into a cannonade of applause as a tall, spare black man with a frizzle of hair just turning to gray shook hands with Rev. Davis and stood formally before the podium.  His countenance, as he waited for the greeting to fade away, was at once dignified and self-assured, and he reminded Emily of an Old Testament prophet – one of those friends of God who brought a message for His people.

Mr. Douglass began to speak in a deep voice, one so gentle that it seemed soft, though it reached to every corner of the room.

“I come before you this evening with both elation and soberness of heart.  Elation, because before me I see the success of a Free Negro community.  I see colored men and women who have proven they can thrive under the freedom granted to them.  I see those who have risen from ignorance and debasement to intelligence and respectability.

“Tonight, I celebrate your achievements.  I celebrate this beautiful church and this congregation of Free Coloreds committed to the betterment of their souls and their community.  But while we celebrate, let us address the prejudice that seeks to subdue our race and deny us the fullness of our liberty.  Let us speak of the America that has neither justice, nor mercy, nor religion in the case of the Negro.

“What would the colored man ask of this America?  Only that, speaking the same language and being of the same religion, worshipping the same God, owing our redemption to the same Savior, and learning our duties from the same Bible, we shall not be treated as barbarians.  We ask that the door of the schoolhouse, the workshop, the church, the college, shall be thrown open as freely to our children as to the children of other members of the community.  We ask that the American government assure life, liberty and property to the colored American.  We ask that justice be rendered alike to every man according to his works.”

Mr. Douglass’s words rose in volume and passion.  “We ask that the cruel and oppressive laws, in both North and South, which deny citizenship to free people of color, shall be denounced as an outrage upon the Christianity and civilization of the nineteenth century.  We ask that the complete and unrestricted right of suffrage be extended to the free colored man, as it is to the white man.  And finally, we ask that slavery be immediately, unconditionally, and forever abolished.”

The auditorium burst into applause at these powerful, explosive phrases.  Emily felt herself lifted on the eloquent words, as if she was soaring on a swift wind.  For the first time she dared to let herself consider such ideas – ideas Malachi had been demonstrating all along.

When the applause died away, Mr. Douglass continued in a voice made low once again.  “During our celebration of all we have accomplished as Free Coloreds, despite America’s reluctance, let us especially not forget those who have nothing yet to rejoice over.  Let us remember those in bondage.  Those who toil for the gain of another.  Those who sleep in hovels so another might sleep in a mansion.  Those who wear rags so that others may clothe themselves in silk.  Those who live in ignorance that another may be educated.  Those who labor under a burning sun so someone else may idle in leisure.  Those who know hunger that another might feast.  Those whose names may be enrolled in heaven, among the blest, but on earth must be recorded in the master’s ledger, along with horses, sheep and swine.  Those who suffer whip, gag, pillory, chain, pistol and blood hound.

“Slavery has long ravaged this nation, dating back to the landing of the pilgrims on Plymouth Rock more than two centuries ago.  Now those few slaves have grown to number over three million, and this most dangerous institution threatens to tear the American Union apart.

“But even so, this is a period of activity and hope.  Let us join together – black, white, man, woman and child – to protest the evil that holds one man in bondage to another.  With every avenue freedom makes available, let us demand justice where justice is long due.”  His voice rose in a crescendo and “amens” rumbled about the room.

Emily hung on the edge of the silence as the speaker paused.  Then he delivered his prophecy with assurance and quiet strength, leaving no room for doubt in the minds of his listeners.  “That Coloreds shall yet stand on an equal platform with our fellow countrymen is certain.  Be assured that we shall see a final triumph of right over wrong, of freedom over slavery and equality over caste.”

With this quiet declaration, the great man humbly, but with awesome dignity, took his seat on the platform while applause filled the sanctuary and spilled out into the city.  Someone began singing a hymn, and the whole gathering took it up as an anthem.  Even Emily joined in with the strong, confident strains:

Blow ye the trumpets, blow!  The gladly solemn sound

Let all the nations know, to earth’s remotest bound:

The year of jubilee is come!

The year of jubilee is come!

Return, ye ransomed sinners, home.

 

Ye slaves of sin and hell, your liberty receive,

And safe in Jesus dwell, and blest in Jesus live:

The year of jubilee is come!

The year of jubilee is come!

Return, ye ransomed sinners, home.

 

The last reverberations of the verse died away, but Emily thought even the black and white choirs of heaven couldn’t match the triumph and challenge that song sent forth into the darkness of that Detroit night.

Read Chapter Sixteen.

The Candle Star, by Michelle Isenhoff, Chapter 14

If you’re new to The Candle Star, you can start at Chapter One.  Each week I’ll also link to the previous post.

The Candle Star

by Michelle Isenhoff

Chapter Fourteen

The New Year roared in, and the business that marked the holiday traveling season faded away like memories of summer.  The winter school term wouldn’t resume for another week, and Emily was content to finish the chores set before her.

On a dim, gray morning when she could see her own breath if she strayed too far from the roaring fireplace, Emily worked at polishing the wood in the sitting room.  As she rubbed vigorously, chilly even beneath a heavy shawl, Melody Thatcher swished into the room looking as fresh as a spring bloom and smelling strongly of lavender water.  She carried a basket covered with a plaid cloth.

She rested her burden on the half door of Isaac’s office and flashed him a beaming smile.  “Mr. Milford, you never did come calling as you promised, so I had to take matters into my own hands.”  She dimpled prettily.  “I brought you some cookies.  I made them myself.  Mrs. Beasly tried to help but I wouldn’t let her.”

“Miss Thatcher, this is a surprise!” Isaac exclaimed, setting aside his paperwork and joining her in the sitting room.

Emily smirked, not quite as surprised.

“And very thoughtful of you,” he continued.  “Thank you.”  He took a small bite of one of the hard, round disks and set it down quickly.

Melody perched daintily on the divan.  “This formality is so silly between such good friends.  Please call me Melody.”

“All right, if you will call me Isaac,” he smiled.  “Would you care for some tea?”

“I would adore a cup, thank you.”

Isaac caught Emily’s eye and she nodded.  When she returned with the tray a few minutes later, Melody was mid-sentence.  “…have my sincere sympathies.  And when I heard she left you understaffed, I thought the least I could do is offer my services.”

“What services?” he wondered quietly.

The woman missed his slightly mocking tone.  “Oh, I can do any number of things.  I can greet guests…and serve tea!” she exclaimed, taking the tea tray jubilantly.  “I’m sure we’ll do just fine together.  I’ve always liked your darling little hotel.”

Isaac accepted a cup and sipped at the hot liquid carefully.  “I appreciate your offer, Melody, but during the slow season, I’m afraid your talents would be wasted.”

She touched his hand playfully, “Oh, nonsense,” and guided him into a lively conversation.  When her cup was finished she rose, and Isaac helped her back into her wraps.  “Now I’ll come by tomorrow and no arguments,” she stated and swept from the room, stopping to give Isaac a little wave at the door.

“What on earth dat be about?” Julia asked, coming from the kitchen.

Isaac stepped into his office.  “Miss Thatcher must have heard that Shannon is away.  She came to offer her help.”

“Oh, lor’,” Julia muttered, retrieving the tea tray.  “If dat chil’ come back, she gunna make mo’ work fo’ all of us.”

Emily bit down her grin.  Melody Thatcher was young, beautiful and wealthy, but she was certainly no maid.

Perfect.

~

“Emily, I need to pick up some things at the dockside this morning.  Would you like to ride along with me?”

The Saturday was still young, but Emily had already cleaned three rooms.  Now she was setting the dining room tables.

“Can I come?” Malachi asked.

Julia poked her head in from the kitchen.  “Malachi Watson, you still gots to finish hauling wash water fo’ me.  And then…”

“I’ll fetch your water after I hitch up Barnabas,” Isaac interrupted.  “The kids need a little break.  Maybe we’ll even stop at Maynard’s for pastries on our way home.”

“Don’t you go ruinin’ yo’ appetites now,” Julia admonished, returning to her kitchen.  “Lunch gunna be ready when you all gets home.”

Emily glanced at the mantle clock.  Ten forty-five.  “Perhaps we should wait for Miss Thatcher,” she suggested hopefully as they struggled into their wraps.  Melody had arrived promptly at eleven each day that week, bringing with her an elegance and grace that Emily hadn’t enjoyed since leaving home.

Isaac threw a look at the clock.  “I really need to go now,” he said with more haste than Emily thought necessary.  “I have a package arriving this morning and I’d like to claim it before it gets misplaced.”

Fresh new snow softened hard edges and turned the city into a fairy world.  Drifts overhung the tops of buildings and piled up like cotton along the road.  Barnabas pulled them along the runner tracks, his breath frosting the air behind him.

“Mr. Milford, how long is Miss Thatcher going to keep helping us?”

“Probably until Shannon returns, Malachi.”

“How long will that be?”

“Oh, I don’t know.  Her family is getting better, thank goodness, and the quarantine has lifted, but scarlet fever is a long, slow recovery.”

“I wish she’d come back.  Miss Thatcher isn’t good at much besides talking.”

Emily bristled.  “What’s wrong with Miss Thatcher?  She’s charming, witty, and colorful.  She makes all of us laugh.  I like having her around.”

Malachi rolled his eyes, “You just described a circus clown.”

Isaac pulled up before the docks and tied Barnabas.  “Don’t go far,” he called to them.  “I’ll be right back.”

Emily and Malachi wandered to the water’s edge.  The river was a dark, cold, murky gray with a jagged fringe of frozen glass along its banks.  Every now and again a chunk of ice floated down river, broken off from the huge slabs piled up along Lake Huron’s shore.  But when ships could get through, they did.  Even in the snow and cold, the docks bustled with activity.

“Emily, why don’t you likeShannon?” Malachi asked, leaning against a crate.

“Who said I don’t like her?”

“You don’t fool me.  I know you’re hoping your uncle marries Miss Thatcher.  I bet you even had something to do with her coming around all the time.”

“She’d be an excellent hostess.  A hotel must be hospitable, you know.”

“She can’t cook or clean.  She’s not suited for your uncle’s lifestyle.”

“And Shannon is?” she scorned.

“Yes!”

“Malachi Watson,” she ranted, “my uncle is a blue-blooded southern gentleman!”

“Emily Preston,” he argued, “your uncle runs a hotel in Detroit!”

Emily whirled, turning her back on him.

Malachi sighed.  “Don’t you see?  You’re trying to do the very thing to your uncle that you don’t want your parents to do to you.  Mr. Isaac loves Shannon.  You can’t dictate his life to meet your expectations.”

Isaac called to them and tied down a bulky package that clanged when it moved.  “New tin ware,” he said in answer to their unspoken question.

Emily regarded the large crate.  It contained enough for four hotels.

“And a package of seeds,” Isaac continued, pulling a small envelope from his pocket.  “Shannon’s always been partial to bluebells.  Shall we go surprise her?”

Malachi looked at Emily pointedly.  She sank onto the seat and unhappily crossed her arms.

~

“Spring cleaning?  Mama, it’s February!”  Malachi protested.

“When da weather get warm, dese rooms gunna fill up with folk expectin’ clean quarters.  Ain’t no better time to freshen ‘em than when dey’s standin’ empty.  Won’t hurt you none to miss a week of school.  ‘Sides, Miss Thatcher comin’ today.  Gunna put dat girl to work.

“Miss Emily, I wants every scrap of cloth out of da upstairs; curtains, rugs, blankets, spreads.  Malachi, when she done, you move furniture so we can scrub walls.”

When Melody whirled in the front door, the hotel already smelled strongly of lye soap.  At the same moment, Isaac came downstairs toting a mattress to air on the porch.

“Isaac, what’s going on?” she inquired.

Julia thrust a bucket into the woman’s hands.  “Spring cleaning.  Take dis upstairs.  I want every fingerprint, every smudge, every piece of dust outta dis house.  Start wid da windows.”

With a bewildered glance at Isaac, Melody carried the bucket up the staircase.  Emily followed, desperate now to prove the young woman useful.

“Every window?” Melody asked doubtfully.

“It isn’t as hard as it sounds,” Emily encouraged.  “Here, you just wring out the rag and wipe, see?  And dry it with another cloth.  Come on, try it.”

With Emily’s support, Melody managed to finish the first guest room.  But as they moved on to the next one, she clasped her smooth hands together in dismay and went in search of Isaac.  She found him cleaning ashes from the fireplace.

“I’m so sorry,” Melody began.  Emily could see her apologetic smile from the stairway.  “I completely forgot I’m supposed to be to Mrs. Grace’s house on Gratiot Avenue right now.  She can’t see anymore, poor dear, and I promised I’d help her write letters to her family this morning.  I’m so sorry.”

Isaac nodded graciously.  “I understand.  It’s wonderful of you to help her.”

Melody looked relieved.  She smiled sweetly up at Isaac’s sooty face as he helped her into her wrap.  “I’ll be back tomorrow,” she promised with a cheery wave.

But she didn’t return the next day, and the day after that Mr. Thatcher came to move Coal Dust into his own stable with the invitation to ride anytime.  On the fourth day, as Emily surveyed the freshly mopped dining room with satisfaction, she heard the front door open.  She turned to see Shannon’s gentle smile.

~

Life fell back into routine so quickly it was as if Shannon had never left, and Emily had to admit Malachi was right; Shannon was better suited to the life her uncle had chosen.  And she was as sweet as apple butter.  But one stubborn corner of Emily’s pride wouldn’t accept the maid or the wedding plans she was busy fashioning.

One morning at breakfast Zeke sat reading his Bible, and Shannon leaned over his shoulder.  “Ezekiel, I’m so proud of you for learning to read.  I see you’ve found your namesake.”

“Yes, miss,” he said, reverently touching the page.  “I always wanted to read the story I’s named after.”

“Well, what does it say?”

Zeke hesitated, looking around at the faces turning toward him expectantly.  “I’s jus’ puzzling’ over dese verses in chaptah thirty-eight.  It say, ‘You will come from yo’ place out of da remote parts of da north, you and many peoples with you, all o’ dem ridin’ on horses, a great assembly and a mighty army; and you will come up against My people Israel like a cloud to cover da land.’”

Emily could feel a coldness start in her stomach and crawl down her arms and legs.  She knew exactly what the old man was thinking.  Once she had heard a slave singing such things on the plantation.  It made her break into an icy sweat.

“You mean, you think the north is going to invade the south and free the slaves?” Shannon asked gently.

Emily’s fear made her lash out in anger.  “That’s absolutely ridiculous!”

Isaac spoke up.  “I hope it never comes to that, Shannon.  War is a terrible business.  The states must reach a peaceful agreement.”

Zeke was quiet a moment, and when he spoke, his words were completely out of character.  “Peaceful for whites, maybe, but black folk be sufferin’ and dyin’ while dey argue.”

Emily was shocked.  “How dare you say such a thing, Ezekiel!  My family has treated you well!”

Zeke pursed his lips.  “Ain’t always so.  It a hard thing to be a black man in da south.  Maybe worse to be a woman.”

Shannon turned kindly eyes on the old man.  “Zeke, why do you stay at Ella Wood?”

Zeke chuckled.  It was a dry, raspy sound.  “I’s seventy-eight years ol’, miss.”

Emily threw Shannon a look filled with all the scorn and rage she was feeling.  “He stays because my mama OWNS him,” she exploded.

“Actually, Emily,” Isaac interrupted, “your mother doesn’t own Zeke any more than she owns me.  I gave Zeke his freedom fifteen years ago.  He followed your mama to Ella Wood of his own free will.”

Emily gaped at her uncle in disbelief.  Then she rushed from the room, shoving Shannon roughly into a chair as she passed.

She didn’t move quickly enough.

Isaac caught her just outside the swinging door, his face dark with rage.  He grabbed her roughly by the arm and dragged her through the kitchen and out across the frigid yard, releasing her only after they had reached the privacy of the stable.  He loomed in the doorway, as big as Apollo, and glared at her with all the fury of the ancient gods.

“If you ever treat Shannon that way again, you will not sit down for a week!  Do you understand me?”

Emily flashed him a look of pure hatred.

“And I have had enough of this attitude of yours.  What makes you better than Shannon?  Better than Zeke?”

She threw back her head and focused all her contempt on him.  “My father is William Samuel Jackson Preston III, owner of one of the largest plantations in all of Charleston County!”

“And what if that were all wiped away?  What if your land was gone and your name meant nothing?  What would make you better then?”

Her mouth opened in astonishment.  “You’re crazy!  That can’t happen in a million years!”

“Can’t it?” he asked in a voice deadly calm.

“You don’t believe Zeke reading meaning into that prophecy, do you?” she scoffed.  “His notion of northerners riding in to free the slaves is absolutely ridiculous.”

“Perhaps, but that’s beside the point.  I want to know where you get this idea that God created you a little higher than the rest of humanity.”

She tossed her head.  “I told you, I am the daughter of –”

“A pedigree?” he scorned.  “Because your daddy has a number at the end of his name you have the right to cut down Shannon?  Or to demand that Zeke fulfill your every petty wish?  Or to show Malachi and Julia your disdain?  I come from the same stock as you, sweetheart, and I can tell you Barnabas here has a nobler pedigree than we do.  Under your fancy titles, you are just the same as everybody else.”

Emily narrowed her eyes spitefully.  “Maybe I could agree to equal status with Shannon, but Isaac Milford, even without my wealth and name, I would still be white!”

He was blocking the doorway, so she whirled around and showed him her back.  And there, leaning against a pitchfork at the back of the stable and listening to every word, stood Malachi.

Read Chapter 15.

The Candle Star, by Michelle Isenhoff, Chapter 13

If you’re new to The Candle Star, you can start at Chapter One.  Each week I’ll also link to the previous post.

The Candle Star

by Michelle Isenhoff

Chapter Thirteen

“Hello, Jarrod,” Isaac greeted as he stomped his boots off inside the door.  “One of your clients lose something again?”

“To be sure,” Mr. Burrows answered, rising from a fireside chair to shake Isaac’s hand.  “It’s the only thing that could induce me to share one of your godforsaken winters.

“Ah, Miss Preston, it is indeed an honor,” he said, catching sight of her and bowing over her hand.  “I was hoping you were still in residence.  Will you be joining me for dinner this evening?”

Emily glanced hopefully at her uncle.  He gave her a cautionary look then nodded.  She turned to Mr. Burrows with a beaming smile.  “I will.  And perhaps you’d be so gracious as to grant me details of our beloved south.  I’ve been away so long.”

He bowed again.  “It would be my pleasure.”

“You boys want your same rooms?” Isaac asked, slipping behind the large desk.

“Already taken care of.  You’re man Zeke is a fine fellow.”  He dropped his voice, out of hearing of the hotel’s other guests.  “Old as he is, he’d fetch a fair sum.”

Emily’s smile faltered just a bit.

Isaac waved Mr. Burrows off.  “He’s far too valuable for that.  Let me get you a room key.”

“Like I said, all taken care of.  My boys are already sleeping off the effects of our travel.  I simply want to sit beside this fire and soak up as much warmth as I can before I must go out again.”

Emily chose to focus on the upcoming meal.  She regained her smile and took the opportunity to make a graceful exit.  “If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to peek in on dinner.”

Mr. Burrows nodded at Isaac.  “Few more years and she’ll make a fine plantation mistress.”

Emily overheard him and his words brought her up short.  She flipped her hair with annoyance.  Did everyone expect her to marry?

Malachi met Emily in the kitchen, his eyes as dark as coal.  “What’s he doing here?”

“What you think he doin’?” Julia snapped.  “Some black folks tryin’ to be free this Christmas.  He gunna drag ‘em back in chains.”

Emily cleared her throat, suddenly uncomfortable.  “I won’t be serving this evening.  Mr. Burrows has asked me to join him for dinner and Uncle Isaac has agreed.”

Julia met Malachi’s eyes over Emily’s head, and the slap of that look made Emily cringe.  Her emotions warred inside her, but pride won out.  Mr. Burrows was a fine, cultured gentleman and she would dine with him, no matter what they thought.

She raised her chin and looked Julia square in the eye. “I just want to see that dinner is prepared extra special tonight.”

Julia’s face grew stony and her eyes burned into Emily’s.  Emily felt the heat rising in her cheeks and whirled from the room before the black woman could see it.

The evening passed pleasantly.  Mr. Burrows was as agreeable as she remembered.  His soft drawl and conversation centered on home made her happily forget all about her friends eating in the kitchen.

After dinner, her uncle entertained them with music.  Mr. Burrows commented, “You play as well as my mother.  She’s always liked that last one.  Bach, is it?”

“Beethoven,” Isaac replied.  “Fur Elise.  It has special meaning for me.”

“Yes, yes, Beethoven.  I never could keep all those German fellows straight.”

The slave catchers stayed with them three days, keeping odd hours.  They would suddenly appear or disappear, sometimes taking the dogs, often staying out half the night.  Twice Emily heard them clomping up the stairs long after midnight.

The usual evening gatherings in the kitchen became particularly strained.  She couldn’t endure Malachi’s frank gaze or Julia’s scornful glare, so like a naughty child she retreated to the lobby with the guests.

On the night before Christmas, however, the three southerners were absent all day, and the entire household set aside their differences, exchanging small gifts in front of the lobby fire before the work of the busy holiday began.  Isaac read the Christmas story and led them in carols around the piano.

After the second stanza of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, the front door opened.  “Milford!” boomed a voice that Emily recognized.  “Got a delivery here from my daughter.  She wanted to come but she’s feeling poorly.  She asked me to give this to your niece.”

William Thatcher, the fat mill owner, thundered into the room with a small, brightly-wrapped package.  “She here?”

Isaac gestured to Emily, who was trying to sink into the couch once again.

“Hmmm.  Ain’t growed much yet.  Here.”  He tossed the gift in Emily’s lap.

Inside, she found a beautiful china horse that looked exactly like Coal Dust.  “Thank you,” she mumbled.

He nodded. “I’ll tell her you loved it.”

“Wait” she said, jumping up, “I have something for her.”  She ran to her room and pulled out pen and paper.  Here was her chance to try out her plan.  Hastily, she wrote:

“Dear Miss Thatcher,

Thank you for the beautiful horse.  I will treasure it, though I must neglect its real-life likeness temporarily.

Shannon has left us and we are all swamped with responsibility.  My uncle, especially, is suffering her loss.  I hope some young lady soon steps forward to fill the vacancy.

Thank you again, and may the holidays find you soon well.

Sincerely,
Miss Emily Preston

It was brief, truthful yet deceptive, warm yet matter-of-fact.  And if she had judged the young woman correctly, it would produce exactly the desired effect.  She delivered the letter promptly.

Mr. Thatcher tucked it in his vest pocket and boomed, “Milford, what are you doing about –”

But his question was interrupted by a shout and loud stomping on the porch.  The door burst open and Mr. Burrows entered.  Behind him, his two companions ushered in an injured black man.  They kept their guns pointed in his direction even though his wrists were bound with iron and he shivered uncontrollably with cold.

Mr. Burrows grinned jovially.  “We’ll be checking out.”

Isaac nodded and rose from the piano.

Emily’s stomach wrenched at the sight of the captive.  The side of his head was sticky with blood that hadn’t yet crusted in his wooly hair.  One eye was swollen shut, and his lip was split and bleeding.  There was blood on his shirt as well, but Emily couldn’t tell if it had dripped from above or if it marked another injury.

Mr. Thatcher beamed at the newcomers, “Good day, Burrows!  You found your man!”

The slave catcher shook his head.  “No, that one got away.  No sign of him anywhere.  But I recognize this fellow from posters out of Georgia.  He’ll bring a tidy reward.”  He grinned again.  “I think I’ll buy my kids something extra special for Christmas this year.”

Mr. Thatcher grunted.  “Nasty business, slavery.  But necessary, I suppose.  Well, then, Merry Christmas to you all!”  And he strolled from the room, his question forgotten.

As Isaac tended to the paperwork, Julia drew the freezing captive toward the fire and dabbed at his wounds with a wet handkerchief.  She disappeared momentarily and returned with a gray woolen coat which she fastened around his shoulders.  Then she wrapped a knitted muffler around his head and neck.  Emily recognized it as one of her own.  Finally, she pulled two pairs of woolen socks over the man’s raw, bare feet and slid them carefully into Malachi’s boots.

The man had watched her without expression.  Now he took her hand and a look passed between them as old as kindness and mingled with dignity and sorrow.  He stuttered out something in a language Emily didn’t recognize, though she thought she understood it.

It took only moments for the men to collect their belongings and leave, dragging with them the recaptured runaway and all of the afternoon’s cheer.

Read Chapter 14.

The Candle Star, by Michelle Isenhoff, Chapter 12

If you’re new to The Candle Star, you can start at Chapter One.  Each week I’ll also link to the previous post.

The Candle Star

by Michelle Isenhoff

Chapter Twelve

Yet another muffler was taking shape under Emily’s hands.  In only two weeks she had completed ten of the blasted things.  Sometimes she regretted asking Julia to teach her, but when darkness fell at five o’clock in the afternoon, there wasn’t much else to do.

The household had taken to gathering around the stove during the long, snowy evenings.  Sometimes Isaac pulled out a copy of William Cullen Bryant, or Tennyson, or Keats, but mostly he read Longfellow, and Emily became acquainted with the great Indian chief, Hiawatha, and with fair Evangeline, the Canadian maiden evicted from her homeland and separated from her bridegroom.  She found herself concentrating on the versed stories, even identifying with the poor, banished maiden.

But tonight Isaac stared at his book vacantly, not turning pages, hardly even moving.  Suddenly he slapped his cup of coffee down, sloshing it on the table.  “A Christmas tree!” he exclaimed.  “I am going to cut down a Christmas tree!”

Emily glanced out the window doubtfully.  Nothing could be seen but wind-driven snow that flashed across the light of the window.  She turned her eyes on him questioningly.

“Tomorrow, of course.  For Shannon’s nieces and nephews.  A Christmas tree would be just the thing to bring them some holiday cheer!”

Julia harrumphed, setting down the gray garment taking shape under her needle.  “You spread too much cheer and you gunna be spreading germs as well.  Mr. Milford, you get arrested if you go in dat house.”

“Who said anything about going inside?”  Isaac smiled at Emily and Malachi.  “What do you say?  Shall we bring them a tree?”

“Let’s do it!” Malachi shouted.

Emily was slower to answer.  Her compassion struggled to rise above the snowdrifts.

“Emily?” Isaac prompted.

Malachi answered for her.  “Course she wants to go.  She’s been clacking those needles together till I can hardly stand it.”

“Malachi Watson,” Julia admonished.  “Miss Emily ain’t aclackin’ no needles.  She knittin’ warm clothes for dem what gots none.”

Malachi gave Emily’s work a doubtful glance.  “A fellow would have to be freezing to death before he put on that muffler.”

Emily wadded the scarf into a ball and threw it at Malachi, needles and all.

“You hush!” Julia admonished.  “She gettin’ better all da time.”

“Well I should be.  There’s nothing else to do when the weather’s so blasted – ” a quick peak at Julia “–uh, blessed cold.  Who wears all these things anyway?  Seems I’ve knitted enough scarves to wrap every neck in Detroit.”

“They get put to good use,” Julia said firmly.  “Tomorrow I’ll show you how to make mittens.”

“Tomorrow she’s helping us get a tree,” Malachi countered.  “Aren’t you?”

“All right,” Emily relented.

Isaac grinned.  “In that case, we’re going to need some decorations.  Julia, would you pop us some corn?  The rest of us can search for ribbons, buttons and scraps of bright cloth, anything to dress up the branches and bring a sparkle to some little eyes.”

Emily raided her supply of hair ribbons and cut the lace edging off the cuffs and bottom of her traveling suit.  Isaac tore an old flannel shirt into colorful strips to tie into bows.  Even Zeke donated a pair of faded handkerchiefs.  By the time the corn was popped, they had filled a bucket with pretty decorations.  Then they spent the rest of the evening munching popcorn and stringing it into long garlands.

After breakfast the next morning, Isaac appeared with an ax and a length or rope.  “Julia, do you think you could find Emily some appropriate clothing while I hitch up Barnabas?”

When Emily climbed in the sleigh beside Malachi, she was covered in so many pairs of woolen socks, woolen undergarments, woolen shawls, mittens and mufflers that she felt indebted to a whole flock of sheep.  She practically rolled in, yet the icy air still found her skin.

Isaac tucked a fur robe over their laps and drove out of the yard, guiding Barnabas down roads packed firmly with use.  The sleigh runners whisked over the snow with a soft whisper, and the bells on the harnesses jangled merrily.  The sun set the world to sparkling as they moved quickly between buildings capped with snow and laced with jagged icicles.

They traveled the route that Coal Dust had carried her all those weeks ago, following Michigan Avenue through a countryside softened by a feathery white covering.  It looked so different in winter Emily scarcely recognized it, though she did know the bridge and the field where Coal Dust had bolted.  With all the leaves down, she could even see a cabin in the copse of trees looking as mean as the old fellow with the shotgun.

A short way beyond, Isaac turned onto a narrow road that passed through a wood.  The bare, gnarled fingers of hardwood trees splayed against the gray sky, and evergreens listed under the weight of their snowy skirts.
Isaac drove the horse into a clearing.  “I own a dozen acres in here.  They provide me with maple syrup, beechnuts and firewood, and now they will offer up my first Christmas tree since I was a boy.  Everyone out!  Help me locate a good one.”

Malachi trotted off into the woods.  Isaac followed more slowly, and Emily dragged behind, stepping carefully in her uncle’s tracks.  The snow was deep and she was freezing.  She remembered with longing the mild winters in Charleston.

Suddenly a great gob of snow smashed into her cheek, spraying her clothing and dripping down between the layers at her neck.  She looked around in surprise.  Isaac still marched steadily in front of her, but Malachi was nowhere to be seen.

“Malachi Watson, you’re going to be sorry!”

Another snowball burst against her shoulder.  This time she caught sight of the boy slipping behind a tree.  She veered from the trail and bounded through the snowy drifts.

Malachi got off one more shot before Emily rounded the tree and slammed into him.  They both fell to the ground.  Malachi tried to roll away, but Emily heaped snow on him, rubbing it onto his face and neck.  Soon they were both winded and laughing, and looking very much like the snowman the students had erected in the schoolyard.

Malachi paused to dig snow out of his ear.  “You know, for a girl, you tackle hard.”

She grinned.  “You forget I have a big brother.”

Isaac was nearly out of sight among the trees.  They raced to follow him, Emily no longer caring about the snow packing into her shoes and clinging to her socks.

When they caught up, Isaac was circling a tree about his own height, admiring it from all sides.  “What about this one?” he asked them.

It was a pretty little tree, straight and even and fragrant.  It would look beautiful in Shannon’s yard dressed for the holiday.  Emily smiled and nodded, and Isaac began chopping through the trunk.

As they waited, Malachi climbed a stump a few yards away.  Spreading his arms, he toppled over backwards like a falling tree.  Then he flapped his arms and legs as though he hoped to fly away.

She giggled.  “What in the world are you doing?”

“Haven’t you ever made a snow angel before?”

“A what?”

“A snow angel!”

He jumped up and pointed to the shape left in the snow, a figure with outspread wings and a flowing robe.  “It’s the only way I’ll ever look so pearly white!” he grinned.

She considered the angel, her brow furrowed in thought.  “Malachi, do you suppose there are black angels?”

“’Course there are!”

“How do you know?”

“Everyone knows about the angel choirs, right?”

She nodded.

“Way I figure, God wouldn’t even stop and listen if they didn’t have at least a few black members.”

Emily laughed and flopped in the snow to make her own angel.  Overhead, the clouds tumbled like scraps of paper in a breeze.  She no longer felt the bite of winter.  In fact, she had grown uncomfortably warm beneath all her woolen layers.

“If you two are ready, the tree is already tied to the sled.”  The call sounded thin and far away.

Emily rose and threw one more handful of snow at Malachi, catching him on the cheek.  He swiped it off and hollered, “Race you!”

Back at the sleigh, Isaac had cut several pine boughs that he laid on the floor at their feet.  “I figure we might as well do some decorating of our own,” he explained and turned Barnabas toward home.  Then he began singing a song Emily had never heard before.  “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way…”

The children caught on quickly and joined in on the last few choruses.  Emily’s face tingled from the cold, but under the lap robe she was warm and cozy as they moved from one Christmas carol to another.  They were still singing when they pulled up in front of Shannon’s house.

The family lived in a shabby row house, and Emily couldn’t imagine how nine people fit in the tiny building.  As Isaac nailed two flat slabs of wood to the bottom of the evergreen tree, smiling faces appeared in the front window.  Three of the children had hair in shades of red, but the littlest one, a freckle-faced boy with his face pressed to the glass, was blond as corn silk.

Isaac set the tree upright.  “All right you two, help me dress this beauty up.”

Together they tied on decorations.  Emily fussed with the bows and draped the strands of popcorn in even waves.  When they were done, the buttons glittered and the bright cloth blazed against the snow.  The tree brightened up the whole drab street.

Isaac called to Malachi, “Help me move it so the others can see it from their beds.”

When the tree nearly leaned against the glass, they piled back into the sleigh.  Even before the horse moved, a pair of chickadees landed in the top branches and began pecking at the strand of corn.  Emily smiled at the birds, and at Malachi and her uncle, and at the faces in the window, glad she had chosen to participate in the fun.

The three of them made merry again on their way home, but when they pulled into the hotel drive, all the jolly left Malachi’s face.

And then Emily, too, caught the sound of a baying bark.

Read Chapter Thirteen.

The Candle Star, by Michelle Isenhoff, Chapter 11

If you’re new to The Candle Star, you can start at Chapter One.  Each week I’ll also link to the previous post.

The Candle Star

by Michelle Isenhoff

Chapter Eleven

The next day, Isaac met Emily at the door when she came home for lunch.  “Emily, Shannon’s nephew is worse, and she couldn’t make it in this morning.  Julia is swamped trying to do the work of them both.  Would you mind skipping your afternoon classes to lend a hand?”

Skip school?  She didn’t hesitate a moment.  “Of course not!”

“Good.  I’m on my way to fetch the doctor.  Julia can tell you what to do.”

The woman pushed into the room with an armload of dishes just in time to hear the exchange.  “When you’s done eatin’, you takes the linen off da line,” she ordered. “Me an’ ’Zekiel will finish up lunch.”  She dropped the dishes beside the wash tub, filled another plate, and disappeared into the dining room.

Ezekiel passed her coming in.

“Is it busy today, Zeke?” Emily asked.

“No more’n usual, miss.”

Emily made herself a sandwich and took it to the table with a glass of milk.  Halfway through the meal, Malachi burst through the door with his usual aplomb.  Julia set on him at once.  “Malachi Watson, when you gunna learn ta open dat door like a Christian ‘stead of like some heathen outta da brush?”

“Sorry, Mama,” he cringed, shooting Emily a look of chagrin.

But Julia was too busy to send him outside to practice his faith proper.  “See dat you get da chamber pots cleaned in rooms six and four.  Den Mr. Isaac hab a mess o’ wood out back needs splittin’.”

After bringing in the freeze-dried laundry, Emily got her first lesson in ironing sheets.  She had grown accustomed to hard work, and if she didn’t exactly find pleasure in it, at least it had gotten easier.  She had, however, purchased a new pair of white gloves and wore them in public to cover her hands, which were becoming as red and calloused as Shannon’s.

Julia placed three heavy flatirons on the stove to heat and then padded the kitchen table with an old blanket and spread out one of the stiff linens.  When it was hot enough, she wrapped a rag around the handle of the first iron and pressed it across the sheet.  The cloth softened and the wrinkles disappeared like magic.  When the iron cooled, she replaced it on the stove and grabbed a new one.

“Now you try it.”

Emily did it just as the woman had shown her, but instead of gliding smoothly along the top of the sheet like a duck on a pond, she pushed the whole mess across the table, blanket and all.

“No, no,” Julia admonished impatiently.  “You’s not carvin’ a turkey with it.  Push it along gentle, like you’s strokin’ a horse.”

The woman straightened the cloth and Emily tried again.  At first she seemed to create more wrinkles than she removed, and she managed to burn her fingers twice, but after two or three attempts, Julia left Emily alone and began tossing ingredients into a big black pot for supper.

They were alone in the kitchen, but Emily ironed and folded three more sheets before she worked up the courage to ask the question foremost on her mind.  “Julia, have you ever been to a slave auction?”

The black woman stiffened, and silence iced the room like freezing rain.  When she turned to meet Emily’s eyes, her back was poker straight, her chin jutted out and her face was tight and proud.  She looked like one of the African princesses in the folk tales Lizzie used to tell when they were little.  “Why you wanna know?”

“I just wondered if the things I heard were true.  My father never let me attend one, and when I asked my uncle about them he told me to talk to you.”

Julia turned back to her pot and remained silent so long Emily didn’t think she would answer.  Then her voice came low.  “It all true.  Everything you heard, it all true.”

She worked the spoon, stirring memories.  “I was born on a small farm in Georgia.  Weren’t so bad.  Mr. Peters a hard man, but he leab us alone if we gib him no cause to beat us.  All dose years I had Mama and Daddy, my sister and brothers, a few other slave chil’ren to play with.  I was happy enough.  Din’t know no better.

“Come a day Mr. Peters decide to sell out and head west.  He put all us slaves on da block to sell piecemeal.”
She stirred harder, clanking a rhythm on the side of the pot.  “We was put in chains and marched up one at a time fo’ da white men to examine, jus’ like dey was buyin’ beef cattle.  Dey pinch my arms, poke at my ribs and pry open my mouth to look at my teeth.  I’s only thirteen, my body just learnin’ to be a woman, an’ I had to stand dare wearin’ nothin’ but my pride.  But dat weren’t da worse of it.  I’d a stood dare all week if it keep my family together.”

The stirring stopped and Julia stared into the pot.  “I seen my daddy’s face as his family was sold away.  It a terrible thing for a man to be powerless.  God gib him the job to look after his family, and the white man, he take it away.

“It kill ’im.  He sol’ away south and we heard later he just up and died.  He only thirty-five years old.

“Mama, I don’t know what happen to her, but can I still hear her scream like when dose babies bein’ wrenched outta her arms.”

The spoon clanked again.  “I’s lucky; my brother sol’ wid me.”

Emily absorbed the story in silence and Julia cast her a dark glance.  “Now you see why I gots no tolerance for yo’ high and mighty ways, yo’ southern talk and yo’ petty orders.  Picture yo’self on dat block, missy.”

Emily’s eyes grew wide.  “But I’m white!”

Julia shook her head.  “You’s so full of yo’ own color you can’t trade places wid a black person even in yo’ own imagination.  But when we’s hurt, we bleed da same color, Miss Emily.”  She dropped the spoon and picked up a paring knife, flicking her fingertip with the sharp point.

“Look here,” she demanded, shoving the drop of blood before Emily’s eyes.  “When we’s hurt, you and I, we both bleed red.”

~

That night, Isaac came home angry.  “The best doctor in the city won’t treat an Irish boy.”  He shrugged off his coat and hung it on a nail by the back door.  Emily and Malachi glanced at each other over the open math book between them.  “I had to settle for some idiot who prescribed sawdust and fish oil, or some such nonsense.  It’s clear the boy has scarlet fever.  He’s has a purple rash and he’s burning up.  I’d like to wring that old fool’s throat!”

Julia commanded, “Malachi, run an’ fetch Doc Ferguson.”

The black doctor confirmed scarlet fever.  The child’s home was quickly placed under quarantine and fixed with a bold red placard prohibiting anyone from entering or leaving.  Within a week the disease had spread to three other children.  Shannon’s sister wore herself to exhaustion and finally succumbed to the disease.  Shannon had to quit her job at the hotel to care for them all.

Isaac and Malachi brought them leftovers on several occasions, leaving the food outside the door, and Julia took in much of the laundry that comprised the family’s income, adding it to her own workload.  But everyone was careful not to violate the quarantine and spread the deadly germs.

Isaac sat at the kitchen table, his haggard eyes peering between the fingers pressed against his face.  His hair stood on end from running his hands up and over his head.

“Emily, you’ve been a tremendous help this week, taking over Shannon’s responsibilities, and I thank you.  Business always slows in winter, but if it doesn’t, I’m going to have to hire someone to take her place.  I can’t ask you to miss several weeks of school.”

Several weeks?  Emily perked up.  Shannon was going to be gone for several weeks?  Maybe this was the opportunity she’d been hoping for.  Without the maid always underfoot maybe Isaac would forget his foolish plan to marry her.  Maybe…

Yes, she definitely had a plan.

Read Chapter Twelve.