I pulled off my mask and gloves as we stepped onto the porch. The night was warm and the wind wailed mournfully. Gray clouds covered the moon in a transparent veil. Below, a thick, sticky fog had settled in the village. Its wetness collected on my cheeks. As we walked, a fat drop shimmered down my chin. I stopped, suddenly, seized by a powerful need to say… something about Fount, the sick room, what I’d witnessed. “William,” I said.

He stopped alongside me. “Yes, Arika.”

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. I closed it, wiping at my damp face.

As we started again, William’s hand, the size of a supper plate, rested gently on my back.

The Messenger

THE MESSENGER

We were near our destination when a sizable crowd of Kongos came into view. They were gathered in front of the waterspout at the end of the street. A man stood on a crate addressing the crowd. He had a red bandana angled over one eye.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“Trouble,” William answered, eyeing the man. He pulled me into an alley. We were far enough away that no one had noticed our approach, but we could still hear the man in the bandana from atop his ad hoc podium.

“I have told you what the brother said. I will not tell you again,” he shouted.

“And what assurance have we that this brother does not lie?” someone in the crowd asked.

“Or that you, yourself, do not speak false?” said another.

I stepped out of the alley to get a better look. William yanked me back.

“Hey!” I protested.

He covered my mouth. His eyes were wide with trepidation. “He must not see Arika,” William warned.

I nodded, and he removed his hand. “Why not?”

He put a finger to his closed lips, then his ear, advising me to be quiet and listen.

The man on the crate was still speaking. “What reason do I have to lie?”

“To drive up prices,” a voice suggested. “We all know you trade goods in secret. We ought to turn him in. Let him swing on the gallows.”

“Maybe I trade on the black market—maybe not. This much is true: the price of my goods remains the same, no matter what happens there.”

“What proof is there that anything happened at all?”

“I told you, the messenger! He reported that someone set fire to the Point Landing village, and it was no accident.”

“Why would anyone set fire to a village? It doesn’t make sense. Why burn a plantation?”

“A fine question. One the messenger could not answer,” the man with the bandana said.

“Well, then, you answer. Why would a Point Lander burn his own village down?”

“I do not think it was a Point Lander who set the fire,” the man retorted. “I think it was someone else.”

“So, you are a Rebel!”