The Trap Door Read online

  Sera and Dak pushed to the front, much to the annoyance of the adults who were waiting to get a closer look at the slaves. Finally, Dak made it around the bulk of the townspeople and found an open space off to the side. He looked over at the short makeshift platform in front of the courthouse, and then he gasped.

  “Gorgonzola milquetoast!” he cried, turning to Sera. “It’s Riq!”

  Riq read the flyer again as he and Kessiah stood on the platform for viewing. It was a distraction from all the eyes that were on him. The first time he read it, his attention had been drawn to his own name, spelled in the style of the era, but something else stuck out, too. The flyer said the woman’s name was Kissy.

  “Kessiah,” Riq whispered. They were chained together at the ankles now, and their hands were free.

  She just barely tilted her head, indicating she was listening.

  “The flyer says your name is Kissy Bowley. Is it really Kissy?”

  “Folks call me Kissy. Kessiah is my given name.”

  Riq was quiet for a moment. How could he ask her without sounding odd? “Do you have an aunt, by any chance?”

  “I have about a dozen aunts.”

  Riq shoved his hands in his pockets and looked out at the sea of mostly white faces scrutinizing him. He wanted to kick each and every one of them. “Aunt Minty?” He said it so softly that he wasn’t sure she heard him.

  “Who are you?” she asked, her tone suspicious.

  “I’m —” Riq squeezed his eyes shut as a Remnant of cold nothingness socked him in the chest. He couldn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t know what to say.

  “Who are you?” she demanded. “How do you know my aunt?”

  Riq hazarded a glance and caught her eye. He tried again. “I’m — I think we’re . . . related.”

  “Quiet down,” one of the handlers said, poking Riq in the back with a stick or a cane or something.

  He didn’t dare speak again.

  Sera stared. There was Riq, standing on the wooden platform, shoulders uncharacteristically sloped forward, and a look of emptiness on his face that pierced through Sera’s gut. “What on earth?” she muttered. And then she stomped over to the front of the crowd. “Out of my way,” she said whenever anyone tried to stop her. “That young man is not a slave.”

  “Sera!” Dak cried, and then he went charging after her. When he reached her, he whispered, “I know what’s happening here is way wrong, but we cannot mess this up, so don’t blow a gasket in public, okay? We don’t need to make things worse for Riq, and we don’t need a bunch of SQ figuring us out. I’m sure Bigmouth Beeson has already informed them —”

  By this time they had reached the front of the throng. A simple rope separated them from the people on the platform, and Sera saw that Riq was shackled to the woman next to him. Sera pushed in against the rope as far as she could go so that she was only a few feet away from him and no one stood next to her.

  “Riq,” she said in a harsh whisper.

  He lifted his head. At the sight of her and Dak, Riq’s lips parted slightly, then he closed them again. His eyelids closed for a long second, and he took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. When he opened them again, he looked directly into Sera’s eyes. She could see his were swimming. He pressed his lips together and looked away.

  Sera studied him. “Oh, no — they broke your nose?” Her bread-to-the-face incident seemed embarrassingly minor compared to this. She felt heat rising from her neck for having made such a big deal about it. When Riq didn’t answer her, she set her jaw and muttered to Dak over her shoulder, “He’s not allowed to talk to us.” Angry tears came to her eyes. “This is so wrong.”

  “It’s awful,” Dak said. “We need to get him out of here. But we have to play it smart.” He nodded toward the big men roaming the area, looking like they wanted to pound and slice anybody who ventured too close to them or the slaves.

  Sera fingered the lapels of the coat she so desperately wanted to give back to Riq, but she wasn’t sure what would happen if she did it — there were five burly men surrounding the platform, and she didn’t want anybody to get in trouble. Especially Riq.

  She dropped her hands and clenched them at her sides. “Where on earth are the people who can help us?” she whispered to Dak. “There has to be someone who can help.” She looked around. The slave woman lifted her head and caught Sera’s eye, and then immediately shifted her gaze to a spot in the distance. She remained staring at it, unmoving.

  “Did she hear me?” Sera whispered to Dak. She watched the woman gaze steadily, and then Sera slowly turned to look over her shoulder. All she could see was an angry-looking man’s giant nostrils and bloodshot eyes. She looked up higher, above his head, and saw a squat steeple across the street.

  Sera smiled politely at the man, then slowly turned back to face the podium. “The church?” she whispered.

  Sera thought she saw the woman nod, but it was so slight that Sera couldn’t tell for sure. However, she was certain the woman didn’t shake her head no, so she supposed her hunch was correct.

  The crowd pushed in on Sera, and she strained against the rope, trying to come up with a plan before anyone pushed her aside. Dak began to chatter with people behind Sera, and she could tell he was distracting them purposely. She looked at Riq one last time, wishing he wasn’t tethered to the woman. This would be one time she’d be willing to use the Infinity Ring to warp the three of them out of here, but she couldn’t very well take the woman and baby with her, leaving the little boy standing here alone — that would be terrible. The poor little boy would never get over it.

  “We’ll get you out of here,” Sera whispered to Riq. Her tone was confident, but at the moment, she had not one single idea how she would keep her promise.

  Riq didn’t react. He just swallowed hard and kept his eyes to the ground.

  Sera and Dak left their spot in front of the courthouse steps and pushed to the outskirts of the crowd so they could talk without a bunch of rotten slave buyers breathing down their necks. “Where the crud are the Hystorians?” Dak asked when they finally had some space.

  Sera smacked him right in the SQuare. “According to the clue,” she said, “they’re either at the post office or some guy named Gourdon will lead us to one. I don’t know.”

  “But it’s never taken us this long to find help before. And we even speak this language!”

  Sera glanced down the block and across the street to the little church that the woman — whose name was Kissy according to the auction sign — had stared at. “We don’t have time to run there now before the auction starts. We can’t let Riq out of our sight.”

  “The clue says we need the post office, not the church.”

  Sera worked the edges of her shawl, her eyes darting this way and that. “I know,” she said. “But did you see her look up when she heard me say we needed help?”

  “You mean like Mrs. Fake SQuaker woman did?” Dak was skeptical. “Something very fishy is happening.”

  The dark-skinned Quaker man that Dak had talked to earlier now walked back toward them from across the street, returning from wherever he’d gone. He was singing a song, and when he reached them, he gave them a meaningful look.

  “Sir?” Dak said.

  The man stopped. “How can I help thee?”

  “Where’s the post office?”

  “There’s no post office in Cambridge.”

  Dak stared at him. “Well, where’s the nearest one?”

  The man raised a finger to his lips, drawing it over his mustache in a contemplative manner. “You’re not from around here, are you, children?”

  “No,” Sera butted in. “We’re not.” She gave him a long look.

  He nodded slowly and a smile played at the corner of his mouth. “I see. I reckon the post office you’re looking for is in that church, then.”

  Dak and Sera looked at each other, and then back at the man.

  “Nobody’s there to help you now, though. Probably not u
ntil this afternoon.” He tipped his hat and began to walk away.

  “Thank you,” Sera called out after him. “Sir?”

  He turned.

  “Is your name Gourdon?”

  He looked puzzled. “No, miss. It’s John. John Bowley.” He nodded one last time and walked back to the auction area, singing once again.

  “I think he’s on our side,” Dak said.

  “But why didn’t he say anything?”

  “Maybe he’s not sure about us.”

  “At this point, I’m not sure about anything,” Sera said. “SQ posing as Quakers? Inviting runaways in and then capturing them, and selling them back to plantations? Keeping people working against their will and treating them like dirt? Why, Dak?”

  “Think about it,” Dak said. “Plantation owners have a lot of land to farm — more than they can handle on their own. So they buy a slave and they get them for life, or however long they want them. They don’t have to pay wages day in and day out. When a slave runs away or gets set free, the plantation owner feels like they lost money. They have to buy another slave.”

  Sera exploded. “They shouldn’t buy slaves at all! They should hire people and pay them! Not force them against their will!”

  “I know that, Sera, but you asked for an explanation. I didn’t say it was right, and I don’t think it’s right. But if you’re wondering why plantation owners want to keep slaves from escaping or keep the government from freeing them, well, that’s why. Money.”

  “So they don’t see it as immoral,” Sera said. “They see it as good business.”

  Dak nodded. “And the SQ has chosen their side. Not exactly surprising, since there’s money and power at stake. They can’t resist the chance to keep people down. Who knows what would happen if slaves were able to escape and work with the abolitionists? But now, everyone is scattered. The Fugitive Slave Act is scaring people who might want to help runaways. Slaves get punished if they talk to anyone. ‘Without communication there can be no collaboration,’” he said, taking a quote often used by his father — although his father had used it when talking about household chores.

  “So, putting it scientifically, you’re saying the effort can’t grow at a high enough rate of speed to produce the momentum necessary to change the country,” Sera mused, and then she squeezed his arm and said, “You’re really smart. That makes a lot of sense. You know, Dak, you can be so mature when you want to be.”

  Dak raised an eyebrow. “Like a fine cheese, I get better with age.”

  “And smellier,” added Sera.

  Just then, the ominous voice of the auctioneer rose from the front of the courthouse once again. “Let the bidding begin!”

  RIQ STOOD stone-faced and scared to death as a crowd of strangers stared at him, unsmiling, sizing him up. A handsome dark-skinned man in Quaker dress, with a hat pulled low over his eyes, was one of few black people in the crowd of what Riq assumed were plantation owners and slave traders. The man came up to peer at Riq and Kessiah.

  The little boy, James, pointed at the man, but Kessiah shushed him, and he was quiet. The man looked solemnly at Kessiah for a long moment, and then smiled at the boy and winked, and then nodded as if he was satisfied. As he walked away, he began to hum to himself. The tune was familiar, and it didn’t take Riq long to recognize the song that Kessiah had sung that morning along with women outside the window. Run, mourner, run.

  Riq looked at Kessiah from the corner of his eye and watched as her entire body seemed to relax. She let out a light shuddering breath and inhaled deeply. She raised her head and faced the menacing-looking crowd with an air of confidence.

  When the handlers took the shackles off for the bidding, the woman bent down, pretending to move the chain. Riq bent down, too, to help, since she held the infant tirelessly in one arm. “When things heat up, don’t fight,” she whispered. “Just run.”

  Riq’s eyes opened up in alarm. “Where?”

  “Get to the Choptank River and hide in the woods until dark. I can meet you there. But watch out — Bradshaw’s Hotel is along the way.”

  Riq didn’t know what Bradshaw’s Hotel was, but it didn’t sound good. “My friends won’t know where I’m going,” he whispered.

  “Nothing I can do about that,” Kessiah said, standing up. It wasn’t unkind; it was just a fact.

  Riq stood, too, and as he heard the auctioneer and saw his friends running toward the crowd, he wished either Dak or Sera knew sign language. All he could do was hope they didn’t mess this up.

  “This is insane,” Sera muttered for the second time in a day. Hands popped up all around when the bidding began for Riq at twenty-five dollars. “How much money do you have?”

  “Five hundred and sixty-three dollars and forty-six cents.”

  Sera gripped his arm. “Are you serious?”

  “Sure. It’s in my college fund at home.”

  Sera sighed. “I mean how much with you? I’ve got six dollars and twenty-five cents.”

  Dak shook his head. “Nada.” He paused. “Hey! That’s three languages.”

  “Still too soon, Dak.”

  “Roger that.”

  “So,” Sera said after a minute, “I’m thinking we just watch to see who wins the auction, and follow that person home. Do you have any other ideas?”

  “We could rush the stage, grab him, and warp out of here.”

  “Yeah, those enormous constables or handlers or whatever they’re called won’t mind. I’m sure they’ve never seen anybody try anything at a slave auction before.”

  “Maybe you could change the inflection in your voice just a little more when you say things like that, because I might miss the sarcasm,” Dak said.

  “Yeaaaah, those enooooormous constables —”

  “Quiet — I think the bidding is slowing down. And look, the beefy dudes are all bored looking — there’s only one watching Riq.” Dak looked at Sera.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Yeah. Let’s go.”

  Finally, only two bidders remained. And then one. The auctioneer slammed his hand down on his podium, making Riq jump. He looked out to the crowd to see who had bought him. Even though Kessiah had assured him something was going to happen, he didn’t know what or when. Or if it even really included him. All he knew was that he was no longer free, and someone now owned him.

  It was the worst feeling in the world. Even worse than the Remnants.

  And then he remembered how Kissy’s story went.

  WITH KESSIAH now on the block, Riq’s heart sank. As he recalled the story Grandma Phoebe had told him, great-great-great-great-grandmother Kissy, along with her children, had been auctioned. Her husband, who was free, tried to buy her freedom, but failed. They attempted escape, but failed at that, too. And Kissy never saw John again.

  And now the man who little James had pointed at was bidding. Suddenly it all made sense, and Riq was the only one who knew it was going to fail.

  Another near-nauseating Remnant shook Riq’s existence — and his confidence. And he knew, now. He knew it for certain. His Remnants were not at all like Sera’s Remnants. That’s why he couldn’t share descriptions with her back when they were with the Vikings in the year 911. When he’d told her they were nothing — he’d meant it literally. That’s exactly what they were. A nothingness so black, cold, and void of any kind of love . . . there was nothing more nothing than that.

  While Sera’s Remnants were the ache of love between people, of a life that could have been, his were the helpless ache of suffocation, the shocking ache of a body plunged into ice water. The harsh ache of bone scraping bone.

  And to Riq, after years of pondering the phenomenon, it could mean only one thing: He wasn’t supposed to be here. He wasn’t supposed to exist.

  If he let things happen as they did, with John failing to rescue his family, with them never seeing one another again, then Kissy would eventually start a new family — a family that would one day include Riq. But wh
at if he intervened? Maybe he could keep John and Kissy together and ensure James grew up in freedom. Maybe he could help them find Aunt Minty, who was somehow sabotaged in her efforts to save them. Maybe that was exactly what he was supposed to do to fix the Break.

  Even if it meant he would never be born.

  Just then the auctioneer’s hand slammed down once again and Kessiah was sold to John Bowley. Her husband. Just the way his grandmother had told him. There was a murmur in the crowd as people realized a freedman had just won a slave auction. This sort of thing wasn’t supposed to happen, and the people were beginning to react.

  Riq wasn’t sure what would come next, but what he didn’t expect to see was Dak and Sera, running toward him, holding out the Infinity Ring.

  “Grab on!” Dak shouted.

  Riq shook his head in disbelief. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t abandon this mission now. “No!” he cried. “Don’t touch me!” He dodged around them and took off running. His shouting alerted the handlers, who turned their attention from the restless crowd back to Riq.

  Dak and Sera stood speechless, caught completely off guard by Riq’s reaction to their rescue attempt. They watched as he ran down the courthouse steps and the five guards gave pursuit. Kissy, meanwhile, wasted no time. She pushed her son into John Bowley’s arms, then, cradling her baby to her chest, leapt off the steps and disappeared into the crowd.

  “Come on!” Dak cried, taking off after the guards. “We can’t lost sight of Riq!”

  “I know!” Sera hollered back. “But it’s hard to run in this muumuu!”

  “Just try and keep up!”