My eyes water as I gasp. My head swims. I breathe in air that’s thick as cream and blink away the pinprick feeling in my eyes. I make my way to the kitchen house where, on the grass a few feet away, the toad that Red smashed against the doorframe lies dead.

An idea is forming in my mind, warm and settling, like fresh baked bread. I gather up Sarah’s herb bundles from the kitchen house and from where she had them stacked in a corner of Bessie’s cabin. I’m prepared to strike the blind woman out of my way, but I don’t need to. She isn’t there. On my way back to the Big House, I scoop up the dead toad.

In the carry-through, the tray of glasses still sits abandoned. I pick it up and carry everything up to Miss Martha.

Chapter 74

Sarah

I check that the way is clear and watch Henry scurry out the carry-through and across the yard to Bessie’s cabin to wait for me until I can get done here.

It’s not until I’m back upstairs in the house that I remember the tray of glasses I left in the carry-through that weren’t there when me and Henry came out of the cellar.

“Maple was looking for you,” Willa says, coming downstairs with an armful of sheets. “She wanted you to change the bedding in the guest room for that Tennessee man staying tonight.”

“He’s staying the night?”

“Course he’s staying. Ain’t his fault folks told him he’d find a blacksmith here to shoe his horse but he don’t. Master ain’t gonna turn him out.” She hefts the sheets on her hip. “But you’d have known that if you was here to do the bed like Maple wanted.”

I start up the stairs, hoping to catch the timber man alone.

“I already done it now,” Willa shouts after me.

“Is that you, Sarah?” Missus calls from her sitting room.

“She here, Missus,” Willa answers for me. “You best get in there, she been looking for you too, lazy.” She sneers at me, pleased for the tongue lashing I’m sure to be getting after escaping extra work that she got stuck doing.

In her sitting room, Missus stands plucking at her clothes. She folds her arms across her belly when she sees me. Hovering beside her, Maple never looked more like her sister. They both scowl the same hateful scowl with their matching foreheads wrinkled in distress. Their small eyes are hard as flint. In her hands, Maple holds the tray I left in the carry-through.

“We were looking for you,” Missus says. “You disappeared after dinner when you should have been helping Maple.”

I start off looking at her, but my eyes dip down to the tray of glasses. I feel my heart leap into my throat.

“I know what you were up to, Sarah,” Missus says. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

A chill goes up my back like ice fingers, and I know whatever’s coming won’t be good.