Out From This Place Read Free

rock seemed familiar now. When she’d gone around the fields and had reached the slave quarters, she carefully stepped out of the forest. There was less chance someone would discover her there, because everyone was working. There were only some children holding hands and turning around in a circle. They reminded her of Jason. He used to love coming to the plantation to play the ring games with the children there. The old woman who cared for the youngsters while their parents worked in the fields didn’t see Easter slip behind a row of cabins and walk quickly toward the big house.
    By the position of the sun, Easter figured that it was about two o’clock in the afternoon. She wished that she had some kind of bundle to carry so that she’d look as if she was working. Her eyes darted nervously as she gazed around. She didn’t want to run into the master or Mistress Phillips. Several men chopping wood ignored her. Two boys carrying water to the fields glanced her way with uninterested eyes. Two unfamiliar women walked toward her. Each carried a large basket of laundry on her head, while deep in conversation.
    Easter averted her face as she hurried past them, but they didn’t look in her direction. She sensed a strange quietness about the place. She spotted smoke coming from the kitchen, which was a building adjacent to but separate from the big house. If things were still the same, then her friend Rose and the cook would be in the kitchen preparing the Phillipses’ supper. Easter knew that Rose and the cook would help her.
    The smell of frying pork drifted out of the slightly open kitchen door. Easter peeped into the room and saw Rose standing over the huge black iron stove, a skillet in her hand.
    â€œRose, can I come in?” Easter whispered.
    Rose turned around quickly, almost dropping the skillet. “Who that?” she asked, squinching her eyes at Easter.
    â€œRose? It’s me. Easter.”
    â€œEaster?” Rose’s eyes opened wide with surprise. “That really you? I didn’t know you. Oh, Easter. I thought I never see you again.” She put down the skillet and ran over to her.
    Easter cringed shamefully when Rose hugged her. “I a dirty, stinking mess, Rose.”
    Rose continued to embrace her. “Hush, gal. I smell worse thing than you.” Rose was several years older than Easter and had been like a sister to her, always making her feel secure. That hadn’t changed.
    â€œI come back for Jason,” Easter told her. “You know where he is?” She swayed a little unsteadily on her feet, faint now from fatigue and hunger and fear of Rose’s answer.
    â€œHe right here with us.”
    Easter’s face spread in a wide smile. “Mistress Jennings didn’t give him to Missy Holmes?”
    â€œWhen your master and Mistress Jennings leave for the West, they sell Jason to Mistress Phillips. I hear Mistress Phillips pay one hundred dollars for him. And I hear Mistress Jennings wanted to take Jason with her, but yourold master sell every living and breathing and growing thing, including Jason. Your old master lose a lot of money when you and Obi run.”
    â€œGood,” Easter said. “He wasn’t suppose to be ownin’ us in the first place.”
    Rose led Easter to a chair in front of a large oak table. “Well, Jason is Mistress Phillips’s special servant now.”
    â€œWhat you mean?”
    â€œJust what I say—he her special servant. Wear a fancy suit and has nothing to do with the rest of us.”
    â€œHe act different then?”
    â€œEverything different, Easter.” Rose tried to brush a smudge off Easter’s nose. “You hungry and need to wash. I get the tub and draw you some water and give you something to eat. Then I tell you everything that happen.”
    The worry lines creased Easter’s forehead. “I don’t want anyone to find me here.”
    â€œNo one come in