An Acquaintance with Darkness - Ann Rinaldi [76]
"I lost my daddy in the war and my mother died. I don't have a home."
"You have your uncle!" she snapped. "And a good home, and Robert paying court to you. You want advice? Go home. And forget about what those noodleheaded girls at school are playing at. Your whole life is ahead of you. Mine is finished."
"Annie." I moved toward her. I touched her arm. "You're still young. Your life isn't finished."
"Isn't it?" She drew away. "I'm a Surratt. I have to live with this name forever. Who will want anything to do with me?" Her face was taut, white, ugly.
For a moment I felt sorry for her. Then in the next moment I didn't. She hadn't listened to me, to my troubles. And they were real. She didn't care about anybody but herself. "No one," I said, "if you continue on as you are."
Then I left the house.
I felt bad about Annie, but there was nothing I could do. I'd helped her. Robert had helped her, and so had Uncle Valentine. It wasn't my fault if her mother went and got mixed up with John Wilkes Booth, was it? Besides, I'd needed Annie. Always in the past she'd been there for me. Now she just wasn't anymore. I went home.
There was one more thing I had to do. Tonight, before I went to bed. The idea of it was so gratifying it put all the other bad feelings out of my mind.
Maude was waiting for me in the kitchen. "Well, I was ready to send for the Metropolitan Police. Where have you been!"
"I had an errand. And the streets are crowded. For the Grand Review tomorrow."
"Exactly. Which is why you shouldn't be out alone, with all those soldiers hanging about."
I filled my plate at the stove. Leftover chicken and beans. She'd made fresh muffins, though. I was hungry. "I'll just take it to my room," I said. "I have some studying. You deserve the night off. Why don't you leave now? I'll put the food away."
"I have to bring a plate up to Addie."
"I can do that."
She looked doubtful. "All right, but don't forget to lock the doors. I'll be over in the morning to make breakfast for you and Addie."
I'll be gone by then, I said to myself. And so will Addie.
***
"Leave?" Addie wiped the gravy in her plate with a muffin and put it in her mouth. Her old eyes were wary. "You wouldn't be funnin' me, would you, little missy?"
"I wouldn't do that to you, Addie. It's what you want, isn't it? So you can have a chance to do something with the freedom Mr. Lincoln gave you?"
"Xactly," she said. "But you always say no. You get inta that shed out there? You find out what's in them barrels that say pickles? You find out they be dead bodies in them barrels?"
Dead bodies! Pickles! Of course! How could I have been so stupid? I could hear Robert's words to me that night in the shed. Rum, arsenic, and corrosive sublimate. It was what they preserved specimens in. Likely what he'd used to preserve the bodies from the Sultana disaster. Not from out of state, I hope. The doctor wants no out-of-state pickles. Of course not. Except for the Sultana disaster they did not want to traffic in out-of-state bodies. It was too risky.
"Yes, I found out, Addie," I said sadly. "And so now I'm leaving. And I want to help you leave, too. If you want to. You're better, aren't you? No more coughing?"
"Medicine make me better."
"Well, then, do you want to go, or don't you?"
"I wants to go."
"Good. We leave in the morning, early. I have some money. I'll give you some. But you must promise to use it to get settled, and not for rum."
"I doan drink no more. Fer sure."
"Where do you want to go? I'll take you."
"Go?" She stared at me. She got dreamy for a minute. "I gots a place," she said.
"Where?"
"Can't tell."
"Then how can I take you there in the morning?"
"You take me to the Relief Society. Twelve an' O Streets. So's I kin pick up my things."
My God, I thought, the outskirts of the city. How will I get her there? But I must.
"Reverend Nichols," she said, "he runs it. I wuz workin' fer him before. Gotta let him know I's arright. He think I's dead. Gotta let him know I's arright and pick up my things."
"All