He ain’t helping. He means to, I know, but he’s doing the opposite of helping. He walks toward me, but his daddy grabs him back.

“Stay away from her,” Master barks. “Don’t let her touch you.”

Thomas looks at me, worried.

“Take him back to bed,” Master says to Maple. His voice cuts like a blade.

As Maple takes the boy’s hand and leads him out, he asks, “Has Sarah got the catching sickness? Is she gonna get better?”

Missus is fanning her hand again. “What do we do with her, Matthew? What do we do?”

He paces, ignoring her and me.

“A witch in our home,” she says. “And we didn’t even know it. What will they say about us? And I lent her to Edith Welleby. Do you think we’ll have to tell her?”

“Keep your voice down,” Master says. “Somebody will hear you.”

The only somebody in the house is Henry’s Quaker. I see my chance and I take it. I hop up and dash down the hall to the parlor where the Quaker waits on a settee.

“They think I’m a witch,” I blurt. “They’re gonna kill me if you don’t buy me. Ask them again.”

Master storms into the room, furious and embarrassed, looking like he’d like to cut me down where I stand. The Quaker rises, taking on the posture of a gentleman.

“Have I heard this correctly? Do you keep a witch as your servant?” the Quaker asks with the sternness of Jesus on Judgment Day.

That surely stumbles Master for what to say. He croaks out some choking noises until he finds his voice. “Of course not, sir. At least, not intentionally. That is to say, you must not think that we condone this. I assure you, sir, I would not have devilry on my plantation. We are staunchly Christian here.”

Missus rushes in with Maple coming up behind her.

“I do hope, sir,” says Missus, “that you will not judge us based on this frightful scene.”

The Quaker looks from Missus to Master and then to me. “It’s hard to know what to think,” he says. “But I suppose we cannot control the trials our Lord sends us.”

My heart’s about to beat out of my chest.

“Indeed, we cannot,” Missus says, with a relieved sigh. “May we trust in your discretion to keep this between ourselves?” She crosses the room, sits in a chair and arranges her skirts about her, the picture of Southern charm.

He watches her, thinking, and I watch him, praying.

“I have great sympathy for what is transpiring here this evening,” he says. “In fact, I am prepared to offer a solution to your problems.”

Master’s head whips round to him. “Can one be found?”

The Quaker reaches up and strokes his imaginary beard. “I believe God uses men for His purposes.”

Master nods his agreement. “The truth of that has long been settled in my mind.”

Henry’s Quaker rounds to me and places his hand on my shoulder. “And I believe God placed me here, in this moment, to intervene on his behalf.”