Free Amber House: Neverwas by Larkin Reed Tucker Reed Kelly Moore

regularly graced Astorian red carpets and
    showed up in our magazines. And they reflected our current
    trends, no corset required.
    “I’ll take that,” I said.
    My mother made an involuntary movement, as though she
    wanted to physically stand between me and the dress. “Don’t
    you worry . . . you’ll get cold?”
    My mother’s code for too much shoulder and décolletage. I
    just smiled innocently and opted to take her literally. “I’ll be
    fine. I saw a velvet cloak when we walked in, in a crimson that
    will go great with this. It’ll be perfect.”
    My mother knew not to argue. When it came to clothes, I was
    every bit as opinionated and stubborn as she.
    N
    We picked up Maggie and Sam at a café near the aquarium. It
    was dark when we set off home. The light rain-become-snow
    that had been falling since we arrived in Maryland was dusting
    the windshield with white feathers. We stopped at an intersec-
    tion in a worn-out neighborhood and saw the flashing lights of
    several police cars across the way.
    I leaned forward to see what was going on, but my mother put
    up her hand. “Don’t look.” Which of course made me try even
    harder.
    The police were clustered around a black man on the ground.
    58 O
    One officer seemed about to hit him with his night stick. But
    something he saw stopped him.
    Materializing out of the darkness, appearing one by one at the
    edges of the red-blue pool of light, people came to stand witness
    for the man. Some held the hands of their children. Many of
    them, I saw, wore some bit of yellow. They stood silently, a ring
    of dark faces, bitter and determined.
    The police seemed to reach some unspoken agreement. The
    beaten man was lifted and put in the back of a police car. The ring
    of watchers parted slightly to let the police retreat.
    N
    I held Papa’s hand tight as we walked along the dock on Spa Creek. The sailors and dockworkers all stopped what they were doing to nod and back out of Papa’s way. Papa owned both the ships tied up here, and many more besides. He was the boss of all of them.
    And of the greasy man who walked with us, Mr. Carruthers. I did not like Mr. Carruthers.
    “Sold an even dozen already for top dollar,” Carruthers said, as though Papa should pat him on the head. “Clean the rest up for auction. Lost twenty-three in the crossing. Still have —”
    Papa held up a hand, stopped him. He opened the book he carried
    tucked under his him. He made careful notes in his beautiful handwriting. I loved Papa’s handwriting — like a pea-vine growing and curling across the paper. “Still have twelve bucks, ten females, and six children over the age of five,” Carruthers finished. “We will make a good profit.”
    At the dock’s edge, amongst a stack of crates and barrels, a raggedy pile of worn sailcloth moved ever-so-slightly. I let go Papa’s hand and went closer. There was an unpleasant odor that grew stronger as I drew near.
    “Here, come away from there,” Mr. Carruthers told me, but I merely looked at him coldly. I did not take directions from him. “ ’Scuse me, Missy, begging pardon, but you don’t want no part of that there.”
    o59
    Had it been ought but Mr. Carruthers, I should have minded him, but instead, even under Papa’s watchful eye, I bent quickly and threw back the cloth. “Merciful Lord!” I said, horrified, and crossed myself to ward off evil.
    A female slave lay there, a tumble of limbs, her face battered and bloody.
    “Now see there, Missy. You shoulda oughter’ve listened to me.” Mr.
    Carruthers was pleased with my horror. “That one’s dead, Capt’n
    Dobson, sir.”
    “I saw the cloth move,” I said, my eyes narrowing.
    “ ’Twas the wind,” he said.
    Her arm flopped out; her fingers brushed my boot. Swollen eyes opened to slits and I saw that she saw me. Her split lips moved and a word sighed out, so soft that only I heard. “Dee-da-ra,” she said. My name.
    She had touched my boot and knew my name.
    “I want