The thread collectors, p.1
The Thread Collectors, page 1
Advance Praise for The Thread Collectors
“The Thread Collectors is a gift—not only for lovers of historical fiction, but for readers everywhere who search for hidden truths behind the facts we think we know. Like the fearless, sensitive, and resourceful women they write about, Edwards and Richman have stitched together a glorious tapestry of resilience, survival, friendship, and love. This is a Civil War story unlike any other—a story readers will treasure from the very first page.”
—Lynda Cohen Loigman, USA TODAY bestselling author of The Two-Family House
“In their transfixing novel, Edwards and Richman offer a vibrant tapestry of characters whose lives have been shattered by slavery and civil war, yet find a tenuous connection in scraps of fabric that symbolize hope, love, even escape. Both heartbreaking and thrilling... I dare you to put this novel down as it hurtles toward its riveting conclusion.”
—Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Magnolia Palace
“The Thread Collectors is a brilliant story brimming with unexpected friendships and family ties that fed my soul. Historically sound and beautifully stitched, it is a story that will stay with you long after the last page is turned.”
—Sadeqa Johnson, internationally bestselling author of Yellow Wife
“The Thread Collectors is the original story of a Black woman in New Orleans and a Jewish woman in New York, both of whom are fighting for the cause of freedom and Union victory through their needlework during the Civil War. Their lives converge in unexpected ways in an unforgettable story of female strength, hope and friendship. This collaborative work is magnificent—a true revelation!”
—Pam Jenoff, New York Times bestselling author of The Woman with the Blue Star
The Thread Collectors
A Novel
Shaunna J. Edwards
and Alyson Richman
For my original Stella and my future Wade.
—Shaunna J. Edwards
To my family, who fill me with love and stories.
—Alyson Richman
Shaunna J. Edwards has a BA in literature from Harvard College and a JD from NYU School of Law. A former corporate lawyer, she now works in diversity, equity and inclusion. She is a native Louisianian, raised in New Orleans, and currently lives in Harlem with her husband. The Thread Collectors is her first novel. Find her on Instagram, @shaunnajedwards.
Alyson Richman is the USA TODAY bestselling and #1 internationally bestselling author of several historical novels, including The Velvet Hours, The Garden of Letters and The Lost Wife, which is currently in development for a major motion picture. Alyson graduated from Wellesley College with a degree in art history and Japanese studies. She is an accomplished painter, and her novels combine her deep love of art, historical research and travel. Alyson’s novels have been published in twenty-five languages and have reached bestseller lists both in the United States and abroad. She lives on Long Island with her husband and two children, where she is currently at work on her next novel. Find her on Instagram, @alysonrichman, or her website, alysonrichman.com.
Contents
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Part Two
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Letter
Chapter 29
Letter
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Part Three
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Authors' Note
The Thread Collectors
Questions for Discussion
“If you don’t know where you’re going, you should know where you come from.”
—Gullah Geechee proverb
Part One
1
New Orleans, Louisiana
March 1863
She opens the door to the Creole cottage just wide enough to ensure it is truly him. Outside, the pale moon is high in the sky, illuminating only half of William’s face. Stella reaches for his sleeve and pulls him inside.
He is dressed to run. He wears his good clothes, but has chosen his attire thoughtfully, ensuring the colors will camouflage in the wilderness that immediately surrounds the city. In his hand, he clasps a brown canvas case. They have only spoken in whispers during their clandestine meetings about his desire to fight. To flee. The city of New Orleans teeters on the precipice of chaos, barely contained by the Union forces occupying the streets. Homes abandoned. Businesses boarded up. Stella’s master comes back from the front every six weeks, each time seeming more battered, bitter and restless than the last.
William sets down his bag and draws Stella close into his chest, his heartbeat accelerating. He lifts a single, slim finger, slowly tracing the contours of her face, trying to memorize her one last time.
“You stay here, no matter what...” he murmurs into her ear. “You must keep safe. And for a woman like you, better to hide and stay unseen than venture out there.”
In the shadows, he sees her eyes shimmer. But she balances the tears from falling, an art she had been taught long ago—when she learned that survival, not happiness, was the real prize.
Stella slips momentarily from William’s arms. She tiptoes toward a small wooden chest. From the top drawer, she retrieves a delicate handkerchief with a single violet embroidered in its center. With materials in the city now so scarce, she has had to use the dark blue thread from her skirt’s hem to stitch the tiny flower on a swatch of white cotton cut from her petticoat.
“So you know you’re never alone out there,” she says as she closes William’s fingers around the kerchief.
He has brought something for her, too. A small speckled cowrie shell that he slips from a worn indigo-colored pouch. The shell and its cotton purse are his two most sacred possessions in the world. He puts the pouch, now empty, back into his pocket.
“I’ll be coming back for that, Stella.” William smiles as he looks down at the talisman in his beloved’s hand. “And for you, too... Everything will be different soon.”
She nods, takes the shell and feels its smooth lip against her palm. There was a time such cowries were used as a form of currency for their people, shells threaded on pieces of string exchanged for precious goods. Now this shell is both worthless and priceless as it’s exchanged for safekeeping between the lovers.
There is no clock in her small home. William, too, wears no watch. Yet both of them know they have already tarried too long. He must set out before there is even a trace of sunlight and, even then, his journey will be fraught with danger.
“Go, William,” she says, pushing him out the door. Her heart breaks, knowing the only protection she can offer him is a simple handkerchief. Her love stitched into it by her hand.
He leaves as stealthily as he arrived, a whisper in the night. Stella falls back into the shadows of her cottage. She treads silently toward her bedroom, hoping to wrap herself tightly in the folds of the quilt that brings her so much comfort.
“You alright?” A soft sound emerges in the dark.
“Ammanee?” Stella’s voice breaks as she says the woman’s name.
“Yes, I’m here.” Ammanee enters the room, her face brightened by a small wax candle in her grip.
In the golden light, she sits down on the bed and reaches for Stella’s hand still clutching the tiny shell, which leaves a deep imprint in her palm.
“Willie strong,” Ammanee says over
Stella doesn’t answer. A flicker of pain stabs her from the inside, and she finally allows her tears to run.
2
Camp Parapet
Jefferson, Louisiana
The ten miles’ journey from New Orleans to the army camp that was perched between Lake Pontchartrain and the river had been treacherous and lengthy. William avoided all roads at any cost, regardless of whether they were dirt or paved. He didn’t know when his mas’ would discover that he had fled—but he was all too aware of the slave catchers camped right outside the city.
Any man they captured would suffer greatly. Lashings that ripped the skin off their back, fleur-de-lis brands marking the bearer as untrustworthy. And for those with particularly brutal masters—with enough slaves to spare—bodies doused with kerosene and lit on fire, their burning flesh a reminder to the others on the plantation that it was never worth it to run.
He took the route that Stella had advised, first through the swampland, then hugging the bayous and creeping through boggy marshes and wetlands that had to be navigated to reach higher ground. The roots of bald cypress trees and tupelo gums intertwined beneath the murky water of the ravines, causing William to stumble countless times.
He had nearly been caught three times since he’d left Stella, but he kept running, hearing her voice in his head urging him on. He was driven by his mother’s spirit, too, each stretch toward freedom defying those who’d robbed her of her song. In the hour right before dawn, the sound of barking dogs was dangerously close. He threw himself into the fetid water, hoping to evade the bloodhounds, shivering until the patrollers finally moved away.
He reached the enlistment camp by daybreak, where he found hundreds of men already in line eager to join the Union cause. Some had traveled for days, through back alleys or the more dangerous open fields. Like William, all of them had to evade mercenaries eager to beat and shackle them before returning them to their masters for a rich reward.
The man in front of William stood barefoot, the cuffs of his pants reduced to a ragged edge of fringe. Fingers balled at his sides, he inched up the snaking line to the medical surgeon’s tent, leaving a stamp of blood with each step. The dry earth, greedy for every ounce of moisture, drank the man’s dark footprint almost instantly, only to have it replaced with another.
“Next!” Outside the mouth of the tent’s entrance, one of the Union soldiers waved another man inside.
William looked down at his own narrow feet. The pair of waterlogged and sweat-stained calfskin oxfords he had on were not the typical shoes of a “contraband” man running from slavery. His herringbone trousers had a gash down the side. His tweed jacket was ripped at the elbow, and somewhere between New Orleans and Jefferson County he had lost his hat. Yet, despite his harrowing journey, his shoes remained miraculously intact.
Inside his jacket, tucked within the pocket of his waistcoat, he located the handkerchief Stella had embroidered. He surreptitiously ran his fingers over the small flower she’d stitched carefully with blue thread. Even now, with the stench of rot and death heavy in the air, the buzzing of flies, and the intense hunger in his belly, thoughts of Stella were his constant companions. He brought the white cotton cloth to his nose and inhaled it, desperately searching for the last traces of her distinct scent. William knew breath was not something that always came from the lungs, but could break forth from the heart and mind as well, filling a body with life when it needed it most.
In the corner of the tent where William was told to undress, Jacob Kling sat bent over a thick ledger. Dark curls sprouted from beneath his navy cap, and a smudge of black ink stained his index finger as he recorded the medical surgeon’s clinical observations about the prior recruit. Twenty-two years old. Negro. 5'9". Weight 175 pounds. Despite superficial wound to left foot, a solid build and determined spirit. Qualified for military duty.
The medical surgeon chose his words carefully when Jacob first arrived at the examination tent to assist with the note-taking. “It’s a sorry situation. We can’t accept every man who wants to join up, despite the lengths they may have taken to get here,” he explained as he opened his black leather physician’s bag and arranged his tools on a side table. “The army asks me to separate out the strong from the weak. I have given up trying to determine whether a man is a fugitive,” the doctor remarked, noting the futility of dividing the recently emancipated from those who had fled from bondage. “Remember, these men will not be lifting muskets, but rather wielding shovels, pickaxes and hoes. We can only take the ones who are free from both bodily defects and have sufficient sense to follow orders.” He cleared his throat and pulled at his ash-colored beard. “In other words, Private Kling, my job is rather straightforward. It is not to choose who is in every way good, but to reject who is positively unfit.”
The doctor always began his examinations with each candidate’s head, ears and eyes, and then continued on to inspect their teeth, neck and chest. He also checked their hands and feet over carefully. Earlier that morning, a young man had taken off his shirt, and both Jacob and the doctor had found it impossible to keep their composure when they saw a thick blanket of scar tissue covering the man’s back. The man tried to bring his hands above his head, but the painful scars limited his range of motion. His arms only lifted halfway, his hands barely reaching the level of his ears.
Now, as William entered the tent, the doctor readjusted his focus. His eyes fell on William’s shoes and his once-elegant but now-damaged clothes.
“Don’t just stand there... Get undressed so I can examine you.”
William placed down his satchel, removed his jacket, and slowly began to unbutton his vest and shirt. He knew he was far slighter than nearly every other man in line that afternoon. Having never worked a field, his body had not obtained the thick ropes of muscles his fellow slaves had developed. Instead, when he had been six years old, he had been plucked from his mama’s pallet and delivered to the big house to amuse the master’s wife with his nascent talent.
The doctor placed a stethoscope upon William’s chest.
“Heart and lungs clear,” the doctor said. “Slight build, fit for service.”
He turned over William’s palms. “How oddly free of calluses,” he muttered underneath his breath. “Any skills?”
“Musician, sir,” William answered quietly. But the doctor was no longer listening.
3
Upon hearing the word musician, the young private’s ears perked up. Jacob Kling looked up from his ledger and put down his pen. He knew he wasn’t supposed to speak during these examinations, but the words escaped his mouth before he could stop them.
“What instrument?”
William’s eyes flickered. “I play the flute, sir.”
Jacob suddenly felt the haze of the last three days dissipate. For a moment, he was not just a lowly helper assisting the medical surgeon with his intake of new Black recruits, but a musician transported back with his fellow bandmates, his cornet between his fingers, filling the air with music as he ignited the spirits of the infantrymen marching into battle. And that moment brought him even further back, to his early days with Lily, his beloved wife, finding passion through a shared love of melody.
Jacob Kling bought his sheet music at only one place in New York, the Kahn Music Store on lower Fifth Avenue. It wasn’t just because it was the largest shop of its kind. Or that Arthur Kahn, a German Jewish immigrant, had launched a dazzling empire from his Brooklyn warehouse by printing thousands of pages of music that were then shipped up and down the Eastern seaboard. It was because Jacob knew that if he orchestrated his timing just right, a quality that as a musician he possessed in great measure, he would see the beautiful Lily Kahn exiting from the back office and catch a glimpse of her copper hair and radiant smile.
The first time he saw her, he assumed she was visiting her father. He had no idea about the secret meetings she held there. The ones behind the black velvet curtain, down the narrow staircase, in a dimly lit storage cellar. That revelation would come later, after he had finally managed to capture her attention one afternoon when he positioned himself near the back of the store.
