That was more than he had possessed in eleven years.

He placed the button inside his father’s oilcloth packet.

The next time he went to the mill, he intended to return with a plan rather than merely hope.

Chapter 12: The Price of a Name

The old woman in the cellar was named Mercy Freeman, although neither part of her name guaranteed safety.

Daniel learned that from Hannah, who knew Mercy’s sister in the next county.

Mercy had worked for a family who promised to buy her husband’s freedom and then reneged on the arrangement after taking payment.

When Mercy protested, she was accused of theft and sent away under a forged transfer document.

Daniel understood why she had recognized Ruth’s name.

His mother had apparently helped people write down promises before the promises were broken.

The bone button could be a mark of their shared work.

Daniel asked Hannah whether Mercy had children.

“A daughter in Richmond,” she said.

“The daughter doesn’t know where her mother was taken.”

Hannah folded a linen sheet and glanced toward the yard.

“There’s something else.”

“What?”

“Silas wants Isaiah to repair the wagon wheels for another journey.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow night.”

Daniel realized there was little time to learn the cellar’s hidden entrance.

He asked Isaiah to inspect the waterwheel mechanism under the pretext of checking a damaged axle.

Isaiah agreed, though he warned that Silas watched the mill constantly.

That afternoon Catherine sent for Daniel again.

He found her waiting in the small sitting room, where the door stood open and the curtains had been pulled back.

She remained behind a chair rather than approach him.

“I have discovered a payment from Margaret’s estate,” she said.

Daniel held his tools at his side.

“Whose payment?”

“To my husband.”

She showed him a receipt written on thin paper.

The amount was substantial, and the signature was supposedly Margaret’s.

Catherine pointed to the date.

“It was signed two weeks after the day Richard said she was buried.”

Daniel leaned closer without touching the sheet.

“Then someone forged the signature, or she was alive.”

“There’s a third possibility.”

He waited.

“Richard may have altered the funeral date.”

Catherine had searched the household diaries and found a page missing from the autumn of 1851.

She remembered being ill, but she could no longer trust the dates her husband supplied.

She asked Daniel whether he had heard of a place called Bell Crossing.

He remembered the name from the list his father concealed.