The answer to who had been helping her came three days after the dinner at Mount Vernon.
Amara was in the study, reviewing depositions that Mr. Power had sent over—statements from neighbors attesting to her "erratic behavior" and "unnatural sympathy" toward the enslaved workers. The language made her sick, but she forced herself to read every word.
Know your enemy. Know their arguments. Be ready.
A knock at the door interrupted her.
"Mistress?" Sally's voice, oddly hesitant. "There's someone to see you. She says it's urgent."
"Who?"
"Old Jenny, Mistress."
Amara frowned. Jenny rarely came to the main house uninvited. She set down the papers.
"Send her in."
Jenny entered slowly, her movements stiff with age and something else—nervousness, maybe. She closed the door behind her and stood with her hands clasped in front of her, not meeting Amara's eyes.
"Jenny. What is it?"
A long pause.
"I need to tell you something, Mistress. Something I should have told you weeks ago."
Amara's heart rate spiked. "Go on."
"The notes. The ones you've been finding." Jenny finally looked up. "I left them."
The silence stretched.
Amara stared at the old woman—this woman who'd been in the Custis household for thirty years, who'd cooked meals and kept secrets and watched generations come and go.
"You."
"Me."
"Why?"
Jenny sat down—uninvited, but Amara didn't object. Her hands were trembling.
"Because I've been watching you since you arrived. Watching you change things. Help people." Jenny's voice was quiet but steady. "At first I thought it was a trick. Some game white people play to make themselves feel better. But then I saw you with Ruth. With Pearl. With the children."
"That doesn't explain why you left the notes."
"I left them because you needed help." Jenny met her eyes. "Grimes has had people watching you since the day you arrived. Thomas, yes—but others too. Josiah. A woman named Hannah who works in the laundry. They report everything you do, everyone you talk to."
Hannah. The laundry. Someone I never suspected.
"And you knew about this?"
"I know everything that happens in this house, Mistress. I've survived thirty years by knowing." Jenny's voice hardened slightly. "You think I've lasted this long by being ignorant? I know which floorboards creak and which ones don't. I know who sleeps with whom and who hates whom and who's planning what. Knowledge is how we survive."
Amara leaned back in her chair, processing.
"So you decided to help me. Why?"
"Because you're different." Jenny's eyes were fierce now—more emotion than Amara had ever seen from her. "I've watched five different mistresses come through this house. Some were cruel. Some were kind. But none of them—not one—ever looked at us like we were people. Like our lives mattered."
"I'm not—"
"Don't." Jenny cut her off. "Don't tell me you're not special. Don't tell me you're just doing what anyone would do. Because that's not true and we both know it." She paused. "Something happened to you during that fever. I don't know what. But you came out of it different. Like you suddenly saw what was right in front of you all along."
She doesn't know the truth. But she's figured out that something changed.
"So you've been helping me. Leaving notes. Warning me about Thomas."
"Yes."
"And you know who the other spies are."
"Hannah, for certain. Josiah, probably. There may be others I don't know about—Grimes is careful." Jenny hesitated. "But there's something else. Something worse."
"What?"
"Grimes has been meeting with someone from outside. A man from Williamsburg. They meet at night, in the overseer's cottage." Jenny's voice dropped. "I don't know who he is. But they're planning something. Something bigger than just watching you."
Someone from Williamsburg. A lawyer? A politician? One of John's allies?
"Do you know when they meet?"
"Every Thursday. After midnight."
Today was Wednesday.
Amara spent the rest of the day preparing.
She told no one what she was planning—not Breechy, not Elias, not even Jenny. The fewer people who knew, the fewer who could be implicated if something went wrong.
And something might very well go wrong.
At eleven that night, she dressed in dark clothes and slipped out of the house. The path to the overseer's cottage was familiar now—she'd walked it in her mind a hundred times, planning this moment.
The night was cold, the moon hidden behind clouds. Perfect darkness for what she needed to do.
She found a hiding spot behind a storage shed, close enough to see the cottage door but far enough to remain invisible. And she waited.
Midnight came and went. Then half past.
Just as she was beginning to think Jenny had been wrong, she saw the light.
A lantern, bobbing through the darkness. Coming from the direction of the main road.
A figure emerged—a man, tall, wearing a hat pulled low over his face. He approached the cottage door and knocked—three quick raps, then two slow ones. A signal.
The door opened. Grimes stood silhouetted in the lamplight, his face obscured by shadow.
"You're late," Grimes said.
"The roads were difficult." The visitor's voice was cultured, educated. "But I bring news."
They went inside. The door closed.
Amara waited a moment, then crept closer. The cottage had a window on the far side—small, high up, but if she could get close enough...
She pressed herself against the wall beneath the window. Voices drifted down, muffled but audible.
"...the petition is proceeding as planned. John Custis has secured three additional witnesses."
"Will it be enough?"
"Possibly. But we need more. Concrete evidence of her instability—something the court can't ignore."
"What do you suggest?"
A pause.
"An incident. Something that demonstrates her inability to maintain order." The visitor's voice was cool, calculating. "If one of the workers were to... misbehave... and she failed to respond appropriately..."
"You want me to arrange a rebellion?"
"Nothing so dramatic. Just... unrest. Something that makes the neighbors nervous. Something that proves John's claims about her mismanagement."
Amara's blood ran cold.
They're planning to manufacture a crisis. Stage something that makes me look incompetent—or worse.
"It would have to be handled carefully," Grimes said. "She's been building alliances among the workers. If they suspect—"
"They won't suspect. You'll use the ones you've already turned. Thomas. Hannah." A pause. "Make it look spontaneous. A dispute that escalates. A theft that goes wrong. Something that requires a firm response—a response she won't give."
"And when she doesn't respond?"
"Then we have our evidence. A plantation mistress who can't maintain discipline. Who lets her workers run wild. Who puts everyone at risk with her... sentimentality."
Grimes laughed—a low, unpleasant sound.
"It might work."
"It will work. Just give me two weeks to prepare the legal groundwork." The visitor's chair scraped against the floor. "In the meantime, keep watching her. Document everything. And Grimes—" His voice hardened. "—don't underestimate her. She's smarter than she looks."
"I know. That's what makes this interesting."
Amara crept back to the main house, her mind racing.
Two weeks. They're going to manufacture an incident in two weeks.
But now I know. Now I can prepare.
She didn't sleep that night. Instead, she sat at her desk, writing.
A letter to Mr. Power, warning him about the conspiracy without revealing how she'd learned of it.
A note to Breechy, instructing him to watch Hannah and report any unusual behavior.
A message to Elias—coded, in case it was intercepted—telling him to warn the others that something was coming.
By dawn, she had a plan.
They want to create chaos? Fine. But I'll be ready for it.
And when it comes, I'll turn it against them.