Once the stories crossed the Potomac, however, they changed. The facts were the same, but now the story was told with growing anger. Even Blacks want to be free, that’s what the Northerners said. Whatever they might have planned, they didn’t kill a single White. And now the Crown Colonies are cracking down even harder on these poor souls. Enough. The line had to be drawn. No slavery in the western territories. And no more rights for Slave Finders in the United States. Repudiate the treaty. If the Congress we’ve got won’t do it, then we’ll elect one that will. Never again will a human being on northern territory be the property of another man. People might not know it yet, but this was the rumor of war, and soon enough these seeds would bear fruit. Margaret had spent many months trying to forestall it. Now she knew that war was the only hope of ending slavery. Dreadful as it might be, it was a war that had to be fought. And here in New Sweden, the chatter of war was from the right side. It was her people talking.

Overhearing such conversation at a roadside inn, where the whole party could sit at a table together, Black, White, and all in between, led Denmark to lean back in his chair, fold his hands behind his head, and say, “It be good to be home!”

All along the road, Alvin worked steadily at trying to heal the damage to Denmark’s wife. Margaret assured him that all her memories were still in her heartfire, somewhere, hidden from Margaret because they were hidden from the woman herself. It was slow, meticulous work, healing only a few nerves at a time, a few tiny regions of the brain. But they could all see the improvement in her. She limped less and less. Her hands became more deft. Her speech became clearer. She remembered more and more.

There came one morning when she woke up screaming from a terrible dream. Fishy was with her, but Denmark soon came at a run. When he entered the room, his wife looked up at him and said, “I dream you try a-kill me!”

Weeping, Denmark confessed his terrible sin to her, and begged forgiveness. “I not that man no more,” he said.

That healing, too, would be long and slow.

The journey that Alvin had made in one night, running with the greensong to carry him along, took them more than a week at their leisurely pace. But it ended at last, on a familiar street in Philadelphia. Arthur Stuart recognized the rooming house and ran on ahead. Soon Mike Fink rushed out into the street to greet them, followed more slowly but no less happily by Verily, Purity, and Hezekiah. And when Alvin came into the house, there was Mistress Louder, covered in flour but not to be restrained from hugging him. She immediately adopted Margaret as her favorite daughter, and fussed over the unborn baby so much that Alvin joked that Mistress Louder thought she was the mother.