Keep them hydrated with boiled water, not raw river water, and most important, keep the sickest one separate. This illness spreads through the air.
Group them too close and you'll lose everyone." It went against conventional wisdom, which held that diseases arose from bad air rather than spreading person to person. But Thomas had noticed diseases did seem to cluster in patterns. "Do it your way." he said, "but if people start dying, it becomes your responsibility."
"People dying is always someone's responsibility, Master. The question is whose?" She organized the sick into three groups by severity, preparing teas and tonics carefully. Within three days, fever began breaking in the first patients.
Within a week, all but two had recovered, both elderly, already weakened. Under conventional treatment, Thomas suspected the death toll would have been far higher. Word spread quickly. By early November, Thomas received visits from neighboring planters wanting to borrow Celia's services. He agreed, partly for neighborly relations and partly because the fees brought additional income.
Celia was sent to the Mansfield Plantation for yellow fever, to the Rutledge place for a difficult childbirth, to a farm near the Ogeechee River for a snake bite. In each case, she succeeded where others would have failed. Her reputation grew. Celia could heal what others couldn't. But reputation is dangerous, especially for someone in Celia's position.
People began remembering the Peyton estate. They wondered if someone who knew so much about healing might also know about the opposite. Thomas heard these whispers but dismissed them. Celia had been professional and effective since arriving. She had saved his workers and earned him money.
Whatever had happened at Peyton's was past. December brought unusual cold, frost covering fields in the mornings. The cotton harvest had been completed despite hurricane damage, and Thomas had sold his crop for a respectable price. He began to relax, feeling he had navigated his first year without major disaster. That was when the first sign appeared.
Hutchkins came to the main house one Tuesday morning, face pale and hands shaking. "Mr. Peete, you need to come to the quarters now."
A crowd had gathered near the quarters north end. They parted when Thomas approached, revealing a symbol painted on the wall in what appeared to be blood or dark red clay. The symbol was complex, a circle with lines radiating outward and smaller circles at specific points. In the center was a handprint, adult-sized fingers spread wide.
"What is this?" Thomas demanded. An older man named Daniel stepped forward. "It's a warning sign, master. Old magic. African magic from before any of us were born.
My grandmother knew of such things, said they were dangerous, that they called on powers that didn't forget and didn't forgive." "Who did this?" Silence. Then Daniel said carefully, "Don't know, master. But signs like that usually mean someone's working roots, calling on the old ways.
And when someone works roots, bad things follow." Thomas ordered the symbol washed away and announced severe punishment for anyone caught painting such things. But the damage was done.
Fear had entered Waverly. Three days later, Hutchkins' prize hunting dog was found dead near the well, body stiff and mouth foaming with dried saliva. The dog had been healthy that morning. "Poison," Hutchkins said flatly, "something fast-acting." A week before Christmas, a field worker named Samuel fell ill. He complained of stomach pains that grew progressively worse.
By evening, he was vomiting violently, body convulsing. Celia was summoned, but when she examined him, her expression grew grave. "This isn't natural illness. He's been poisoned." Thomas felt his stomach drop.
"Poisoned?" "How?" "Can't say without knowing what he ate or drank." "But the symptoms are consistent with several plant toxins." She looked at Thomas.
"The question isn't what poisoned him. The question is who gave it to him." Samuel died 3 hours later in seizures. It was a terrible death, and everyone witnessed some part of it. The fear that had been spreading now exploded into near panic. Thomas ordered an investigation, questioning everyone near Samuel that day.
The results were frustratingly inconclusive. Samuel had eaten from the communal pot, drunk from the well. He had no known enemies. There was no apparent reason for anyone to want him dead. Unless, Thomas thought with growing dread, Samuel wasn't the intended target.
Unless someone was simply practicing, testing methods, preparing for something larger. That night, Thomas couldn't sleep. He lay in bed listening to every creak, wondering what was happening on his plantation. Someone had knowledge of poisons. Someone was using it.
And despite his earlier confidence, Thomas found himself thinking again about the Peyton estate and those four dead men. Christmas at Waverly was subdued. Thomas had planned to give the enslaved workers three days off with extra rations, But Samuel's death had cast a pall over everything. People accepted their gifts with muted thanks, avoiding eye contact, Eager to return to the quarters where they felt safer in numbers.
On Christmas evening, Thomas heard a commotion from the quarters. He grabbed his pistol and ran outside into the cold December night. A crowd had gathered near the well, faces illuminated by torches. At the center, two men restrained a young woman named Ruth. She was fighting them, screaming words that didn't quite make sense, eyes wide and unfocused.
What's happening? Thomas demanded. Hutchkins pushed through the crowd. She tried to throw herself down the well, sir. Daniel and Joseph caught her just in time.
Ruth was perhaps 19, a house servant who worked in the laundry. Thomas had never known her to cause trouble. Ruth, what were you doing? She stopped struggling and turned toward him. In torchlight, her face looked gaunt, almost skeletal.
They're coming for me. I can hear them. They're in my head telling me what I did, showing me what's going to happen. I can't make them stop. The only way to make them stop is to She lunged toward the well again, but the men holding her were ready.
She's been like this for hours. A house servant said, "Started just after sunset. Talking about voices and shadows and debts coming due." "Debts coming due." The same phrase Celia had used months ago.
Thomas felt cold. That had nothing to do with December temperature.
Get her inside. Tie her down if necessary, and someone fetch Celia. But Celia was already there, standing at the crowd's edge. So still, Thomas hadn't noticed. She moved forward now, and the crowd parted for her.