The Letter Writer by Ann Rinaldi

But not bruised apples."
    I waited until he came down from the tree, wiping his hands on a towel. "You want to talk with me, little Harriet? Come on over here by the fence. These lieutenants of mine have big ears."
    They said things to scoff at him. He waved them off.
    At the fence he offered me an apple, which I took, and then, with perfect white teeth, he bit into his own.
    "Is there trouble over the map?" he asked.
    "No. But Violet told me this morning about your message."
    "Ah, yes. Did you receive it, then?"
    "Was it for me, too?"
    "Now what do you think? Haven't we been friends?"
    "But what does it mean? 'Something will happen before long.' And 'Look out and take care of yourselves.'"
    "It means just what it says. I do not talk in riddles. What did I tell you I was going to do?"
    "Go to all the plantations and make the people listen while you preach."
    "Exactly."
    "Then why the 'Look out and take care of yourselves'?"
    "Some people don't like to be preached at."
    He was lying. I was sure of it. As sure as I knew that the apple I held in my hands was fresh and just off the tree. But if he was lying, what was the truth? What was he going to do that would make people have to look out for themselves?
    "Do you still have the map?" I asked stupidly.
    "Of course. You gave it to me. I shall keep it, always."
    "But I told you I would need it back for my studies." He said nothing.
    The map. The map was the key to the whole thing he had planned, I decided.
And I had given him the map!
Suddenly I felt sick, nauseous. My eyes blurred. The apple trees danced in front of them. I had to get away from this man before he could tell that I was frightened of him. "I must go back to the house," I said. "I must help Mother Whitehead write some letters."

Fifteen
    That night, that warm August night, when the night bugs screamed and the frogs in the pond croaked out their love songs and summer thunder rumbled on the horizon, I learned that Nat Turner and six of his men were going to eat barbecue and drink apple brandy on Cabin Pond.
    I could have considered this an innocent pastime, except that that very night I learned from Owen all about Hark, Nat's "lieutenant," and his past.
    It seems that Hark had been bought from the plantation where he grew up by Mr. Travis. The owner who sold him, sold away at the same time his mother and two
sisters from whom he had never been separated a day in his life, and sent them to a plantation in Mississippi.
    For a slave, Mississippi was the equivalent of hell. Slaves didn't live long in Mississippi.
    Then, in the last eight years, Travis had sold off both Hark's wife and his son. Again to Mississippi.
    This kind of story does not make for a good slave. This kind of story makes for the worst kind of anger in a slave. And Hark, being so close to Nat Turner now and planning on "making something happen," was enough to tell me that it was not going to be a good happening. Not at all.
    I lay in my bed, the windows of my room open to admit the August air. Outside, the grounds and outbuildings reflected the light of a full moon. It was like the whole world were a stage and we were waiting for the players to appear. I heard every night sound there was: the barking of the plantation dogs, the screaming of the night bugs, the sound of the hooty owl, some faint singing of spirituals floating up from the negro quarters. I could not sleep, so I lay there inside my mosquito netting and tried to imagine Nat Turner and his men eating barbecue and drinking apple brandy.
    Finally I drifted off, only to see flashes of people and scenes behind my eyelids. It was a disturbed and uncomfortable sleep. I thought I felt someone leaning over me. I opened my eyes.
    Someone was there.
    It was Owen, in the bright light of that Monday morning, August 22, 1831, a day it would take many people a long time to forget.
    "Harriet," he said, as if the mere saying of it conveyed everything he was about to tell me. "You've overslept. Get up."
    I