CHAPTER SEVEN G: THE WHEEL THAT WOULD NOT TURN

Jonah discovered the damaged wheel just as the last daylight slipped behind the orchard.
The iron rim had loosened from the wood, and the cart lurched whenever he pushed it over the stones.
He knelt beside the axle and ran a finger around the gap.
“Someone has been at this,” he said.
Elias took the lantern from Martha and lowered it.
A fresh gouge marked the inside of the wheel where an iron tool had been driven between two spokes.
“Can you repair it?” Martha asked.
“I can make it travel slowly,

but I will not put two people on it until I know whether the rim will hold.”
Elias looked toward the mansion, where a servant was closing the dining room shutters.
“Ralston knows we intend to leave,” he said.
Jonah did not answer immediately.
He took the loose wheel between his hands and turned it until the damaged section faced upward.
“Someone knows about the cart,” he said.
“We do not yet know who damaged it.”
Martha folded her arms against the evening cold.
“The distinction will not help Elias’s mother if the wheel comes apart on the road.”
“It will help us decide whether to trust the next person who offers assistance,

” Jonah replied.
Elias hated how quickly a small injury to a piece of wood could become a question of life or death.
He had watched the estate’s wagons carry furniture, cotton, and expensive wine without anyone considering whether their wheels were safe.
A wagon meant to carry his mother toward Hannah had to be examined in secret, beneath the last light, as though the act of leaving were itself a crime.
He set the lantern on the wall.
“The old kiln has an iron band around the bellows wheel,” he said.
“It is smaller, but the fastening bolts might fit.

”
Jonah rose and studied the ruined arch.
“We need the bolts more than the band.”
Martha caught Elias’s sleeve before he entered the kiln.
“Do not go alone.”
“Then come with me,” he answered.
Inside, the air smelled of wet brick and old ash.
A family of swallows had built nests beneath the broken roof, and their startled wings beat against the rafters.
Elias found the wheel where he remembered it, half buried under fallen tiles.
Martha held the lantern while he loosened two corroded bolts with a narrow chisel.
“You remember every corner of this place,” she said.
“I remember the work,

” Elias answered.
“My mother used to say that a building never forgets the hands that raised it.”
Martha watched him free the second bolt.
“Your mother used to say many things when the overseer could not hear her.”
Elias put the bolts in his pocket.
“She still does.”
A noise came from the orchard wall.
Martha extinguished the lantern before Elias could speak.
Through a crack in the brick, they saw two men crossing the abandoned garden.
One carried a long-handled shovel, and the other held a coil of rope.
They passed within a few yards of the cart without noticing Jonah crouched behind the low wall.


“The north cottage is empty,” one man said.
“Then Ralston has wasted our evening,” the other replied.
“He says the girl may be brought here before morning.”
Elias felt Martha’s hand tighten around his wrist.
The men continued toward the house, and their voices faded beneath the trees.
“Which girl?” Martha whispered.
Elias knew she had already considered Beatrice.
“We need to warn Adelaide,” he said.
Martha shook her head.
“First we make sure your mother can travel.”
They returned to the cart, where Jonah had lifted the wheel onto a stone.
The bolts fit the damaged bracket closely enough for him to tighten it,

but he refused to promise that the repair would last.
“It will carry supplies,” he said.
“It will not carry a frightened family over a rough road at speed.”
Elias stood beside the cart and looked at the narrowing strip of sky.
“Then we need another way to move them,” he said.
Martha turned toward the estate’s distant carriage house.
“The laundry wagon has wider wheels,” she said.
“It goes to the village every Thursday.”
“Tomorrow is Thursday,” Elias answered.
Jonah stared at her.
“You are suggesting that we take a wagon in full view of the house?”
“I am suggesting that the household already expects it to leave,

” Martha said.
“That is different from stealing a carriage in the dark.”
Elias understood the danger immediately.
If the laundry wagon failed to arrive at its usual destination, Thomas would know exactly where to begin asking questions.
But if Ruth could arrange the ordinary delivery, the departure might pass without a second glance.
He looked from Martha to Jonah.
“We need to speak to the washerwoman,” he said.
“Her name is Dinah, and she knows which roads the laundry wagon takes.”
Jonah lifted the repaired wheel back onto the axle.
“Then we speak to her before Ralston learns that we have changed our minds.

”