Chapter 25
I shake my head and take a deep breath.“All right,here we go.I’ll take that book,Anna.”By careful rearranging,I manage to put Anna’s book in the bag they didn’t take.
“Shouldn’t we stay to help out Silas and the others?”Anna asks wistfully.Perhaps she has Adahy on her mind.
“There’s nothing we can do,”says Sam sorrowfully.“They’ve stripped us of everything we had.”
“Not everything,”Fred says.
We all look at him in astonishment.
“I won’t tell you until we get away from this place.”
We cross the garden and walk to the back of the house,and no one pays us heed.After walking through more gardens and an orchard,we reach a cotton field,full of workers.This is the press of the season,and the cotton needs to be picked before the rains get worse.After walking through endless fields,completely exposed if anyone were to look at us from the distant road,we reach a wooded area.I automatically slow down,but Fred urges me on.
“Just a little bit further,”he advises.