The Bourbon Thief(90)

Tamara waited. She needed courage to do what she had to do. She waited and needed courage to throw herself in the river. The courage didn’t come. Hours passed. The sun set. Night arrived and still Tamara couldn’t do what she had to do. While waiting, she fell asleep, and even as she fell asleep, she prayed she wouldn’t wake up again.

Instead, she dreamed.

*

In her dream she isn’t Tamara.

Who she is she doesn’t know until she looks down at her stomach. Not two months along anymore, she is heavy with child now, ready to burst. She will give birth any day. Maybe today.

She’s been ordered to sit at the table in the kitchen and wait for Missus. She sits. She waits. Her stomach aches. Her stomach, her legs, her back. Everything aches. She wasn’t made to carry this much weight around. It feels like she’s been eating stones and has built a dam inside her body with them.

Phyllis, the other house girl, comes in and looks at her but doesn’t speak. She is scuttling about, getting this and that from the cabinets.

“Phyllis?”

“I can’t talk to you,” Phyllis says in a hiss. “She’ll whip me.”

“What’s she gonna do to me?”

“I can’t talk to you.”

“She’s gonna sell me?”

Phyllis takes the bottle she’s fetched and clasps it to her chest.

“I can’t...”

She gives Veritas a look of pity. There is no hope for her. Veritas lays her hands on her stomach. It hurts to the touch and she curses the thing inside her. Once Master had her that first time, he couldn’t get enough of her. He took her every chance he got, morning and night. He’d even keep Phyllis waiting outside in the dark and the damp and the mosquitoes while he took her in their slave cabin in the bed she and Phyllis had to share. After the first few times, she’d learned how to take it without getting herself hurt or bleeding after. But she hated it every time, especially after when he’d act sweet to her, tell her how good she was, how pretty. He’d kiss her forehead like she was his little girl, tug on the red ribbon in her hair. One day she tried to go without wearing it and he ordered her to put it back on.

Veritas puts her head down to rest. Most days she’d be cleaning right now—changing sheets, beating rugs. She wants to be cleaning and working, not sitting here waiting. Waiting scares her.

A few minutes pass and she hears a commotion outside. A cart or a carriage. The jingle of bells, the rattle of gear and hooves.

Missus’s voice carries far, all the way into the kitchen. It might be her last chance to run. But she can’t run. Not with her belly so swollen and her legs so sore and weak. Whatever is inside is trying to kill her. No surprise to her. Everything outside her wants her dead, too.

Missus comes in the back door and Veritas lifts her head fast. There’s a man behind Missus, an ugly man scarred by years and pox. He doesn’t look clean to Veritas and she wished she’d tried to run when she had the chance.

“Up, girl,” Missus says, and Veritas pulls herself to her feet. It’s not easy to stand.

The man gets close, close enough Veritas can smell him. He smells like he’s rotting, like old meat in the sun. He looks her up and down, touches her hair, lifts her skirt to see her legs. She flinches when he puts his hand on her stomach.

“Two for one,” the man says. “If it lives.”

“I’m sure it will,” Missus says. “Unfortunately.”

The man looks at Missus, raises his eyebrow. She’s not an ugly woman, Missus, but not a beauty, either. Master’s handsome, but they said he was out of money when he married her. Missus knows why he married her, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

“How much?” Missus asks.

“Nine hundred.”

“Not for her. Pretty girl like that? Two for one?”

“Thousand. Take it or leave it cuz it’s all I brought with me.”

“Go on, then. Leave the money. Take the girl.”

“Where you taking me?” Veritas asks.

“To catch a boat,” the man says.

“But I—”

“Hush up, girl,” Missus says. “You did this to yourself.”

The man puts irons on her wrists. They have a heavy rope through a hoop and he pulls her like a dog on a leash out of the kitchen.

“He did this to me.” Veritas looks down at her belly. “He did. Not me. I didn’t want him.”

“Shut your mouth, or I’ll cut out your tongue.” The man tosses his cash on the counter on his way out the door. Veritas digs in her feet and pulls back on the rope.

“Don’t do this,” she says to Missus, her face wet with her fears. “Please don’t do this, Missus. I didn’t want him. He took me and I didn’t want him. I never wanted that. Don’t make me go. Don’t make me—”

Missus slaps her hard. Then she does it again. A third time. Then the man stops her.

“Hey, she’s mine now. I paid for her,” he says.

She ignores the man and grabs Veritas by the hair.

“You will die in chains,” Missus says. “You were born in chains and you will die in chains.”

Veritas cries out as Missus rips the red ribbon from her head and takes a hank of hair and skin with it. It is the only thing she has of her mother’s and Missus has it in her hand.