When he has, he says, “Take her up to your cabin, Red. Make her yours.”

Every slave master expects the women he owns to have babies. There’s no cheaper way to make money. I even heard of breeding farms where that’s all you do. Master putting me with Red was him deciding it’s my breeding time.

I feel the eyes on my back as we walk to Red’s cabin. My heart’s thumping like a jackrabbit. I stand outside his door whimpering and he shushes me and pulls me in.

Red goes over to the bed and sits down, rubbing his palms to his thighs. I press my back up against the wall.

“I ain’t never going to force you,” he says.

I sink down to the floor and pull my knees up to my chest.

“But one of these days you’re going to come to me on your own.” He looks at me then, and I know what he’s saying. He means Henry won’t never get me out of here, and Red and me together is how it’s going to be ’cause that’s how Master wants it.

“Best get some sleep,” he says, and scoots back on the mattress to the far edge, leaving room for me.

I lie on the floor, making a pillow with my arms, listening to him breathe.

Chapter 67

Maple

Scurrying after Master, I’m short-breathed as I run to catch up with his trotting horse.

“That’s what I been trying to tell you, Master. She ain’t never gonna settle here.”

“Red will set her straight,” he says. “And if not Red, then their child.”

“Master, you could trade her for Rose,” I pant, trying to keep up. “Master Jeremiah’s sure to take a grown woman ready for breeding for a girl just out of childhood.”

“No!” he thunders, pulling up the reins, stopping his horse to glare down at me.

Any fool would know to leave it be, but I keep on. I have this one last chance. “And Rose won’t give you trouble. She’ll work hard and be obedient and—”

“Enough!” he shouts. “I’m not going to beg my father-in-law for a bad bargain. Sarah will stay and do as she’s told.”

He pulses with anger, but I tremble with rage.

I open my mouth to speak again and think, this is how Momma got sent to the fields. And then I think, if I can save Rose it will be worth it. “Master, you know what Nathaniel Keeler’s doing to her,” I say. “She ain’t but a girl.”

He grips his crop and I expect him to strike me. Instead, he sits back in his saddle, the polished leather creaking under his shifting weight. “I do not own Rose,” he says in a quiet voice strung through with tension. “There’s nothing I can do for her.” He kicks his heels into his horse’s flank, flicks his crop against her rump and trots on.

Left behind on the hillside, I collapse to the ground. I can’t get her out. I can’t save her. Master Nathaniel could be with her right now. I want to burn the whole world down.