Free Love Lasts Forever by Dominiqua Douglas Page B

rescind the offer, but how was beyond his grasp. Once it was out there, he couldn’t very well take it back without looking like a total jerk.
    The boy’s brows furrowed together. Skepticism haunted his eyes, as if he didn’t trust Thor’s introduction. The silence lingered for several seconds before he seemed to accept that he could trust Thor at his word. “I’m Nat. This is my brother, Clay.” He pointed to the boy at his right and then at the girl to his left. “Charity’s our sister.”
    “Pleased to meet you.” Thor greeted them all with a cordial smile. “How old are you? You seem rather young to be out here. Couldn’t your parents make the journey with you?”
    “I think I’m fifteen or maybe sixteen years. They’re twelve,” Nat responded, answering again for his siblings. “Our Papa was sold and our Mama. . .”
    Thor’s breath caught in his throat as Nat’s voice faltered. The boy’s face twisted into a frozen mask of heart-wrenching pain. Thor didn’t have to ask to know that the children’s mother was dead, and he didn’t want to guess how it happened.
    He reached out his hand to offer comfort, but Nat flinched. Thor dropped his hand and shoved it into his pocket. Words of sympathy escaped him, and he didn’t know what to say. Having lost his mother at the young age of five, he could guess how the children felt. Words didn’t fill the void the loss of a mother created.
    Charity’s hoarse whisper ended the silence. “Mama cried and cried when they took Papa away.” She took Nat’s hand and peered across him to look at Thor. Her brown eyes watered and marked her sadness at the memory.
    Clay closed in on Nat and looked up at Thor. Unshed tears glistened in his eyes, but none fell. In low, husky tones, he added the rest. “Massa Henry didn’t like how Mama was carryin’ on so he told her to hush up. When she didn’t, the overseer took her to the whuppin’ tree. Overseer Charlie whipped her ’til he got tired, and then they cut her down from the tree. She didn’t make it through the night.”
    Thor shuddered at the torture their mother had endured. Looking down at the child who walked beside him, he admired Clay’s ability to recount the events of his mother’s death without shedding tears. If the circumstances were reversed, he doubted if he could have done the same. Hell, he could barely recall a memory of her now without choking up.
    Anguish lodged in his throat. No one had the right to treat another with such cruel indifference. Unable to stop himself, his hand pulled free from his pocket and closed warmly over Clay’s thin shoulder. “I am terribly sorry for what happened to your mother. I wish there was something I could do.”
    “You are, sir,” Clay said, craning his neck to gaze at Thor. A thin-lipped smile made the boy looked far older than his twelve years, and then it disappeared altogether. He lowered his eyes and directed his attention away from Thor.
    Before he looked away, Thor read the confusion and the grief etched in Clay’s eyes, and it pained him. Guiding them to Reverend Brown’s station wasn’t enough. The knowledge that slavery would end did little to quell his growing outrage. Abraham Lincoln wouldn’t pass the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves in the seceded states for another three years, making no mention of the slaves in the border states. Slavery wouldn’t officially come to an end for at least another five years.
    Bile lodged in his throat at the thought of the number of people who’d suffer the same as these children’s mother, if not worse, during that time. The need to do more pulsed wildly in his veins, but he was at a loss. What could he do? Could he slip onto plantations and lead more slaves to freedom? Was it feasible? Reverend Brown said he’d find answers at his place, and now he was leading these children there. Had the reverend known he’d feel this way? Maybe he traveled back in time to lead these children to freedom