The Freedom Maze (7 page)

Sophie ran into her room and shut the door. She’d probably cry soon. And then Mama would be mad when she came down to dinner with her eyes all red. Maybe she just wouldn’t go down. Maybe she’d read instead. Maybe she’d read until Mama left for New Orleans, and not say good-bye.

Kneeling in front of the bookcase, she reached blindly for a book, any book, that might distract her.
The Time Garden.
Perfect. Magic adventures, and not a parent anywhere in sight. She curled damply in the corner of the window seat.

I should change,
she thought, and then,
I don’t care.

“Don’t care killed the cat,” said a voice in her ear.

Sophie’s heart skipped a beat. “Where are you?”

“Here and there. Betwixt and between. Takes a heap of doing. What you in a state about?”

“I’m
not
in a
state
!”

“Yes, you is. The State of Louisiana.” It laughed out loud.

Sophie glanced fearfully at the door. “Hush. Mama’ll hear you.”

“And what can you mama do to me? If ’n she can even find me, which she can’t?”

“Nothing. She can’t do anything to
you.
”

“Aw,” said the Creature sympathetically. “You all upset. She whup you?”

“No,” said Sophie. Mama didn’t think much of people who resorted to violence to control their children. “She just hates me, that’s all. I wish I was dead!”

“Don’t you be saying things like that in front of me, child.” The Creature sounded alarmed. “Not less’n you means it.”

“Well, then, I wish I wasn’t me.”

“Who you want to be?”

Sophie held out
The Time Garden.
“I want to be like Ann and Roger and Eliza. I want to travel through time and have grand adventures and brothers and sisters and have everybody love me.”

The room was very still. “That a wish?” the Creature asked solemnly.

Sophie was in no mood to be cautious. “Yes,” she said. “It’s a wish.”

“Well, now,” the Creature said. “Love is something you gots to earn for youself. I might could see about giving you some family, though. And adventures just come along natural with going back in time.”

Sophie stood up, leaving
The Time Garden
on the window seat. “Okay, I’m ready. Is there anything I need to do?”

“You done it,” said the Creature. “We’s here.”

“Where’s here?” Sophie asked.

Her only answer was a fading giggle.

And wasn’t it just her luck, she thought, to get the kind of magic creature that would transport her somewhere and leave her without explanation? Just like the Natterjack in
The Time Garden,
come to think of it. And the Natterjack had always shown up when the children really needed it. Irritating as the Creature was, she was sure it would, too.

In the meantime, here she was, back in the Good Old Days, in a room that both was and was not hers.

Every piece of furniture seemed to come from somewhere else. The princessy bed with its high headboard was from Mama’s room, but what was that gauzy material hanging from the half-tester? The mirrored armoire and dresser belonged in Grandmama’s room, and the last time Sophie had seen that desk, it was in the parlor. The familiar faded wallpaper was gone, and so was the ratty rug, replaced by deep rose paint and pale matting. The only clues to the room’s occupant were the striped scarf across the bed and the scribbled paper scattered across the desktop.

Sophie padded over to the desk to investigate, picked up an ivory pen, its gold nib crusted with dried ink. Beneath it was a half-written letter. She couldn’t make head or tail of the scrawly handwriting, but the date was clear enough:
June 12, 1860.

Sophie’s hand shook a little.

The War Between the States was due to start in — Sophie thought for a moment — less than a year. She wondered whether she should warn her ancestors about it, decided she shouldn’t risk changing the course of history by mistake and returning to the present to find out she hadn’t been born. She might, however, let the slaves know that they’d be free in a few years — nothing too specific, just a hint, to give them something to look forward to.

But that was for when she’d actually met a slave. She put the letter back where she’d found it.

On the marble-topped nightstand, she found a white leather Bible and a copy of
Hiawatha
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, which had been used for pressing flowers. Inside the nightstand were a white porcelain pot and a faint stink that reminded her of a not-very-clean public bathroom. She shut the door quickly. Chamber pots were a part of the past she’d never thought much about.

Neither were corsets, which she found in the big mirrored armoire, hanging on hooks next to mysterious white cotton garments and pastel dresses with long, bulky skirts. She touched a flounce, wondering whether the Fairchild it belonged to was old or young, and if she might let Sophie try on her clothes.

Next, Sophie went to the window. In 1860, there was no window seat, just a square bay with a vanity table set it in to catch the light. A white gauze curtain framed the view she’d glimpsed by moonlight two nights before. Then, it had disappeared like smoke. This time, it wasn’t going to go away.

Sophie caught sight of her reflection in the triple mirror on the vanity. She looked like she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. There wasn’t much she could do about the mud on her dress and arms, but she couldn’t bear to meet her ancestors with her hair looking, yes, like a hooraw’s nest. Sophie searched through the clutter of bottles and jars and ribbons until she found a silver brush. It wasn’t polite to use someone else’s brush without asking, but this was an emergency.

As she raised the brush to her hair, the door opened. Sophie spun around to see a girl staring at her — a real Miss Lolabelle in a poufy white dress and a striped silk sash around her tiny waist. Her dark hair was bundled into a net and her skin was pink and white. With her eyes and mouth all round with surprise, she looked just like a doll a tourist would buy on Decatur Street.

The girl put one hand to her throat and gave a very Miss Lolabelle-like little scream. “Antigua!” she gasped. “Antigua! Come here!”

A Negro girl appeared at her shoulder. “Yes, Miss Liza.”

A slave. A real, live slave. She was very pretty, with rosy-brown skin and eyes the same Coca-Cola brown as Miss Lola — Miss Liza’s. Sophie noted the bright yellow turban wrapped around the Negro girl’s head and the little silver cross strung on a red thread around her throat and was surprised. She’d thought a slave would look more downtrodden.

“You put Miss Liza’s brush down!” the slave girl said. “Right now, you hear?”

Sophie dropped the brush with a clatter.

“I do believe she was fixing to steal it!” Miss Liza’s voice was a high-pitched whine, not nearly as pretty as her face. “Bring her along to the office, Antigua. Papa will know what to do.” She disappeared in a flurry of white ruffles.

Antigua grabbed Sophie’s arm and shook it. “You in trouble, girl! What you doing here, anyway?”

This was not how Sophie had imagined her adventure beginning. She licked her lips. “Um. I got here by magic.”

Antigua gave her a vicious shake. “Magic? I never heard of no magic that put folks where they don’t belong to be. You crazy, girl? Or just foolish?”

“It’s the truth,” Sophie protested.

“Crazy
and
foolish,” Antigua said. “Listen here, now. You don’t want more trouble than you already got, you best find some other tale to tell Dr. Charles. Magic! I never!”

The slave girl took a firm grip of Sophie’s arm and dragged her out to the gallery and down the back steps. Sophie was too shocked to resist. Were slaves allowed to hustle white people around like that? Wasn’t that the reason the old days were good? Because Negroes knew their place?

Antigua entered the house through a door that didn’t exist in 1960 and hustled Sophie down the back hall to Aunt Enid’s office — or what would be Aunt Enid’s office a hundred years in the future. When she’d knocked, she propelled Sophie across the room to the fireplace, where Miss Lolabelle was sitting by a lady on a sofa, carrying on while a tall gentleman patted her shoulder.

Antigua released Sophie and stepped back, leaving her staring at her illustrious ancestors.

The lady on the sofa was blonde and pale and thin as a rail, and dressed in gray silk and a lacy cap with long side-pieces. Wool and knitting needles lay on the sofa beside her. The gentleman, got up in a stiff high collar that made Sophie’s neck itch to look at, had a long, sad face and an aquiline nose. A Fairchild nose, in fact.

The gentleman seated himself in what looked exactly like Grandmama’s big wing chair. “My daughter says she discovered you in her room with her silver hairbrush in your hand.” His voice was firm, but not unfriendly. “I trust you have some reasonable explanation?”

Sophie was so astonished to hear someone talking just like a character in a Dickens novel that it took her a moment to realize he was actually talking to her. It took another moment to realize she was going to have to answer him.

The lady picked up her knitting. She was working on a sock. “Perhaps a whipping will loosen her tongue, Dr. Fairchild.”

Sophie went cold all over. It occurred to her that adventures might not be as much fun to live through as to read about.

“I think we can get to the bottom of this without whipping, my dear,” Dr. Fairchild said.

“I cannot agree. The wench is a thief. Even your mother believes in whipping thieves.”

“Now, Lucy, we don’t
know
she’s a thief.”

The lady raised her almost invisible brows scornfully. She had a good face for scorn, with ice-blue eyes and a thin mouth. She was knitting without looking at what she was doing. Sophie found her terrifying. “She’s bold enough for one. You, girl. Didn’t anybody ever teach you not to look at your betters?”

Hastily, Sophie dropped her eyes to her feet.

“You’ve nothing to be frightened of,” Dr. Fairchild said. “If you’re innocent. Now. What is your name and where you come from?”

“Sophie,” she said, her voice shaking slightly. “I’m from New Orleans.”

“There! We’re making progress. Can you tell me, Sophie, how you got here from New Orleans?”

It was all too obvious neither of the Fairchilds would believe any story involving magical Creatures and time travel. Why didn’t any of the books mention that adventures were like taking a test you hadn’t studied for?

“You got here somehow,” Dr. Fairchild prompted. “Did you come by boat?”

Sophie had had teachers who couldn’t wait for an answer. If she just stood there looking dumb and scared, he’d probably just tell her what he wanted her to say.

“Yes, sir,” she answered eagerly. “A boat from New Orleans.”

Mrs. Fairchild clicked her needles angrily. “That’s a bare-faced lie, Dr. Fairchild. There hasn’t been a steamboat by in weeks.”

“They probably put her off at Doucette,” he pointed out. “Saved themselves some time.”

Miss Liza gave an impatient little bounce. “What does it matter where she came from? She was stealing my hairbrush, and she ought to be whipped!”

Mrs. Fairchild turned her icy glare on her daughter. “Your father is conducting this interrogation, Elizabeth. It does not become you to interrupt him.”

Miss Liza scowled.

“The truth now, Sophie,” Dr. Fairchild went on. “Did you get off the steamboat at Doucette?”

This might have been a trick question, coming from someone else. But Dr. Fairchild looked to be what Grandmama would call a Perfect Gentleman, and Perfect Gentlemen didn’t lay traps. “Yes, sir.”

“Nonsense,” Mrs. Fairchild said. “We’re a good five miles from Doucette. Did someone drive you here?”

Mrs. Fairchild, on the other hand, was not a Perfect Lady.

“No, ma’am,” Sophie improvised. “I walked.”

“Walked! Dr. Fairchild, I do believe this wench is a runaway as well as a thief. Just look at the state of her!”

“I disagree, my dear. She’s not much more than a child. She couldn’t have made the journey from New Orleans alone. It’s more likely she lost her way between here and Doucette and fell into a ditch. She seems a little simple.”

Mrs. Fairchild gave a laugh. “All slaves are simple when they’re in trouble.”

Sophie looked up, shocked. “But I’m not”— Mrs. Fairchild laid her knitting aside and pulled something from her waistband: a leather strap, about an inch wide. Sophie looked down hastily —“a runaway,” she finished.

“If you want us to believe you,” Dr. Fairchild said sternly, “you must tell us exactly who sent you here, and why.”

Sophie hardly heard him. How could anybody think she was a slave? Slaves were Negroes. She was white. In 1960, white people were white and colored people were colored and nobody had any trouble telling them apart. It was true she was barefoot and she had a tan. Couldn’t they tell the difference between tan and black? Hadn’t they noticed her Fairchild nose?

The silence lengthened: Dr. Fairchild wasn’t going to help her this time. Sophie was on the edge of panic when Mrs. Fairchild said, “If you look at her carefully, Dr. Fairchild, I think you’ll see why she’s reluctant to answer. Elizabeth, you may leave us.”