Dinina asked. Days, possibly weeks, Marsh said. It depends on Thornton Graves. On how aggressively he pursues this on how quickly I can arrange safe passage north.
Dinina felt exhaustion wash over her, the accumulated weight of fear and uncertainty, and the sheer physical demands of pregnancy pressing down on her. Sarah seemed to sense this. She guided Dinina to the bed. You rest now.
We will talk later. There is food when you are ready, and you are safe. That word again, safe. Dinina wanted to believe it.
Wanted to trust that these strangers who claimed to be helping her were genuine. But safety was a luxury enslaved people could not afford to assume. She lay down on the bed, and despite her fear, despite everything, sleep pulled her under within minutes.
When she woke, it was dark outside. The fire had been rebuilt, and the cabin was warm. Sarah and Hannah sat at the table, talking in low voices. Jacob Marsh was gone.
"Where is he?" Dinina asked, sitting up. He left an hour ago. Sarah said he has arrangements to make in Savannah. People to contact.
He will return tomorrow or the day after. In the meantime, you are with us. Dinina stood. Move to the table.
Sarah pushed a bowl toward her. Beans and cornbread and a piece of salt pork. Eat. You need strength for what is coming.
What is coming? Dinina asked. The truth? Hannah said.
Her voice was quiet but firm. The truth about who you are. Why Elias Cartwright really sent you here and why Jacob Marsh spent $1,200 to save you. Because it was not just about saving you, Dinina.
It was about stopping something much worse. Dinina felt cold despite the fire's warmth. What are you talking about? Sarah and Hannah exchanged a glance.
Then Sarah spoke and what she said made Dinina's world tilt. Elias Cartwright did not send you to Savannah simply to get rid of you. He sent you here because he knew Thornton Graves would buy you. And he knew what Graves does to pregnant women he acquires at auction.
He has a pattern, a system, and you were supposed to be his next victim. Sarah stood and moved to a wooden chest in the corner of the cabin. She opened it and withdrew a leatherbound journal, its pages yellowed with age. She brought it to the table and placed it in front of Dinina.
This journal belonged to a woman named Abigail. She died 2 years ago consumption. But before she died, she wrote down everything she knew, everything she had witnessed about what happens on Thornton Graves's plantation. Sarah opened the journal to a marked page.
Read it. Dinina looked down at the careful handwriting. The entries were dated, organized chronologically, written in the voice of someone who knew she was documenting evidence for a future that might never come. The first entry Dinina read was dated March 1845.
Today, I saw them bring in another one. Her name is Rachel. She is pregnant, maybe 6 months, and they bought her at auction for almost nothing because the seller said she was difficult. Mr. graves keeps her separate from the rest of us in the old tobacco barn at the edge of the north field.
I'm not allowed near there. None of us are, but at night I can hear her crying. The next entry, April 1845. Rachel is gone.
They say she died in childbirth, that both she and the baby died, and they buried them somewhere past the treeine, but I do not believe it. I heard the baby crying two nights ago. I heard it clear as anything, a newborn's cry. And then I heard it stop suddenly, like someone made it stop.
And Rachel, I saw her three days ago when they moved her from the barn to the main house. She did not look like someone about to give birth. She looked like someone who had already given birth, and something had gone very wrong. Dinina's hands shook as she turned the page.
Another entry. June 1846. There is a new one now. Her name is Margaret.
Same as before. Pregnant, bought cheap, kept separate. Mister Graves visits the barn every night. I do not know what he does there, but Margaret screams and no one is allowed to help her.
Mrs. graves acts like it is not happening, like those screams are just wind or animals. But we all hear it. We all know. Another entry.
August 1846. Margaret disappeared last week. They say she ran away, but that makes no sense. She was eight months pregnant and could barely walk.
Where would she run? How would she survive? No, she did not run. Something happened to her.
Same as Rachel. Same as the one before Rachel whose name I never learned. This is a pattern. This is systematic and no one stops it because Mr. Graves has money and power and the law protects him instead of us.
Dinina looked up at Sarah. What is this? What was Graves doing to these women? We do not know exactly, Sarah said.
But we know enough. Over the past 10 years, Graves has purchased at least seven pregnant women at auction, always for suspiciously low prices, always women who were being sold because of personal disputes or complications with their previous owners. He takes them to his plantation, keeps them isolated, and within months they disappear. Some are reported as dying in childbirth.
Others are claimed to have run away, but none of them are ever seen again. and the babies," Dinina whispered. "What happens to the babies?" "That is the question we cannot answer," Hannah said. "Some of the women who work at Graves's plantation have reported hearing infants crying, but they never see the children.