“I am six,” Thomas says.

“Can’t be,” I say. “Not if someone else dresses you like you’re a baby.”

Sarah leans back on her heels, looking from me to him and back again.

“She dresses me every morning. When I wake up.”

I frown at him. “You wait for her to come to you to put your own clothes on?”

Thomas shakes his head. “She sleeps in my room.”

I take a step back, like the news is knocking me over. “That’s just what I’m talking about. I’ve never heard of anyone but a baby having a thing like that.” I can see that I’ve upset him, and I guess that’s what I was trying to do. “I suppose,” I say, “you grew so fast your ma didn’t realize how big you’d gotten. I guess she needs you to tell her that you’ve outgrown all the babying.”

Sarah pinches her lips to hide her smile. She stands and takes a step away from him. “You want to finish by yourself, Master Thomas?”

“Perhaps you ought to turn around, Sarah,” I say. “A young man needs some privacy.”

She turns around, and I wink at Thomas and he winks at me and pulls his own clothes on.

Chapter 22

Sarah

I been washing my hands raw, trying to scrape the stains out of Master Thomas’s clothes. Missus don’t hold with giving the child play clothes and it’s my fingers that got to pay the price. I stretch the washing line across two trees in the yard. Pulling it tight, I get to hanging.

I don’t get but halfway done when Master comes marching around the side of the house. He’s got three men with him and all four are stepping my way. I recognize fat Mister Gantly who’s always coming to complain about something, and his overgrown son lumbering behind him. The last man, short and greasy-headed, I don’t know.

Master looks like he swallowed a mouthful of sour. “Sarah,” he says.

I stop my clothes hanging. “Yes, sir?”

“These men are looking for a runaway. A buck around twenty years old.”

“You seen him?” Mister Gantly cuts in.

It must be the one Red was hiding. And since Red’s still here, he must be here too. I try to make my face go blank. “I ain’t seen no runaway,” I say. “I ain’t seen nobody here what don’t belong here.” It’s the truth, too. I never saw Red’s runaway.

“You sure about that?” Mister Gantly asks, poking me with a chubby finger.

“I swear, I ain’t seen him,” I say.

“All right,” Master says. “If you hear of anything, you let me know.”

Mister Gantly’s son grabs hold of my face and scowls into my eyes. His fingers dig at my cheeks, mashing them to my mouth. “She knows something,” he says. His breath smells like a thing gone rotten.

My heart’s racing, fit to burst out of my chest, and I know my eyes are wide and guilty looking.