As it turned out, it was time for lunch.
James and Henri were rushed and quiet at luncheon and the moment James put down his fork he was already pushing back his chair. "I'm going to go see Sarah."
Mrs. Adams frowned slightly but nodded. "Alright. First see if she's awake and for goodness sakes don't get too close. We don't need you sick too."
"Alright." said James, and left.
Mrs. Adams excused the boys, who Laura shoed out of the room. Nabby continued to eat and pretended she wasn't listening. Mrs. Adams turned her gaze to Henri.
"Henri, how long has Sarah been with you and James?"
"Um..." Henri counted on his fingers in an effort to do it in English. "She was here in December. Ze night of ze destruction of ze tea. Now it's March first. So three months."
"Do they seem...fond of each other?"
Henri wrinkled his nose. "Zhey mostly argue. Sometimes zhey're friends. Zames helped with Zharah's locket." he finished cryptically.
Mrs. Adams nodded. She had worn a slightly concerned look on her face the entire time. "So you three were alone when you were traveling. Together."
Henri nodded, blinking.
"Henri, I know you like both of your friends very much and you may have made a promise..."
"What?" Henri looked confused.
"Is there anything I need to know about concerning your friends?"
"Well," Henri thought hard. "Zharah's a crackpate when she thinks we aren't 'mannerly'."
Meanwhile
Sarah was turning the letter over in her hands when James came running in. She shoved it underneath her coverlet. "Thank you for knocking."
James rolled his eyes. "We all have bigger problems." he squinted at her for a moment and she resisted putting one hand up to touch her hair. "Are you sure you're alright? You look awful." because Sarah did. She had bags under her eyes and her skin was somewhere between white and gray.
"Well, thank you for the compliment. I'm fine." Sarah said, a bit irritably. She attempted to shake off the feeling. Why did it even matter to her? "What are you talking about?" she coughed.
"Dr. Franklin is still awaiting release." James said. "Apparently they're going to keep him until they can find some poor man who was connected with him to say he 'influenced'."
"Like who?" asked Sarah skeptically.
"Any of our informants would do. But Dr. Franklin doesn't advertise them."
"Could they find a list? Is there one back at the shop?" asked Sarah.
"No, but you know some of the names—a few of the men who live in Philadelphia have been to the shop before." replied James.
"This is the most complicated mess I've been in." said Sarah. A long cough wracked her body. James took a step back. When Sarah stopped coughing in the way that scared him a little, he wanted to say something to make both of them feel better, but he couldn't think of anything.
"I know." He sighed. "You can go to sleep. Mostly everyone will soon." even though it was barely six. Alright, so it was a lie.
Sarah nodded and lowered herself back onto the pillow, staring at the ceiling. "Alright." then she raised her head again, propping herself up on her elbows. "James?"
He turned around.
"You went reporting this afternoon, didn't you? That's how you know this?"
"Don't tell—" his warning was cut off by Sarah coughing. When she regained her breath she nodded.
"I'm not going to. But don't—don't...please be careful. Don't hurt yourself. Or Henri. For the Lord's sake keep an eye on him here please."
"I will." said James. "I'm not going to let anyone hurt any of us." but even while speaking them his words sounded tinny and delusional. Because, really, James was just a fourteen year old boy in the end, and he couldn't manage to work for an hour without ruining his shirt, and Sarah could burn water when she tried to make tea, and Henri couldn't even do arithmetic without speaking it aloud in French, and what could people—what could children like that do to change anything?
But Sarah's mouth turned up slightly anyway as she closed her eyes.
Six Days Later
"James?" Sarah called into the darkening evening. There were only a few people about, still, and even though James had said he would be back early on their first day allowed out of the house, it was nearly seven.
"Zames?" Henri yelled. Sarah nudged him.
"Not so loud. Come on, let's go forward. Maybe he'll meet us." in the back of her mind, though, Sarah was worried. If anything had happened to James...well, it was just about the only thing that hadn't gone wrong yet with this awful trip to America.
"Do you hear zhat?" asked Henri presently. Suddenly the sound of pounding feet snapped Sarah's head up. She breathed a tiny sigh of relief when she saw that it was James, who immediately grabbed the other two children by the shoulders.
"James!" Sarah struggled against his hand but he was too excited to care.
"Henri, Sarah, we have to go to the dockyard now. There's a huge story happening!"
Henri jumped up eagerly. "What zort of ztory?" Sarah was just beginning to threaten to take him back to Mrs. Adams' house when James's words caught up with her.
"It's another destruction of tea!"
"What?" shock flittered across both of James' companions' faces.
Impatiently, he turned back to them and crossed his arms, wanting to go and see the action.
"Some men have dressed up like Indians and are going to destroy more tea. I heard them talking. There's a lot of them, and the ship is called the Fortune—can't we go now?"
"Why?" Sarah looked almost as outraged as she first had when she realized that the uncomfortable supply ship she had been forced to bored at the last moment was being attacked by some very patriotic Indians. "What are the Americans trying to say now?"
"It's the same message as last time. The Americans can destroy whatever they please in Boston no matter how many soldiers are there! This is real news—"
"That should be printed in a real newspaper, one that we are lacking in right now." Sarah crossed her arms. As Henri interrogated James about all he had heard of this 'tea party', Sarah looked out past James, wondering if she could see some speck of movement in the dark streets.
Sarah didn't really like being in a dark, mostly-deserted street at night. She liked it less with British soldiers on alert for trouble. But she wanted even less to go see the second 'tea party' (or another patriot, possibly ever, or at least until breakfast.) The very thought made her sick, and she closed her eyes tightly. She could feel the letter in her sleeve like it was made of lead.
"Sa–rah!" James half-whined, impatient. Henri was now as willing as anyone to go with him and Sarah considered the alternative, which was walking back to the house in the dark.
"I'm coming." she resigned herself with a sigh and followed James. "But we have to stay together." she grabbed Henri's hand. "If someone gets lost we're going to be in trouble."
Which was only half of the reason but good enough for James and Henri.
"Why do I feel like this is history repeating itself?" she muttered to James as he walked on her other side.
"No idea." sniped James. "You're not on the boat, and this time you might have a faint idea of how to act around redcoats."
Crazed horses or not, Sarah rolled her eyes.
The three friends reached the dock yard, and sure enough, it looked like a small scale version of the Boston Tea Party that had happened that December. James and Henri immediately ran forward. Sarah grabbed them both by the backs of the shirt.
"What are you doing?"
"Getting closer. I can barely see from here."
"Good. Then maybe when the British soldiers come they won't see us."
"Sarah, we have to get closer to learn all the facts. You can stay here if you want." James blinked. "Are...you alright?"
"I'm fine." snapped Sarah, fighting against panic rising up in her throat. A very large part of her wanted to ask/beg/threaten them back to the house with her but she was certain they wouldn't listen. She crossed her arms, fingernails digging into her own skin. "And—and I think I shall be equally fine over there." she nodded to the edge of the dockyard, where the two crates and a building made it impossible for anyone to see her before walking away as fast as she could.
"Zharah!" Henri called after her, but James lay a hand on his shoulder.
"I think Sarah'll be fine." he said uncertainly. "Come on.
The two boys ran towards the Tea Party.
Sarah ducked into the corner, sat down on a smaller crate, and burst into tears.
In general, Sarah was not a crier. In fact, she never cried at home when she fell down or felt sad; she preferred to sit and be lonely for a time to make herself feel better. But this felt like it had been a long time coming.
She
hated
this.
The lying, the walking, the running away, the disobeying British orders, the letter.
The letter.
The...imbecilic...letter. Sarah tugged it out of her stays. It was rather warm from being worn so close to her body for so long, and she peeled the seal up and wiped her eyes, sniffing. She began to read. Pleasantries. Flowery speech that said nothing. Her eyes skimmed to the middle of the page.
A List of Witnesses or Examples to be brought in the Case against him is following. These Colonists may also be tried for Treason.
A list of names. Sarah bit her lip and began to read through them carefully, hoping they would all be unfamiliar, when suddenly she stopped at the name Mangus Shofer of Germantown Pennsylvania.
She knew the man was a Patriot, because he had visited Dr. Franklin before to discuss it. The man was German, James had told her, and she remembered because Henri had never heard a German accent before...
Oh, no.
Two decisions. She could give the letter to the general who wanted it. Mr. Shofer would probably be arrested. Dr. Franklin would probably have a very hard time getting out of England (ever again). But it would be what her father would have done—and what she would have done, except she looked at the letter.
Wouldn't she have?
She shook her head. This was too much to think about. The other option was not to give the letter to him. Colonel Brandon would get in trouble. If her father was there, he would be disappointed to her too. But Mr. Shofer wouldn't be arrested, and neither would any of these other men. There would be no one to use in the case against Dr. Franklin. And by the time they could make up another list Dr. Franklin might be free.
Sarah peeled off the seal completely and stared at it in the bright moonlight. Whoever had written this letter had a coat of arms with a wolf and a rose. A few minutes passed as she stared at the little piece of wax.
I'm not going to let anyone hurt any of us.
Would she?
And then she picked up the letter and ripped it from the top down. She ripped the two pieces again, several times, until they were small enough that only fragments of the words could be seen. She stared at the pieces in her hands.
"Sarah?"
She looked up. It was James. "Oh. I thought you were at the Tea Party."
"I was. I am. Henri wanted me to see if you were alright."
"I'm fine." she nodded her head, sitting back down. "I don't want the British soldiers to—well, I might know them." it was a flimsy excuse. She only knew a handful. But even so.
"Is there anything wrong?" James squinted slightly at her red eyes. Sarah moved the tiny scraps behind her back.
"No. No. It's not important."
"Oh." James nodded. The sounds of yelling filled the air behind them. He turned to go back to Henri.
"Wait, James." James turned.
"That's not true. I mean, I am alright. But there is something wrong. And it does matter. Actually, it's...very important."
"It is?" James frowned.
"Colonel Brandon gave me a letter. To give to a General Conway here in Boston, I mean."
"What did it say?" James asked.
"It mentioned a few names of people who might be used in the case against Dr. Franklin." said Sarah very quietly. "And at least one of them was real."
"What?" James leapt up. "Sarah, you can't—"
"I didn't." she said, a touch despondent. "It's right here." she held up the pieces. "Here, why don't you take it?" she dropped the scraps into his hand.
"Sarah, you—" she smiled a little sadly and looked down, her arms wrapped around her for warmth.
"It's not to help the zealots, you know. Or...or to encourage...encourage sedition. It's..." Sarah didn't even know why but her voice was cracking and tears were welling up in her eyes. It had been a terrible night and she was just so confused. She forced her voice to stay steady. "But that doesn't mean I won't help Dr. Franklin—and you and Henri and Moses...if I can."
James looked at the papers in his hands and didn't really know what he was supposed to say. Sarah looked nervously towards the dockyards. "Can we go back to the house now? Please?"
"...alright." said James. It was the least he could do. "I'll get Henri."
Sarah stood up to prepare to leave and James to find Henri. As they began to go in separate directions James looked over his shoulder.
"Sarah?" she turned. "Thank you."
She smiled wanly. "You're welcome. But I wish I wouldn't get Colonel Brandon in trouble with the General."
James nodded before an idea stuck him. "Maybe you won't have to."
PAGE BREAK HERE
"I hope Mrs. Adams won't be angry with us for being late." said Henri, yawning. It was really too late for any of the children to be up as they opened the door of Mrs. Adams' house.
"Where is everyone?" wondered James out loud as he walked through the empty kitchen and dining room.
"Nabby and the boys are probably asleep." said Sarah.
"I hear zomething." said Henri, tilting his head. Sarah and James also realized that there were voices coming from the front sitting room. James made to open the door.
"Knock first." insisted Sarah. He did so.
"Come in!" it was Mrs. Adams. James pushed the door open and all three children froze for a moment.
Suddenly Henri broke away from his friends and ran at the guest. "Moses!"
There really was a second, unsuccessful tea party. Cross mah heart