Page 72 - Fever 1793

Nell wound her legs tightly around my waist and bit the man’s hand. He howled with outrage while his companions collapsed in laughter. I held tightly to Nell and sprinted for the alley, afraid to look over my shoulder.
“Glad you’re on my side,” I told Nell. She stuck her thumb back in her mouth as if nothing had happened.
The women were gone. I walked down the alley to a courtyard. It should have been crowded with playing children, chickens and pigs, but was quiet save for the noises made by a tired woman hanging out laundry. I checked behind me. The drunk had found other sport and had not followed us. Nell was grower heavier by the minute. I carried her over to the woman hanging out her wash.
“Please, excuse me, Ma’am. Have you seen two women with baskets walk by here?” “I seen nobody,” the woman answered. “Do you have the fever?”
“No, I’m well.”
“You don’t look well,” the woman said. “You look like a wraith.”
“The women, did you see them? They must have passed by. It is most important that I find them.”
“Try the Simon house. I heard the door close that-away a moment ago.”
“Which one is the Simon house?”
The woman pointed at a house that fronted onto the courtyard, then drew a stained coverlet from the
tub at her feet.
I paused in front of the yellow rag tacked to the door. Should I bring Nell in a house with fever
victims? She blinked sea green eyes at me. What a foolish question. This child has lived in a fever house for days, weeks maybe. I opened the door and rushed in.
The parlor stood ready for company, with surprisingly fine furniture for the neighborhood, and a portrait on the wall. Thick dust coated the chairs and table, and a man’s coat lay on the floor.
I stood unsure of what to do next, when I heard the murmur of voices and footsteps overhead. I gathered up my skirts and went up.
“Eliza?”
A young man leaned over his wife, fanning her face with a paper fan. Two silent children sat on the floor gnawing hard rolls.
“Are you come from the apothecary?” the man asked in a rasping voice.
I shook my head.
“They promised to send Peruvian bark. It may save her yet.” He shifted the fan to his other hand. “Why
then have you come?”
“I’m looking for Eliza. I was told she was here.”
“We have no Eliza here,” he answered.
I looked at the children again.
“Did two women just come to deliver those rolls?”
The man nodded. “Saints. Angels. They re from the Free African Society, God bless them. If one is the
Eliza you seek, you might find her yet. They had several other homes to visit.”
I ran back to the street. Where could she be? I couldn’t try each door or go in every house. What if she
left one house as I entered another?
There was only one solution.
I set Nell on the ground and cupped my hands around my mouth:
“Eliza!”
I waited until the echo faded among the sounds of the sea gulls high overhead and tried again.
“Eliza!”
“Who calls there?” The faint voice came from an open window.
“Eliza? It’s me, Mattie!” I scanned the windows around the courtyard but could not find the face I was