Hometown Hero [A Carving the Way book]

II.

I sit at my desk late at night, the rain splattering on the window and drowning out the silence in the rest of the house. My candle sputters beside me. I'm counting on it to stay lit. It's the only thing I have to write by.

Normally, words come to mind perfectly, creating an argument against the Crown easily. But tonight, I struggle to find the right words to say what I want to.

I've never been good at writing from my emotions. But I soon realize that's my only choice. Without the usual words of wisdom I welcome on a nightly basis, I am stuck relying on my faulty, very much human emotions.

Lord, let me find the right words, I pray. And I put pen to paper.

◈

The next morning, my paper is folded in my pocket. I feel like someone had painted a target on my back. I try not to meet gazes too pointedly, but I try not to avoid them, either. I slip quietly into the house of the publisher of the paper, drop off my article, then get out as quickly as possible. I don't want to be seen.

I know the paper will publish my article as quickly as possible. They help me stay hidden from my father and other Loyalists who hate the writings that crop up in the paper, written by someone who calls himself Prospero—after William Shakespear's own, of course.

Absorbed in my worrying thoughts of what would happen should I be discovered, I don't notice the slave girl in front of me until I smack into her.

"Oh! I'm so sorry," I say.

"It's not your fault, sir," she says, her voice shaking. "I did it, sir, I—"

"No, no," I protest. "It is my fault. I wasn't paying attention, I walked into you." I kneel and help her pick up all her belongings. "Here you are, miss."

"Thank you, sir," she says, staring up at me with an expression of horror. Then she hurries off, going as if I had slapped her. I frown after her.

◈

It is only later that night when the paper arrives at our door. I retrieve it at my father's order, scanning quickly for my article—

There. The Threat of War by Prospero.

"Here, Father," I say, pretending to have never looked at the paper. I go to pass it to him, but he waves it away.

"I'll read it later." 

"Is there anything from that Patriot writer, Prospero?" Uncle Philip asks, an eager glint in his eyes. If he'd known I was Prospero, I know I would be grinning from ear to ear, but for now, I can only settle for a sense of pride.

I pretend to scan the paper. "Hmmm...yes..."

"Let's hear it, then!"

"No," my father snaps. 

Sarah's eyes flick up to mine, our argument from the night before fresh in my mind.

"I'll not have my son read Patriot garbage," he says snootily.

"You're not having him read it, I am!" Uncle Philip argues. "Come on, James. Give it a read."

"He won't be reading it," my father growls. I can sense the argument coming on. Even without a cue from my parents, I gather my siblings and we hurry out. Sarah and her siblings follow us.

We sit in the living room again, waiting for the storm of words and raised voices to pass.

"That's the article you wrote last night, yes?" Sarah asks me in a low voice.

"Yes," I agree. 

"How does it get published so fast?"

I give her a look and keep my mouth shut.

"Right. Secret."

"Secret," I agree.

"You're going to keep writing?"

I met Sarah's eyes. "Without a doubt."