I hadn’t thought it possible that I could hate Lord Edwards more, but the thought of him doing this to my family sends me into a twisting rage. It’s an evil thing to own another man. Even if a master chooses not to torture and abuse someone, it’s enough that he could. I am in a land of smiling villains, and I want nothing to do with them.

“Master Mulch put Annie in shackles and ran the chain over the tree branch on the other side so she don’t fall down when her legs give out.” Sarah watches me, waiting for a response.

“I saw,” I tell her.

“Were they yours?”

I’m sickened to be part of this. The chain maker. I shake my head. “I don’t know.” But I know I can’t claim innocence no matter how small a cog of the wheel I am. “I’m sorry,” I tell her.

I will never make another chain.

Chapter 34

Sarah

The days drag by slow as molasses and I’m itching to get into the cool shelter of the woods and off the plantation. I ain’t seen Henry since after the whipping the other day, but I hear him out by the coach house pounding on his metal. Most days, one chore just follows after the next, with no time for anything else. But today, when I finish in the house, Thomas is with his momma learning his letters, Willa’s looking after Annie, and Maple’s left for town with Red, so I take my chances and slip away for a spell.

I snatch up my herb basket and make for the woods, looking in the places Momma taught me—near the rotting logs for bindweed, and in the sunken wet soils for turtlehead leaves.

I head toward the river, expecting to find Joe-pye weed growing by the banks. Instead, I see Henry coming up alongside the river. My hand goes to smooth my hair. Annie’s still got my headscarf and, after the extra whipping she got on account of Henry and me, I don’t have the nerve to demand it back. A slip of hair has fallen out of my bun and hangs beside my face. I tuck it behind my ear.

Henry walks straight up to me, picking his way between the wild growing plants. Sunlight peaks through the leaves overhead, playing across the two of us standing up to our knees in ferns and mayapple. In the distance a woodpecker hammers on a tree.

“Afternoon, Sarah,” he says, just like he’s expecting to see me here.

“Henry,” I say. I been missing saying his name.

There’s a moment when we’re stuck, like we’re back to where we don’t rightly fit. The air’s so still it feels like the whole world’s holding its breath for us. But then he takes a step closer to me and I take a step closer to him, wading through the sprawling leaves, and it’s like we just crossed right through whatever was keeping us apart.