There was a time when Sarabeth—who was the Master’s daughter—and Lillie, who was the Master’s property, played together all the time. They played on Saturdays, when Lillie and Plato were done with their cabin chores and Mama let them go outside; they played on Sundays, when Miss Sarabeth had her afternoons free and the Missus gave her permission to go down to the slave cabins. They would sometimes even play after work was done on weekdays, when both of them had an hour or so before Lillie was called back to the cabin for a dinner of possum or fatback and Miss Sarabeth was called back to the big house for whatever grand meal she would be served that night—a meal that Lillie would ask her about the next day and that Miss Sarabeth would describe in detail, from the creamy soups to the venison or fowl to the tiny sweet cakes she and her brother would eat and the strong brown spirits the men would drink.

Nobody thought it especially strange that Lillie and Miss Sarabeth liked to play together. Plantation children of both colors often fancied one another’s company—there being few other boys or girls anywhere nearby—and it was only the sternest masters who thought it unfitting for the colors to mix when they were so young. But when the children reached Miss Sarabeth’s and Lillie’s age, it was time for the white boys and girls to start behaving like the Southern ladies and gentlemen they were becoming and the black boys and girls to start acting like the slaves they already were and would always be.

Before long, Miss Sarabeth started coming to visit Lillie less and less. While she still sometimes stopped by on the weekends, it was usually in the company of the Missus, who liked to put on fine clothes and tour the slave quarters, smiling in a way Lillie never cared for.

“They look after themselves just fine, don’t they?” the Missus would ask Sarabeth as if Lillie and the other slaves weren’t there. “Your father was right to let them build good cabins that they’d be inclined to keep well.”

It had been about a month since Miss Sarabeth had made such a visit, and it had thus been that long since she’d last set eyes on Lillie. Part of her smiled this morning as she was taking her walk along the path by the tobacco field and saw her old friend leaving Bett’s cabin—but another part frowned. Even before Miss Sarabeth drew near the cabin, she caught the scent of baking on the air. When she was small and she and Lillie would smell that smell, they would steal away from wherever they were supposed to be and run to see Bett, who would break off a piece of whatever bread or cake she was making and let them have some—always taking care to brush the crumbs off their clothes before they left, so that the fact that they’d been there at all would be a secret only the three of them shared. But after a time, Miss Sarabeth had begun to tire of the old baker woman. Bett always tried to give the girls equal helpings of bread, knowing that small children quarrel about such things. But the portions could never be exactly the same, and on those occasions that Lillie got the bigger one, Miss Sarabeth made her trade.

Lillie didn’t appear to mind at first—that was how things were supposed to be—but Bett sometimes did. A disapproving look would flash in her eyes that Miss Sarabeth found she didn’t care for at all, especially because it became clearer and clearer that Bett wasn’t trying to hide it. Worse still, Lillie began to behave the same way, flashing the same cross look Bett did. It would be there only for an instant, but Miss Sarabeth knew her friend’s face, and she didn’t like what it told her. The last time the two of them visited the cabin, Miss Sarabeth didn’t feel welcome at all, as Bett and Lillie chattered and baked and she sat sourly at the eating table, picking at the bread when it was done and wanting to be anywhere else at all. After that, she decided that it probably wasn’t fitting for her to be visiting Bett anymore. Soon, she stopped visiting Lillie too.

As Sarabeth had first approached the cabin today, the baking smell had seemed especially strong and she had drawn it in, feeling sadder than she expected to. She sometimes missed the bread and missed the warm old cabin where she used to enjoy it—even if she didn’t miss the odd old woman who lived there. It was then that she heard the door open and turned to see Lillie emerge. Bett whispered something to her and the girl smiled and ran off to who knew where else. An uncertain smile crossed Sarabeth’s face and she started to raise her hand in greeting, but neither Lillie nor Bett saw her. She had the strange feeling that even though everything around her as far as she could see belonged to her father and by rights to her too, she was tarrying somewhere she shouldn’t be.

Sarabeth was surprised at the sense of melancholy that came over her. Still, she couldn’t quite make out why Lillie would be there at all at this time of day, or what she and Bett had been whispering about. There was something going on that they didn’t want anybody else to know about, and Sarabeth decided she did not like that. Her father looked after all these slaves, and if they were up to something improper, they were worse than disobedient, they were ungrateful. When Miss Sarabeth contemplated this, she did not feel quite as melancholy anymore. What she felt was cross and sour—and suspicious too.