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price in the scheme of things . ” I now shared a secret with the river that flowed beneath the cliffs outside Aunt Augusta’s golden windows. Her cruel ways were not without cost.
    Leaving the haunted glimmer behind me, I ran my hand along the darkened wall until it found the banister leading me down the stairs. Though the moon was low in the night sky, it shimmered brightly through the downstairs windows, offering me a path across the parlor and into the kitchen. The predawn chill of the hardwood floor bit into my soles until my feet wriggled into warmness. Striking a phosphorous match, I lit the crooked tallow candle at the center of the bucksaw table in the middle of the kitchen. The comforting light of the candle flowed over the table, revealing a small bowl of collard greens and fried bacon left by Granny Morgan, along with a mug of sassafras tea and a healthy slice of cracklin’ bread. No doubt she had fretted about my absence from the dinner table and had hoped I would find her offering, should I seek to fill my emptiness. I was surprised Aunt Augusta had allowed me this reprieve, but I suppose it was just another one of the peculiarities that contradicted her stern demeanor. Hunger had me devouring every last morsel of what Granny had prepared for me. It mattered not that passing hours dulled the texture and taste. To my ravenous soul, it was a feast.
    After running my last wedge of bread around the inside of the empty bowl, I savored my finishing bite, then stood and stretched with satisfaction. A movement in the moonlight outside the kitchen door caught my eye. I moved closer to the window and searched the shadows, wondering if Granny had risen early or if it was simply the shuffle of a night critter making its way home before dawn. The woodshed and cookhouse of the side yard were bathed in stillness, when suddenly a face appeared in the window, jolting my heart up through my throat with a gasp. My hands flew to my face, muffling a frightened cry before it left my lips. It was Marcus staring down at me through the window. Within two pounding beats of my heart, I could see that there was desperation in his eyes.
    I cracked the door of impropriety again, just wide enough to whisper into the night, “Gracious be, Marcus. An eternity of curse and fury will be cast upon us if anyone sees you here.” I motioned him toward the woodshed across the yard, then slipped out the door and followed him into the night. Stepping behind the blind side of the shed, we talked freely.
    “I been waitin’ half the night fo’ a sign o’ life here,” he whispered heatedly. “I didn’t want to stir up the quarters ’cuz some colored been known to offer up their own fo’ Massa’s good favor. I figured sooner or later yo’ black mammy would show up to warm the mornin’ cook fires. Only a mammy’s soft heart could be trusted to fetch you without trouble.”
    “Are you completely crazy?” I gasped at his miscalculation. “You would have a better chance slicing your own throat than being seen here!”
    “But I spied the welcome lamp burnin’ in the window upstairs. Folks on the run is always told that a lamp in the window means a safe house.”
    “A safe house?”
    “Safe fo’ a runaway.” He nodded. “A friend of flight where a morsel o’ food or a place to hide can be found fo’ the night. I figured there weren’t no harm in comin’ fo’ help as long as I stayed out o’ sight.”
    I trembled at how close we had come to disaster. “Marcus, sometimes a lamp is just a lamp, and I warn you, with the exception of me, you will find no friend here. What possessed you to take such a risk?”
    “It’s Livetta. . . . She’s powerful sick. She’s moanin’ with fever,” he said with hushed excitement. “Her hip is nasty swollen and runnin’ yellow. She ain’t talkin’ neither, just lookin’ at me with glass eyes.”
    “The germ must have settled in it. We better draw it out as quickly as possible. I once saw