Chapter Ten: The Choice Esther Made
At dawn Isaiah returned to the sewing room.
Esther was awake with Micah beside her.
She saw the mud on Isaiah’s shoes and sent the other women to fetch more thread.
“Where have you been?”
“At the kiln.”
Esther’s face tightened.
“You promised you would be careful.”
“I was careful.”
“That is what people say when they come back alive.”
Isaiah sat opposite her.
“Curtis plans to burn the kiln after the buyer leaves.”
Esther set down her needle.
“Is someone inside?”
“Ada Fenwick.”
Esther closed her eyes briefly.
“I heard she had gone north with her husband.”
“That is what Curtis wants everyone to believe.”
Isaiah told her about the machine and Price’s ultimatum.
He also told her about the threat to Micah.
Esther listened without interrupting.
When he finished, she pulled a finished coat from beneath the table.
“Mrs. Whitcomb came here before dawn,” she said.
“What did she want?”
“She told me to finish all seven coats by noon.”
“Did she say why?”
“She said six were for samples and one was for a journey.”
Isaiah examined the seventh coat.
It was smaller than the others.
“Who is traveling?”
Esther looked at Micah.
“She measured him yesterday.”
Isaiah stood so quickly his chair struck the wall.
Esther caught his wrist.
“Sit down.”
“They are taking him.”
“I know what she threatened.”
“Then why are you calm?”
“Because I decided not to sew the pockets as she ordered.”
Esther turned the coat inside out.
She had stitched the leather strips across the seams instead of along them.
A heavy object placed in the pockets would pull the lining apart.
“Any samples carried in these coats will fall out before they reach the gate,” she said.
Isaiah stared at her work.
“You could be punished for this.”
“I could be punished for anything.”
He looked at Micah, who was tracing a pattern in the dust with one finger.
Esther lowered her voice.
“I am not waiting for you to save us while I sit here making the thing that helps them.”
Isaiah felt a mixture of pride and dread.
“What do you need from me?”
“Tell me where the samples are going.”
“I do not know.”
“Then find out.”
She placed a folded piece of cloth in his hand.
It contained a narrow wooden tooth with a curved edge.
“Gideon brought this before sunrise.”
“Why?”
“He said you would know what it meant.”
Isaiah recognized Thomas’s carved letter on the side.
Beneath it Gideon had added a new mark.
It was a small circle crossed by two lines.
Isaiah had seen that shape on the wheel at the kiln.
He understood that Gideon was sending a warning about the machine’s assembly.
The wrong piece had been made to fit.
If Curtis forced the demonstration, someone standing near the wheel could be hurt.
