Chapter 5: The Woman by the Creek
Naomi led the children outside while Elijah examined the note beneath the lantern.
The paper was cheap and damp at the edges, but the handwriting was steady.
He had seen it years ago in the guesthouse when Lydia sketched a bridge and wrote her name beneath the drawing.
That memory frightened him more than any ghost story.
Lydia Vale might be alive, and someone on Riverbend knew where she was.
Ruth said the woman by the creek wore a brown shawl and had a narrow white scar on her wrist.
She had spoken from behind a stand of sycamores, keeping her face half hidden.
“Did she know your name?” Elijah asked.
Ruth nodded.
“She called me Ruth Carter.” Naomi’s hand tightened around her daughter’s shoulder.
The children were not permitted to travel near the creek after sunset, but Ruth had been gathering bark for her mother’s dye pot.
Elijah knelt to speak at eye level.
“You did well to come home, but you must not meet strangers there again.” Ruth looked offended.
“She wasn’t trying to hurt me.” “I believe you,” Elijah said.
“I am afraid someone else might hurt her if she is seen with us.”
The next morning Elijah found a chance to walk toward the creek while carrying a wooden trough to the mill shed.
He moved beneath the tree line until the house disappeared behind leaves.
Near the water he saw a woman standing beside an overturned fishing boat.
Her shawl was brown, and a pale scar crossed her right wrist.
She did not greet him.
“Your daughter has her mother’s eyes,” she said.
Elijah stopped several paces away.
“Who are you?” “My name is Esther Boone.
I used to work at the infirmary by Mason’s Crossing.” Her voice shook slightly when she mentioned the place.
“The colonel calls it a rest house.
You know what it really is?”
Elijah shook his head.
Esther told him about a network of men who seized free Black travelers and falsely claimed they were fugitives from enslavers.
Some were held long enough for invented papers to be prepared, then transported south where legal challenges became difficult.
Others disappeared into private holding places while brokers decided where to sell them.
The cellar at Riverbend was one such place, used for a night or two when roads were watched.
Esther had been forced to prepare food at a holding house before she escaped.
“I saw children there,” she said.
“One carried a certificate from Pennsylvania sewn into his coat.
