Now Face to Face by Karleen Koen

small brown marks on their petals, like the slaves’ scars. Barbara shuddered again, the way she had on the slaver. The sound of the river filled her ears.
    Evil, Hyacinthe. I saw the clear shape of evil, and it frightened me to my soul. Never run away from the truth, because it sits always upon your shoulder. What am I going to do?
    In her mind was the supper she’d given for the slaves. She had worn a black gown of watered silk, and emeralds in her ears. There was ham and rum for the slaves; her coming here was to be the cause for celebration. She had stood on the house steps as Odell Smith introduced the slaves to her one by one. What a sight the scene would have made to anyone looking on; how she had wished that Jane, or her grandmother, or Tony, or even the Prince and Princess of Wales themselves might have seen it—the silent people, the dark night enveloping all: Lanterns and candles were nothing to the darkness. She in her finery, glittering and smiling, they in what could only be described as bits and pieces of clothing. They need little, said Odell. They are used to nothing.
    She’d made them a speech, her heart pulsing high in her throat because everything—she, they, the forest clearly seen from the steps of this house that was scarcely larger than a cottage—seemed fantastic to her, out of time and place, as if she had been whirled into the dark night sky and placed upon the moon. One of the slaves had limped forward awkwardly as his name was called, and in the lantern light she saw that toes were missing from his right foot. For a moment, she had felt faint at seeing that which was real put to what had been only words before, the Governor’s, Klaus Von Rothbach’s words, explaining to her certain laws, necessary laws, they said, such as incorrigible runaways have their toes chopped off. And standing beside her in the night had been Hyacinthe, who would not hush, but repeated over and over in French, His foot, madame! Look, see his foot.
    “My head aches. It ached when I was waiting for you,” Hyacinthe whispered.
    He was trembling. Barbara put her cheek against his forehead. It was burning hot. He had a fever. The ague. Thérèse was only just over it.
    “Put your head in my lap.”
    She untied her hat and put it over his face as he laid his head on her knees.
    “I’ll row us home. We’re nearly there. You’ll feel better once we’re out of this sun. Why did you not tell me? What? You did tell me? Well, I didn’t listen, and I am sorry for that.”
    He was worse by the time she’d rowed the dinghy to First Curle.
    “Can you walk, my sweet?”
    Leaves touched with bronze and yellow floated down around her silently as she pulled the dinghy securely onto the bank. Hyacinthe lay slumped across the plank seat, not answering.
    Of course he cannot walk, cannot even push himself up from the plank to stand, or he would have done so, thought Barbara, furious with herself. She picked him up, noticing that his legs dangled past her knees. Children grow so quickly, Jane always said. Hyacinthe had grown in the month they’d been here, she would swear it. She half ran, half walked with him down the path.
    There was the house now. Good, for she was beginning to be out of breath. She felt Hyacinthe’s tears, hot with fever, on her neck. In her mind was what he had asked her after they had crossed the river to explore the other quarters of the plantation. Would you beat me? he had asked.
    Have I ever beaten you? she had replied, astounded. It was because the overseer, not Odell, but the one who oversaw the quarter they went to see, had asked, in all innocence, if she wished her servant boy locked up for the night with the other slaves in the slave house.
    “Thérèse!”
    Barbara kicked at the gate of the picket fence with her boot.
    The dogs came bounding out of the house, their paws scattering broken pieces of shell from the oyster shell paths, and then there was Thérèse, running down the house steps once