Trail of Bones by Mark London Williams Read Free Book Online Page B

able to hear. “They’ll eventually have to return you to New
Orleans, you know.”
    I have to let her know I can’t go to New
Orleans, either. I have to let her know who I really am. In order
to fully explain everything. Perhaps, if I take advantage of the
carriage bumps, I can dab some lingo-spot on her and make it look
“accidental.”
    “We’ll have to teach you better English,”
Sally says. “Jefferson will help. Wants his slaves to be educated.
He discusses science and philosophy with me all the time, tells me
how he still misses Martha, his late wife. He talks to me just like
a free person. Yet he turns around and says it wouldn’t be fair to
let his own slaves go. Says we been raised like children and
couldn’t make our way in the world.” She shakes her head. “This
coming from the same man who tried to put a passage about ending
slavery into the Declaration of Independence, ‘til they made him
take it out. I think slavery’s got white people all mixed up
inside. I think, really, it’s worse on the spirits of the people
who own the slaves, compared to the people who are the slaves. Some
of them, anyway.”
    She doesn’t keep her voice low for that last
observation. I wonder if Jefferson President could hear her, too,
inside the carriage?
    “Martha died almost twenty years ago… And
I’ve lived at Monticello, or traveled with that man, ever since.
But he still won’t let me call him Thomas. He says we can’t be
friends in public. But I won’t call him Mister either, and
certainly not Master, if he’s going to be that way. So I just call
him ‘Jefferson.’”
    Then Sally closes her eyes and leans into
the rushing air. She looks serene. “So many mysteries. Starting
with people’s hearts.”
    Show me.
    That voice again.
    Show me.
    It’s not Sally who’s talking…
    Show me!
    It’s the lingo-spot.
    The lingo-spot is exerting a will of its own
now. Asking, or letting the thought be known, that it wants to be
shown —given— to someone else. The way Eli gave some to me, back in
Alexandria. The way I did, at Peenemunde, with the escaping
prisoners.
    Shared.
    I reach behind my ear, feeling the spongy
area where the lingo-spot melds into my skin. What does it want? To
help us? And why is the organic/mechanical mass that makes up the
lingo-spot suddenly exerting a will of its own, the way Clyne’s
time-vessel did? What is happening to the Saurian technology?
    I look at my fingertips and touch the
pulsing, glistening ointment there.
    Maybe…?
    I look at it again.
    …it wants to spread because it wants to reproduce ?
    For reasons I can’t explain, I feel my
cheeks flushing.
    But yes…reproduce, spread like a…
    “Fever?”
    It’s Sally, leaning over, almost
off-balance, touching my face. “You’re turning all red, child.”
    Mr. Howard doesn’t like her moving around.
“You crazy girl! Sit down, now!”
    I’m no child, but Sally’s a grown woman. Why
does he call her “girl?”
    She looks at Mr. Howard, then stands up a
little higher. “We all burn with fever! We burn with the life force
of the universe! It surrounds us all and lifts us! “
    “Sit down !” Mr. Howard isn’t watching
the road at all.
    Sally stands even taller, spreading her arms
against the wind. “ No one is a slave!” She’s yelling
into the wind. Then she turns to me. “Not in their souls.”
    “Now!”
    We hit some holes and ruts. One of the
horses stumbles.
    Mr. Howard jerks the reins in reaction—too
late.
    Sally’s thrown forward. Without thinking, I
reach out, grabbing just enough of her garment to break her fall.
She twists and clutches the seat railing, as Mr. Howard struggles
to regain control of the horses before we spill over.
    But I spill over, anyway, from catching
Sally. And there is nobody to catch me. I hear screams.
    What a silly death, so far from home, before
I was able even to…
    Reproduce.
    My face flushes again. I will die with
crimson cheeks…
    “Brassy!”
    …trampled