Tracks Beneath the Clay, page 4
Janice felt the air shift. “Yes…” she said slowly,
“You told me you wanted to help,” Ruth said, the scrape of the peeler marking time.
“I was thinking doctor’s appointments. Maybe making dinner.” Janice’s voice was sharper than she intended.
“This wouldn’t be terrible,” Ruth said gently. She set the peeler down, turned, and placed her hands on Janice’s elbows. “It might even be fun.”
“Fun?” Janice blinked, caught between dread and curiosity.
“Your father and I have decided it’s time to retire early.”
Janice lit up. “That’s wonderful, Mom!”
Ruth smiled faintly. “We’ll still need income, though.”
Janice’s stomach tightened. “You want to do what with the house in Atlanta?”
“Well,” Ruth said carefully, “we thought maybe you could go down there. Check it out. Fix it up. Maybe rent it out.”
Janice swallowed. The floor seemed to tilt beneath her. She wanted to protest. She wanted to say she wasn’t ready, that she barely kept her own life together. But beneath the fear, a flicker of something else stirred.
Possibility.
CHAPTER EIGHT
◇◇THE RULER
1859, Albany
Late Spring
The injustice of it all was staggering. Natalie had been defending Meredith, yet she was the one in trouble. Meredith had been sent home crying, her plan to get Grant’s attention backfiring on them both. She had made him a heart cut out of red parchment paper and offered it to him during morning break. Grant had thanked her, barely, and immediately run to his friends by the tree line to show them what she had given him.
Meredith had stood frozen, caught between the school steps where Natalie sat and the boys under the trees. They had all laughed, Grant most of all. Laughed. The audacity. Natalie’s jaw had dropped. Meredith had spun around and bolted back into the classroom, and Natalie had followed without hesitation.
It had taken Natalie the entire break to calm her down. Poor Meredith, dressed in her best, her hair braided into delicate coils at her temples, had given Grant her heart, and it had become a cruel joke. She had just wanted to go home, but Ms. Aims had refused.
They had eaten lunch on the steps, keeping to themselves. But Grant could not let it go. He kept circling, hurling vulgar remarks and ugly words. Natalie had looked at him, wondering, what could she do? Meredith was her best friend, like the sister she never had. This was not how people should treat one another.
So she had done what any good friend or wannabe sister would do. She stood up and shoved him away. A little harder than she meant to. He stumbled down the stairs. Then he escalated it, pointing, laughing, and calling her a shopkeeper’s daughter.
While technically correct, it was the tone that did it, the mockery, the laughter. The way his friends snickered behind him made heat begin to rise in Natalie’s chest like a tea kettle just before the whistle.
Then he sneered, “So what are YOU going to do about it?” in a sing-song voice.
That was when everything went red.
Grant turned back to his friends for approval, but when he spun around, his cheek met Natalie’s hand with startling speed. A sharp slap echoed against the trees and the school walls.
The world stopped.
She remembered thinking absurdly: Who needs a school bell when a slap will do? And then: Who did that?
For a second, she was not even sure it had been her. Her palm tingled. Grant clutched his face, eyes wide with confusion. Blood trickled from his lip.
“Wow,” she whispered. “Did I do that?” She was stunned, equal parts proud and terrified.
Before the first drop of blood hit the dirt, Grant cried out for the teacher. His friends gasped and sprinted toward her, desperate to be the first to tattle. Natalie stood motionless in the middle of it all, her heart hammering.
Heartsick, she looked for someone, anyone who might stand beside her. Her eyes found Meredith. Her friend’s face was wet with tears and twisted with something else—disdain, shame, even a flicker of fear. Meredith’s gaze locked with hers for a breath, then broke away. She shook her head slowly, turned her back, and walked away.
Natalie’s stomach dropped. How could Meredith not see? She had done this for her. She could withstand almost anything, but Meredith’s disappointment was unbearable.
“I—I… he was saying such awful things,” Natalie called after her, but Meredith kept going, her shoulders stiff.
Natalie’s chest hollowed. She had never felt so alone.
Ms. Aims seized her arm and dragged her into the back room without a word. From the desk she snatched the ruler, that thin strip of polished wood that served as judge, jury, and executioner in the classroom. It whistled once through the air before cracking down hard, the sharp edge of order striking against Natalie’s skin.
Natalie bit her lip. She knew how to take her licks. But this was unjust. The ruler was meant to straighten crooked lines, yet here it struck her for trying to do what was right. Protecting someone who could not protect herself should never have been considered a crime.
Tears welled, not from the sting of the ruler, but from the thought that Meredith might never understand.
“Natalie,” Ms. Aims said, exasperated, “you talk back. You ask too many questions. And now you’ve struck a boy.” Each charge landed in rhythm with the ruler’s arc, as if the wood itself were keeping time with her condemnation.
When Ms. Aims finished, her hair had come loose from its bun. Her cheeks flushed, perspiration dotted her forehead, and she was breathing hard.
Natalie rubbed her backside, defiant even in pain. “But you are not listening to me,” she said. She wanted to speak as her parents did when they disagreed, reasonable, firm, logical. But Ms. Aims was not interested in reason.
Natalie’s mind raced. What does she want? What can I offer her? Think, Natalie.
“Ms. Aims, I will stay after school all week. I will clean the classroom for you.” She watched the teacher hesitate, then added quickly, “It is always such a mess. It could use a good scrubbing.”
The wrong words. Ms. Aims folded her arms, huffing, frowning, and offended.
Why do I keep offending people without trying? Am I not speaking the same language?
Then came the unmistakable sound of her mother’s heels approaching. Natalie’s stomach sank.
Later, in the kitchen, her mother tried to explain to her father.
“She got in a tussle at school and punched a boy.”
Natalie sat silently, facing her father, biting her lower lip.
“What is this you say?” he asked, his brow rising.
“What will people say?” her mother continued with a weary sigh.
Her father turned toward Natalie, eyes wide. “Did you really hit a boy, Natalie?”
“Yes, Father,” she said softly, eyes downcast, fingers fidgeting on the table.
With her back still turned, her mother did not see him reach over and tap Natalie’s hand. She looked up. His face was angled so only she could see, and on it was a broad smile.
“So, my girl knows how to stand up for herself, hmm?” he whispered.
Relief washed through her like a warm tide. She smiled back, loving her father more in that moment than ever before.
Her mother, sensing something, turned around sharply. “Go to bed without dinner, young lady. And think about what you did.”
Natalie stood. Think about it? I already have. And I am fine with it. Maybe she is the one who needs to think.
She climbed the stairs, her feet landing heavily, the old wood creaking beneath each step. Every movement reminded her of the sting. It was hard to get comfortable, her backside still resonating with the correction, each throb an echo of Ms. Aims’s ruler.
By the time she reached her room, her emotions were beginning to boil over: anger, confusion, shame, and a strange pride all churning beneath the surface. She tossed her satchel onto the bed and crossed to her desk, where her most treasured book rested: The Genius of Universal Emancipation. She picked it up and opened to the page she had marked days earlier. The familiar scent of old paper and ink grounded her.
Benjamin Lundy’s words stared back at her with quiet force. His conviction, his tireless voice against injustice—this was the reason she had stood up to Grant. It had not been impulsive. It had been righteous. The courage she had summoned had come from these pages, from the clarity they gave her when the world seemed unjust.
She traced the underlined lines with her fingertip, her breath slowing as her thoughts caught up to her pounding heart. Her eyes lingered on a passage about silent complicity, and she felt again the snap of her hand across Grant’s cheek. It had been her choice. And it had been the right one.
Her mother entered with a sandwich on a plate. “May I come in?” she asked, lingering in the doorway.
“Of course, Mother.” Natalie was sitting on her bed, holding the book tightly to her chest, as if just having it in her hands gave her strength.
“Natalie,” her mother began, “you are in your final years of school, and I realize now I have done you a disservice.”
Natalie tilted her head, puzzled.
“By moving us to this small town, I have kept you from the life you were meant for. In the South, you would be attending balls, wearing gowns, preparing for a husband, not asking questions and stirring up chaos in school. Wouldn’t that be so much nicer, my dear?”
Fear bloomed in Natalie’s chest.
“No, Mother,” she said quietly. “I enjoy being here with you and Father. I would not trade it.”
Her mother set the sandwich beside her. “You must understand something.”
Natalie leaned in.
“Defending someone who cannot defend themselves is admirable.”
Hope flickered in Natalie’s chest until her mother spoke the next words.
“But you have to know your place.”
She stressed “your" and “place" with pointed clarity.
“You are a young woman. That kind of behavior is not acceptable for a lady.”
Natalie’s heart thudded in her chest, a strange sick feeling settling in her stomach.
“But what should I do next time if something like that happens again?” she asked.
Her mother leaned closer.
“Use your wit,” she said. “Remember: the meek shall inherit the earth, but so shall the intelligent.” She tapped her temple.
“Now, finish your sandwich and turn down the lantern.” She smoothed her skirt. “You will stay home from school tomorrow. We will continue this conversation then. Good night, daughter.”
“Good night, Mother,” Natalie whispered, the bread sitting like a stone in her uneasy stomach after the first bite.
Outside the window, the light faded against the horizon. A storm gathered in the sunset sky.
CHAPTER NINE
◇◇THE EXILE
1859, Albany
Summer Begins
Natalie awoke to the sound of her mother’s and father’s voices drifting up from below.
“I just don’t know about this,” Father said. “Do you really believe that this is the best thing for her?”
“Yes. Look how she turned out,” Mother replied.
Natalie sat up, the words striking sharper than any schoolmaster’s ruler. She was not going to school today, and deep down, she knew she would not be going back at all, not after the disgrace of yesterday.
The memory stung. The shame of it clung to her skin, and the certainty of it filled her bones: she would not walk back through those school doors again.
She hurried down the stairs, heart drumming, and glanced out the window, half-hoping, half-dreading to see Meredith.
“Mother, did anyone call on me today?” she asked, her voice too eager.
Mother turned, looking past her to Father, and waved her hands as if in despair.
“See? Such bad manners.” She cannot even manage a simple good morning.”
Father gave Natalie a pleading look.
“My apologies,” she said quickly, backtracking. “Good morning, Mother, Father. I do hope you slept well.”
Mother turned back to the fire with a sharp flick of her wrist. “Yes, yes, yes. And no, no one called on you. Meredith must be very upset with you, and you have no one to blame but yourself.”
Natalie sank into her chair, the weight of it pressing down.
“Daughter,” Father began, clearing his throat, coffee in hand, “how would you feel about taking your summer break elsewhere this year?”
Her brows knitted. “I beg your pardon?”
“What your father is trying to say,” Mother said briskly, “is that it would be best for you to spend some time away from Meredith and that boy.”
“You mean Grant?” Natalie blurted. “There isn’t a place on earth I’d rather avoid more.”
Mother folded her arms. “I sent a telegram to my sister yesterday. We are arranging for you to spend the summer at her plantation house. She has three children, plenty of land, and you will learn to ride a horse and conduct yourself as a proper young lady should.”
Natalie’s mouth fell open. “You want to be rid of me?” She turned to her father, the sting of betrayal burning her throat.
“No, darling. Your place is always with us. But your mother has raised some valid points.”
Her anger flared hot. “But Mother, why? That scoundrel deserved it. He mocked Meredith’s new dress and pulled her hair when she only meant to give him her heart. He had it coming!”
“Do not speak in that tone,” Mother snapped. “Instead of helping us, you caused your father embarrassment. If we were not the only store in town, I am sure we would have lost customers over your behavior. Until this blows over, you will go to Georgia. It will do you well to spend time with your cousins.”
“My cousins? I do not even know them! And you want to send me to a plantation?” The word stung on her tongue. “Aunt Alice and Uncle Will probably live like it is the Stone Ages. They could learn a thing or two about decency from us here in the North.”
She crossed her arms and bolted up the stairs, trying to slam her door. The warped wood only thudded weakly before creaking back open.
“Ugghhh!” she screamed, throwing herself onto the bed. The world was not fair, not at all.
For the next week, Natalie tried everything to redeem herself. She helped in the house, restocked shelves in the mercantile, and even smiled at customers she normally wished would vanish. Each effort was a pebble tossed into a well with no bottom. Her mother remained unmoved, and her father was distracted.
At night, Natalie lay awake, staring at the ceiling, replaying the moment over and over—the sting in her hand, the shock on Grant’s face, Meredith’s tears. Was it truly so wrong to stand up for her? Or was she everything her mother claimed: wild, unruly, shameful?
The more she thought of it, the more uncertain she became. She wanted to believe it had been justice. But in the silence of her room, doubt seeped in. And with school no longer hers to return to, the walls of her world seemed smaller than ever.
Then, one afternoon, while scouring the newspaper between ads for patent medicine and shipping notices, her eyes caught a line that made her breath hitch. Benjamin Lundy would be speaking in the square on the abolition of slavery.
Her heart thudded. She had read his words by candlelight, traced them with her finger until they felt like her own. And now he would be here, in her town.
She pressed the clipping flat on the counter, excitement coursing through her. “Father,” she asked in her sweetest tone, “may I go to the square tomorrow?”
“Why?” His voice was gruff, his patience thin since the quarrel with Grant.
“Well… a few of my classmates are going,” she said, fumbling. Her finger tapped her lip as she reached for something plausible. “I only meant to say goodbye.”
He studied her, flour dusting his sleeves, hands on his hips. “It is only for the summer, daughter. You will see them again.”
“Please, Father.” Her voice softened to almost a whisper.
He exhaled, glanced toward the stairs, and then lowered his voice. “Keep it between us. Your mother does not want you out of her sight. Not after everything you did last week.”
Natalie rushed forward and hugged him. He stiffened at the sudden display but patted her back once.
“Thank you, Father,” she whispered.
That night, as she set her bonnet and gloves neatly on the chair by her window, Natalie stared into the dark. Tomorrow, she would see him. Tomorrow, she would hear his voice. And tomorrow, she promised herself, nothing would keep her away.
CHAPTER TEN
◇◇THE AWAKENING
1859, Albany
Mid Summer
The next morning, Natalie slipped out through the mercantile instead of the front door, bonnet pulled low and gloves clutched in her hand. Besides, if she got caught, they could not exile her twice to Georgia now, could they?
She paused on the step, chest trembling, and looked both ways up and down the street. No one seemed to notice her, but still she checked the windows, half expecting her mother’s sharp face to appear behind the curtains. A pang of guilt pressed hard in her ribs. She had lied to her father, and the weight of it burned.
Still, she pressed forward, tucking her strawberry blonde hair beneath her bonnet and fixing her steps toward the square. Each footfall felt louder than it should, her heart thudding to match. The murmur of a gathering crowd reached her before the words did, a low hum of voices carried on the morning air.
Then, rising above them, a voice rang out: “There cannot be a United States if there are slaveholders.”
Natalie froze mid step. On the corner, standing tall on a wooden box, was Benjamin Lundy.
