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up her hand, and the three of them sat in silence for several anxious moments. Below them, Bel heard the distant tinkle of the twins playing the piano for her aunt and uncle.
    â€œHelp me take down my hair, Isabel,” Faustina suddenly ordered, tilting her body sideways on the chair. Her mother’s hair was so thick that, pinned for a day, it would grow kinks that had to be painfully unraveled. Faustina preferred her daughter’s hands to Mary’s savage fingers and often requested Bel’s companionship at bedtime to undo the tangles.
    Laurence propped his cheek with his palm, watching Bel pull out dozens of silver pins and let them drop to the table. After awhile, he sat up and began making towers with them, only the tense, bobbing motions of his shoulders revealing his restlessness. Could the runaway wait even through this? Perhaps they had already taken too long.
    As the locks fell down her mother’s neck, knotted by their captivity, Bel wondered if one day she would have the same problems with her own hair. It never bothered her now. Maybe she had her father’s texture, her mother’s color. She had never thought of being such a mix of them before—more that she owned one piece of her father, his eyes, another piece, his height, and two pieces of her mother, her hair and arched feet. It would be easier if she weren’t such a combination, for she never knew which side to take when they fought. Finally, one of Laurence’s towers clattered to the table, and her mother spoke in a low alto.
    â€œDid anyone see you?”
    â€œNo,” they answered in chorus. Laurence swiped down all his defenses with one blow.
    â€œWhere is this runaway?” The song below pounded to its finish and Bel heard the high, praising tones of her aunt.
    â€œBehind the hemlock near the first bridge over Potash Brook,” Laurence said.
    â€œHe’s hungry, too,” Bel added, knowing this persuasion had worked on her mother when peddlers came to the door.
    â€œI need to send a man with you, Laurence,” Faustina muttered. Her loose hair made her appear suddenly young, capable of being rash and innocent.
    â€œNot Papa,” Bel said, hating the haste in her voice.
    â€œNo, not your father.” Faustina swept the silver pins into a pile with her hand. They looked like the bars to a bright little cage. “He would want to turn the man in. But I—we—couldn’t, could we?” She stared at Laurence for confirmation.
    â€œWhat about Johnny?” Laurence’s question made Bel frown, remembering the way the hired man had watched her earlier that day. Not your father . But Johnny was always devoted and shy in Faustina’s presence. Johnny would do anything for her mother.
    â€œJohnny could take you. He’s big enough to intimidate the Negro, too.” Faustina began to nod.
    â€œHe won’t try anything anyway,” Bel insisted, remembering the gentle way he had set her on the frozen lake.
    â€œBel, have you ever not eaten for days on end?” Faustina shackled her daughter’s wrist with her ringed left hand. The fierce grip frightened Bel. She shook her head and tried to pull her arm away. “Then don’t presume to know what a desperate man will do,” her mother said before releasing her.
    â€œCan we go now?” Laurence asked, oblivious.
    â€œOnce we find you a coat.” Faustina rose, smoothing the blue wool of her skirt. Bel looked back at the windows as they exited the library. A frost had embroidered the edges with the silver shapes of fallen leaves.
    *   *   *
    Much as she tried to stay awake that night, the deep warmth of Bel’s goose-down quilt stole her resolve, and the next thing she knew, her father’s bass voice woke her. She opened her eyes to the filigreed sun the lace curtains drew across her bed.
    â€œI can’t understand you, Mary,” Daniel Lindsey was saying impatiently.