And now look at me, thought Peggy. Here I look down the paths of Alvin’s life and see misery for myself—nowhere near as bad as that slavegirl’s, but bad enough. Now and then I catch the shine of a bright chance for happiness, a strange and backward way to have Alvin and have him love me, too. Once I seen it, am I going to sit on my hands and watch that bright hope die, just because I’m not sure how to get to it from here?

  If that beat-down child can make her own hope out of wax and ash and feathers and a bit of herself, then I can make my own life, too. Somewhere there’s a thread that if I just lay hold on it, it’ll lead me to happiness. And even if I never find that particular thread, it’ll be better than the despair waiting for me if I stay. Even if I never become a part of Alvin’s life when he comes to manhood, well, that’s still not as steep a price as that slavegirl paid for freedom.

  When Alvin comes tomorrow, I won’t be here.

  That was her decision, just like that. Why, she could hardly believe she never thought of it before. Of all people in the whole of Hatrack River, she ought to have knowed that there’s always another choice. Folks talked on about how they were forced into misery and woe, they didn’t have no choice at all—but that runaway girl showed that there’s always a way out, long as you remember even death can be a straight smooth road sometimes.

  I don’t even have to get no blackbird feathers to fly, neither.

  Peggy sat there holding the baby, making bold and fearsome plans for how she’d leave in the morning afore Alvin could arrive. Whenever she felt a-scared of what she’d set herself to do, she cast her gaze down on that girl, and the sight of her was comfort, it truly was. I might someday end up like you, runaway girl, dead in some stranger’s house. But better that unknown future than one I knew all along I’d hate, and then did nothing to avoid.

  Will I do it, will I really do it in the morning, when the time’s come and no turning back? She touched Alvin’s caul with her free hand, just snaking her fingers into the box, and what she saw in Alvin’s future made her feel like singing. Used to be most paths showed them meeting up and starting out her life of misery. Now only a few of those paths were there—in most of Alvin’s futures, she saw him come to Hatrack River and search for the torch girl and find her gone. Just changing her mind tonight had closed down most of the roads to misery.

  Mama came back with the Berrys before Papa came in from gravedigging. Anga Berry was a heavyset woman with laughter lines outnumbering the lines of worry on her face, though both kinds were plain enough. Peggy knew her well and liked her better than most folks in Hatrack River. She had a temper but she also had compassion, and Peggy wasn’t surprised at all to see her rush to the body of the girl and take up that cold limp hand and press it to her bosom. She murmured words almost like a lullaby, her voice was so low and sweet and kind.

  “She’s dead,” said Mock Berry. “But that baby’s strong, I see.”

  Peggy stood up and let Mock see the baby in her arms. She didn’t like him half so well as she liked his wife. He was the kind of man who’d slap a child so hard blood flowed, just cause he didn’t like what was said or done. It was almost worse cause he didn’t rage when he did it. Like he felt nothing at all, to hurt somebody or not hurt somebody made no powerful difference in his mind. But he worked hard, and even though he was poor his family got by; and nobody who knew Mock paid heed to them crude folks what said there wasn’t a buck who wouldn’t steal or a ewe you couldn’t tup.

  “Healthy,” said Mock. Then he turned to Mama. “When he grow up to be a big old buck, ma’am, you still aim to call him your boy? Or you make him sleep out back in the shed with the animals?”

  Well, he wasn’t one to pussyfoot around the issue, Peggy saw.

  “Shut your mouth, Mock,” said his wife. “And you give me that baby, Miss. I just wish I’d knowed he was coming or I’d’ve kept my youngest on the tit to keep the milk in. Weaned that boy two months back and he’s been nothing but trouble since, but you ain’t no trouble, baby, you ain’t no trouble at all.” She cooed to the baby just like she cooed to his dead mama, and he didn’t wake up either.

  “I told you. I’ll raise him as my son,” said Mama.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I just never heard of no White woman doing such a thing,” said Mock.

  “What I say,” said Mama, “that’s what I do.”

  Mock thought on that a moment. Then he nodded. “I reckon so,” he said. “I reckon I never heard you break your word, not even to Black folks.” He grinned. “Most White folk allow as how lying to a buck ain’t the same as lying.”

  “We’ll do like you asked,” said Anga Berry. “I’ll tell anybody who ask me this is my boy, only we gave him to you cause we was too poor.”

  “But don’t you ever go forgetting that it’s a lie,” said Mock. “Don’t you ever go thinking that if it really was our own baby, we’d ever give him up. And don’t you ever go thinking that my wife here ever would let some White man put a baby in her, and her being married to me.” Mama studied Mock for a minute, taking his measure in the way she had. “Mock Berry, I hope you come and visit me any day you like while this boy is in my house, and I’ll show you how one White woman keeps her word.”

  Mock laughed. “I reckon you a regular Mancipationist.”

  Papa came in then, covered with sweat and dirt. He shook hands with the Berrys, and in a minute they told him the tale they all would tell. He made his promises too, to raise the boy like his own son. He even thought of what never entered Mama’s head—he said a few words to Peggy, to promise her that they wouldn’t give no preference to the boy, neither. Peggy nodded. She didn’t want to say much, cause anything she said would either be a lie or give her plans away; she knew she had no intention to be in this house for even a single day of this baby’s future here.

  “We go on home now, Mrs. Guester,” said Anga. She handed the baby to Mama. “If one of my children wake up with a boogly dream I best be there or you hear them screams clear up here on the high road.”

  “Ain’t you going have no preacher say words at her grave?” said Mock. Papa hadn’t thought of it. “We do have a minister upstairs,” he said. But Peggy didn’t let him hold that thought for even a moment. “No,” she said, sharp as she could.

  Papa looked at her, and knew that she was talking as a torch. Wasn’t no arguing that point. He just nodded. “Not this time, Mock,” he said. “Wouldn’t be safe.”

  Mama fretted Anga Berry clear to the door. “Is there anything I ought to know?” said Mama. “Is there anything different about Black babies?”

  “Oh, powerful different,” said Anga. “But that baby, he half White, I reckon, so you just take care of that White half, and I reckon the Black half take care of hisself.”

  “Cow’s milk from a pig bladder?” Mama insisted.

  “You know all them things,” said Anga. “I learnt everything I know from you, Mrs. Guester. All the women round here do. How come you asking me now? Don’t you know I need my sleep?”

  Once the Berrys were gone, Papa picked up the girl’s body and carried her outside. Not even a coffin, though they would overlay the corpse with stones to keep the dogs off. “Light as a feather,” he said when first he hoisted her. “Like the charred carcass of a burnt log.”

  Which was apt enough, Peggy had to admit. That’s what she was now. Just ashes. She’d burnt herself right up.

  Mama held the pickaninny boy while Peggy went up into the attic and fetched down the cradle. Nobody woke up this time, except that minister. He was wide awake behind his door, but he wasn’t coming out for any reason. Mama and Peggy made up that little bed in Mama’s and Papa’s room, and laid the baby in it. “Tell me if this poor orphan baby’s got him a name,” said Mama.

  “She never gave him one,” said Peggy. “In her tribe, a woman never got her a name till she married, and a man had no name till he killed him his first animal.”

  “That’s just awful,” said Mama. “That ain’t even Christian. Why, she died unbaptized.”

  “No,” said Peggy. “She was baptized right enough. Her owner’s wife saw to that—all the Blacks on their plantation were baptized.”

  Mama’s face went sour. “I’ll have a name for you, little boy.” She grinned wickedly. “What do you think your papa would do if I named this baby Horace Guester Junior?”

  “Die,” said Peggy.

  “I reckon so,” said Mama. “I ain’t ready to be a widow yet. So for now we’ll name him—oh, I can’t think, Peggy. What’s a Black man’s name? Or should I just name him like any White child?”

  “Only Black man’s name I know is Othello,” said Peggy.

  “That’s a queer name if I ever heard one,” said Mama. “You must’ve got that out of one of Whitley Physicker’s books.”

  Peggy said nothing.

  “I know,” said Mama. “I know his name. Cromwell. The Lord Protector’s name.”

  “You might better name him Arthur, after the king,” said Peggy.

  Mama just cackled and laughed at that. “That’s your name, little boy. Arthur Stuart! And if the king don’t like such a namesake, let him send an army and I still won’t change it. His Majesty will have to change his own name first.”

  Even though she got to bed so late, Peggy woke early next morning. It was hoofbeats woke her—she didn’t have to go to the window to recognize his heartfire as the minister drove away. Such an odd thing, that her lips could burn so on his, and yet his lips left her own so cold.

  It was the north-facing window she looked out of. She could see between the trees to the graveyard up the hill. She tried to see where the grave was dug last night, but there wasn’t no sign her natural eyes could see, and in a graveyard there wasn’t no heartfires neither, nothing to help her. Alvin will see it though, she knew that sure. He’d head for that graveyard first thing he did, cause his oldest brother’s body lay there, the boy Vigor, who got swept away in the Hatrack River saving Alvin’s mother’s life in the last hour before she gave birth to her seventh son. But Vigor hung on to life just long enough, in spite of the river’s strongest pulling at him, hung on just long enough that when Alvin was born he was the seventh of seven living sons. Peggy herself had watched his heartfire flicker and die right after the babe was born. He would’ve heard that story a thousand times. So he’d come to that graveyard, and he could feel his way through the earth and find what lay hidden there. He’d find that unmarked grave, that wasted body so fresh buried there.

  Peggy took the box with the caul in it, put it deep in a cloth bag along with her second dress, a petticoat, and the most recent books Whitley Physicker had brought. Just because she didn’t want to meet him face to face didn’t mean she could forget that boy. She’d touch the caul again tonight, or maybe not till morning, and then she’d stand with him in memory and use his senses to find that nameless Black girl’s grave.

  Her bag packed, she went downstairs.

  Mama had drug the cradle into the kitchen and she was singing to the baby while she kneaded bread, rocking the cradle with one foot, even though Arthur Stuart was fast asleep. Peggy set her bag outside the kitchen door, walked in and touched Mama’s shoulder. She hoped a little that she’d see her Mama grieving something awful when she found out Peggy’d gone off. But it wasn’t so. Oh, she’d carry on and rage at first, but in the times to come she’d miss Peggy less than she might’ve guessed. It was the baby’d take her mind off worrying about her daughter. Besides, Mama knew Peggy could take care of herself. Mama knew Peggy wasn’t a one to need to hold a body’s hand. While Arthur Stuart needed her.

  If this was the first time Peggy noticed how her Mama felt about her, she’d have been hurt deep. But it was the hundredth time, and she was used to it, and looked behind it to the reason, and loved her Mama for being a better soul than most, and forgave her for not loving Peggy more.

  “I love you, Mama,” said Peggy.

  “I love you too, baby,” said Mama. She didn’t even look up nor guess what Peggy had in mind.

  Papa was still asleep. After all, he dug a grave last night and filled it too.

  Peggy wrote a note. Sometimes she took care to put in a lot of extra letters in the fancy way they did in books, but this time she wanted to make sure Papa could read it for hisself. That meant putting in no more letters than it took to make the sounds for reading out loud.

  I lov you Papa and Mama but I got to

  leav I no its rong to leav Hatrak

  with out no torch but I bin torch sixtn yr. I seen my

  fewchr and ile be saf donte you fret on my acown.

  She walked out the front door, carried her bag to the road, and waited only ten minutes before Doctor Whitley Physicker came along in his carriage, bound on the first leg of a trip to Philadelphia.

  “You didn’t wait on the road like this just to hand me back that Milton I lent you,” said Whitley Physicker.

  She smiled and shook her head. “No, sir, I’d like you take me with you to Dekane. I plan to visit with a friend of my father’s, but if you don’t mind the company I’d rather not spend the money for a Coach.”

  Peggy watched him consider for a minute, but she knew he’d let her come, and without asking her folks, neither. He was the kind of man thought a girl had as much worth as any boy, and more than that, he plain liked Peggy, thought of her as something like a niece. And he knew that Peggy never lied, so he had no need to check with her folks.

  And she hadn’t lied to him, no more than she ever lied when she left off without telling all she knew. Papa’s old lover, the woman he dreamed of and suffered for, she lived there in Dekane. Peggy knew that lady well, from watching far off for all these years. If I knock on her door, thought Peggy, I don’t even have to tell her I’m Horace Guester’s girl, she’d take me in as a stranger, she would, and care for me, and help me on my way. But maybe I will tell her whose daughter I am, and how I knew to come to her, and how Papa still lives with the aching memory of his love for her.

  The carriage rattled over the covered bridge that Alvin’s father and older brothers had built eleven years before; after the fiver drowned the eldest son. Birds nested in the rafters. It was a mad, musical, happy sound they made, at least to her ears, chirping so loud inside the bridge that it sounded like she imagined grand opera ought to be. They had opera in Camelot, down south. Maybe someday she’d go and hear it, and see the king himself in his box.

  Or maybe not. Because someday she might just find the path that led to that brief but lovely dream, and then she’d have more important things to do than look at kings or hear the music of the Austrian court played by lacy Virginia musicians in the fancy opera hall in Camelot. Alvin was more important than any of these, if he could only find his way to all his power and what he ought to do with it. And she was born to be part of it. That’s how easily she slipped into her dreams of him. Yet why not? Her dreams of him, however brief and hard to find, were true visions of the future, and the greatest joy and the greatest grief she could find for herself both touched this boy who wasn’t even a man yet, who had never seen her face to face.

  But sitting there in the carriage beside Doctor Whitley Physicker, she forced those thoughts, those visions from her mind. What comes will come, she thought. If I find that path I find it, and if not, then not. For now, at least, I’m free. Free of my watch aloft for the town of Hatrack, and free of building all my plans around that little boy. And what if I end up free of him forever? What if I find another future that doesn’t even have him in it? That’s the likeliest end of things. In time maybe I’ll even forget that scrap of a dream I had, and find my own good road to a peaceful end, instead of bending myself to fit with his troubled path.

  The dancing horses pulled the carriage along so brisk that the wind caught and tossed her hair. She closed her eyes and pretended she was flying, a runaway just learning to be free.

  Let him find his path to greatness now without me. Let me have a happy life far from him. Let some other woman stand beside him in his glory. Let another woman kneel a-weeping at his grave.

  Carthage City

  Orson Scott Card recently received a Nebula award for his novel, Speaker for the Dead. This book was a sequel to his Nebula- and Hugo-award winning novel, Ender’s Game. “Carthage City” presupposes the same alternate American history as Mr. Card’s latest novel, Seventh Son (just out from Tor Books).

  Not many flatboats were getting down the Hio these days, not with pioneers aboard, anyway, not with families and tools and furniture and seed and a few shoats to start a pig herd. These were troublous times. It took only a couple of fire arrows and pretty soon some tribe of Reds would have themselves a string of half-charred scalps to sell to the French in Detroit.

  But Hooch Palmer had no such trouble. The Reds all knew the look of his flatboat, stacked high with kegs. Most of those kegs sloshed with whisky, which was about the only musical sound them Reds understood. But in the middle of the vast heap of cooperage there was one keg that didn’t slosh. It was filled with gunpowder, and it had a fuse attached.

  How did he use that gunpowder? They’d be floating along with the current, poling on round a bend, and all of a sudden there’d be a half-dozen canoes filled with painted-up Reds of the Kicky-Poo persuasion. Or they’d see a fire burning near shore, and some Shaw-Nee devils dancing around with arrows ready to set alight. For most folks that meant it was time to pray, fight, and die. Not Hooch, though. He’d stand right up in the middle of that flatboat, a torch in one hand and the fuse in the other, and shout, “Blow up whisky! Blow up whisky!”

  Well, most Reds didn’t talk much English, but they sure knew what “blow up” and “whisky” meant. And instead of arrows flying or canoes overtaking them, pretty soon them canoes passed by him on the far side of the river. Some Red yelled, “Carthage City!” and Hooch hollered back, “That’s right!” and the canoes just zipped on down the Hio, heading for where that likker would soon be sold.