Pa didn’t come home last night. Mama won’t say why. I know it’s because of the black man in the cellar. 

I know Pa didn’t come home. When he’s home at night, he always tells me a story before I fall asleep. Even if he comes home late.

If I’m still awake, I stand at the top of the stairs. He sees me when he takes off his boots. Then, he comes up the stairs and tells me a story before he goes back down to Mama.  

Last night, I was going to ask him to tell me the story about John Morgan’s raid. The one when the graybacks—the Confederate soldiers—tried to ride off with Pa’s stallion, Fitch. 

Everyone knows that no one but Pa can ride Fitch, but the graybacks took all the horses they could find. Of course, Fitch was the best and fastest horse of all.

Seven soldiers tried to ride him, Pa said, but Fitch threw off every single one of them. 

Pa had walked up to Fitch's fence and pretended to be a farm hand. “You’re sitting on him wrong,” he said. “It’s such a simple thing to ride him. Let me show you.” 

He hopped up on Fitch and rode him back and forth, back and forth. “See how easy it is?” he added. Then, in the last dash, Pa didn’t turn the horse back around. Instead, he shot from the rebel gang like an arrow.

The graybacks fired their guns at Pa. He heard curses and bullets fly past his head. But Pa and Fitch were so fast that they rode far, far away.  

Pa didn’t come home last night, though. He never got to tell me that story. 

I knew there was a black man in the cellar even though I’m never supposed to know. Mama says it’s safest not to tell me. That way, I can’t accidentally tell someone at school or at church.

Pa tells her that no one at school or church would mind. Mama says you never know. Even today, in Ohio, you just never can know.  

When I do know there’s a black man in the cellar, I never say anything to anyone about it. Not even Mama. Sometimes, it’s women in the cellar. One time, I even heard a baby crying down there. 

Last night, the black man in the cellar didn’t really look black. He looked like me. Pa says even a black man can look white in this country.

All it takes is one drop of blood. All it takes is one cruel slave owner taking advantage of a black slave girl. Even her children’s children will be black. But Mama says I’m too young to hear talk like that.

Now, I know why some of the black men in the cellar look white. I wonder if that makes it easier for them to run away. I was going to ask Clark—the man in the cellar last night—but now he’s gone. And Pa didn’t come home. 

I climb downstairs into the kitchen where Mama already has a fire in the woodstove. She stirs oatmeal in a big black pot. On any other Saturday, there would be bacon frying and biscuits rising in the oven. Also, Mama would let me crack eggs into the big mixing bowl. 

“Alta,” she says when she sees me on the stairs. “Come stir the oats. When your brother and sisters come down, feed them. Don’t let them sleep much longer. Can you do that?” 

I nod. “Where are you going?” 

Mama turns her head to the window. It looks out over a hill and down the long road to town. The sun just now peeks up over the hills. It lights up the frost on the window panes.