“They think that make up for taking her whole life away from her?”

“Yes, they think it does. And Doe thinks so, too. She has her name back, and I suppose she has reason enough to be angry, but she’s happy enough.”

“Then she a fool.”

“No, she’s just old. And tired. For her, freedom means she doesn’t have to work anymore, except to make her own bed.”

“That won’t be enough for me, Miz Margaret.”

“No, Fishy, I’m quite sure it won’t. It shouldn’t be enough for anyone. But don’t begrudge Doe her contentment. She’s earned it.”

Fishy looked back and became agitated. “He coming closer, ma’am.”

“Only because he’s afraid of losing track of us in the crowd.” Margaret steered Calvin toward the seawall. Out in the water they could see the fortresses: Lancelot and Galahad. Such fanciful names. King Arthur indeed. “Denmark Vesey is free and he earns his living by keeping the account books of several small businesses and professional offices.”

“A Black man know his numbers?”

“And his letters. Of course he pretends that he works for a White man who really does the work, but I doubt any of his clients are fooled. They maintain the legal fiction so that nobody has to send anyone to jail. They pay half what they would for a White man, and he gets paid far more than he needs to live in Blacktown. Clever.”

“And he take the names.”

“No, actually, he collects them, but he takes them somewhere and gives them to someone else.”

“Who?”

Margaret sighed. “Whoever it is, he knows how to shut me out of just that part of Denmark’s memory. That’s never happened to me before. Or perhaps I simply didn’t notice it. I must have skimmed past this man’s heartfire before, searching for the taker of names, but because only part of his memory was hidden, I would never have noticed.” Then she thought a little more. “No, I daresay I never looked in his heartfire, because he has his name, and so his heartfire burns brightly enough that I would have assumed he was a White man and not looked at all. He was hidden right out in the open.”

“You a witchy woman, ain’t you, ma’am?”

“Not in the sense that White folks use the word,” said Margaret. “I don’t do any cursing, and what hexes I have to protect me, those were made by my husband, I do no such work. What I am is a torch. I see into people’s heartfire. I find the paths of their future.”

“What you see in my future?”

“No, Fishy,” said Margaret. “You have so many paths open before you. I can’t tell you which one you’ll take, because it’s up to you.”

“But that man, he don’t kill me, right?”

Margaret shook her head. “I don’t see any paths right now where that happens. But I don’t tell futures, Fishy, People live and die by their own choices.”

“Not even your own future? Your husband?”