"You're a spy?"

"Ssh!" Anna Strong pulled her friend into the back room of her husband's tavern, which had been taken over when Selah had been imprisoned on the Jersey. "Grace, please, not out loud. Not out there. Meet me later on tonight, I'll tell you everything."

Grace Hopwood had been friends with Anna since childhood. She'd grown up in Setauket, becoming a maid for a man named Richard Woodhull, the local magistrate, after her father had died and her mother moved away to live in her oldest brother's house. It had only been recently that she'd seen Anna sneaking around. Twice now, on her way to town from the Woodhull house in the morning, or on the way back late at night, she had seen Anna hanging laundry at odd hours. She'd hidden behind a crop of trees to see a man arrive in the closest coves one night, a man she hadn't seen for years.

That night, Anna met her behind the tavern with a darkened lantern. Grace had been waiting for a few moments, lurking in the darkness and thinking over what she was going to say. Anna spared her the effort by explaining everything right away. "I'm the signal. When I hang certain pieces of clothing, they know where to go. I'm sorry, I can't tell you too much -"

Grace cut her off, grabbing her friend's hand. "Is it Caleb?"

"What?"

Grace was insistent. "It's Caleb who looks for the signal and sails over. Caleb Brewster. I haven't seen him in ages, Anna! It just makes sense. I know he's a smuggler, and who knows the shoreline of Setauket better than he does?"

Anna nodded. "Yes. He's the courier."

"Who else is involved?" Grace pressed. "Is it all our friends?"

Anna pursed her lips, thinking before divulging the secret identities of the men involved. "Ben started all of this, Ben Tallmadge. I know, you haven't seen him or heard from him in a long time either. Abe's gotten involved too. What happens is Abe finds out secrets from his father, from the soldiers, from anywhere he can get them. He has me signal for Caleb, who brings the information across to Ben. We haven't been involved in this for long, but it's already getting dangerous. Abe nearly got caught once."

Grace made a split-second decision that would end up changing her life. "I want to be involved."

"You're sure?" Anna asked, looking her friend in the eye. She could tell that she was sincere. "This is a lot to devote yourself to, you have to know that. It's not just the games we played as children."

"I don't have anything to lose, do I?" Grace questioned, trying to convince her of the brilliance of this idea. "I'm already working for a Loyalist, and I live there with the soldiers they're quartering. I'm always around them, Anna. Who would suspect a woman like me? I'm a maid - I clean. I'm not seen or heard. Even when I'm in the room, no one pays attention. People never notice maids. They continue on with their conversations as usual, they leave their letters out to dry, they put their secrets out in the open. No one questions a maid."

Anna sighed, finally assenting. "I'll tell Caleb tonight. He can talk to Ben for you, since a letter wouldn't be too safe. We'll see what he has to say about this. Just be fully sure that you want to get involved. Once you start, you can't go back on this."

Two days later, Grace held a dim lantern, standing in the middle of an old barn outside of town. The door creaked open, a familiar figure walking in. She hadn't seen him in ages, since he had signed up for the revolution and gone off to war. "Ben!" She tried to whisper, running up to throw her arms around him. "How have you been? I haven't seen you in years. I tried to write, but the letters were stopped, and I… it's been too long. I'm sorry. I've forgotten myself, I really should..."

"Alright, alright." He sat down on a bale of hay, telling her to take a seat. She set the lantern between them, sitting down across from her schoolyard friend. They'd stuck with Caleb, Abe, and Anna, even when they were all getting in trouble together. They'd grown up beside each other, and before he had died, Grace's father was lining things up for her to marry "the Tallmadge boy". Well, that was until he ran off and joined the Continental Army. She'd always had a sweet spot for him, though, even when he had been forced out of the city. "Anna says you want to work with us."

"As I told her," Grace explained, "I live and work in the home of a Loyalist magistrate. It would be easy for me to get information from him and the soldiers staying there, and easy for me to pass it on to Caleb. No one notices when a maid is in the room. We fade into the background. I could quite literally walk into an officers' meeting and no one would notice, as long as I kept dusting and polishing the furniture."

"You're sure that you want to do this?" Ben asked, analyzing her intently. "This means that you could end up on a prison ship if you get caught. A prison ship at best."

They both turned as the door creaked open again, Abe appearing in the moonlight. He closed the door quietly, coming over to where his friends sat. "Sorry I'm late. Mary just fell asleep."

"You're early," Ben told him, shaking his head. He turned back to Grace, holding his hands in the air in a gesture of defeat. "Abe, Grace here is going to be working with you, getting information from inside your father's house while you're away. He's planning to go to New York City, pretending to be studying the law while he's spying," he explained to her. "While Abe is away, you'll be in charge of getting information to Caleb from inside the Woodhull home."

"You're saying yes?" Grace beamed, looking between the two men.

"I'm saying yes," he assented, trying not to voice his reluctance. "I'll have to get this to the general, but otherwise, you should be able to function as a spy from now on. I can get you a code book soon. I'll have one sent over with Caleb, since I can't make the trip here often enough. We all have code names and numbers, and I'll make sure that I have you added to all of the copies. Abe can run you through the basics." He stood, heading for the door. "Now I have to get back to my post before anyone notices that I'm gone. Good luck, you two."

Grace and Abe waited for Ben to leave, giving him time to make his way down the road and into the darkened forest that he had emerged from earlier. Eventually, they took up their lanterns and began to head for home. "This is dangerous," Abe warned her as they walked. "Your life isn't the only one riding on your success."

"I know. We have the rest of the ring, and the rest of the cause, to think about," she gravely acknowledged, looking around to make sure they were not about to be stopped by a Tory patrol. As they passed what used to be the Strong tavern, she confided, "I've suspected Anna for a bit now. But all of you? All of our old friends, in a spy ring right under our noses? How did I not know?"

"For God's sake, don't say that aloud," Abe hissed. "Not around here."

"Sorry," she smiled apologetically. "I have to get used to this."

"I'll tell you what. Ben's invited me to a," he lowered his voice, checking to make sure they were alone on the road, "a rebel ball down in Philadelphia. Clearly, I can't leave York City without attracting attention from my father, but he knows that you have family in Pennsylvania. If you tell him that one of them is ill, he'll let you go for a few days. If you want to go, you can go with Ben. You'll learn a lot more about what we do from him than from me. It should give you time to figure out your role in all of this. Besides, I know you need more time to talk to him, after everything that's happened and everything that's been stopped in its tracks because of the war."

"Alright," she nodded as he stopped outside of the Woodhull home. "I'll tell Ben via Caleb. The first time I pass on information. But I'm not going to divulge every detail of our discussions to you and Anna, at least not yet." Abe shook his head, smiling at her before going into the house. Grace waited until she saw his lantern go out upstairs before she slipped into the house, going to bed with a head full of thoughts about rebel spies, revolution, and the fateful choice that she had made.