The Thread Collectors

In August, a pipe bomb explodes near the Union headquarters in New Orleans, killing two men. Stella and Ammanee suspect that Frye and his co-conspirators from St. Anthony’s planted the bomb. Stella hopes that Frye will leave her alone forever, but Ammanee reminds her that they still need Frye to put food on the table. She leaves to visit Benjamin, who has promised to give them some cornmeal.

When Ammanee returns from Benjamin’s, Stella tries to engage her in conversation about her relationship, but Ammanee shuts her down. She reminds Stella that their different skin tones mean they exist in different realities. While Stella is Frye’s mistress, Ammanee is his property. She sees no hope in a future for herself and Benjamin.

Jacob reads Lily’s latest letter, which informs him that she is moving back in with her father; after the Draft Riots, Arthur Kahn no longer feels comfortable with his daughter living alone in the Manhattan apartment. Jacob wishes he could take care of Lily himself.

That week, Jacob is dispatched to play at several field hospitals, where the sight of maimed and dying soldiers overwhelms him. On Wednesday, he fasts for Yom Kippur, feeling that it is especially important to honor life while surrounded by so much death. That evening, he vents to William about the horrors he’s seen, asking, “[W]hat’s left of a man if he’s all cut up?” (154). William replies that as an enslaved person, he is used to not feeling like his body belongs to him. He tells Jacob about Righter burning out his mother’s tongue and relates other anecdotes about enslaved men being mutilated and lynched.

Another Black soldier approaches the two men and inquires suspiciously about Jacob’s presence. He advises Jacob to “hang out with his own” (155). Jacob replies that William and Teddy are “his own.”

Frye grows angrier with each visit to the cottage. Stella’s pregnancy disgusts him, and he no longer wants to have sex with her. Ammanee warns Stella that Frye’s contributions at St. Anthony’s are becoming increasingly manic—recently, he has been talking about mailing disease-covered rags and bombs to Union headquarters. Deacon Dupont has requested that the men stop meeting at the church, not wanting to encourage any more violence.

Stella and her family attend a Sunday service at St. Anthony’s. Afterward, Miss Emilienne tells Stella that she served as the de facto midwife on Rampart Street and would be happy to help Stella when the time comes.

A month before her expected due date, Stella wakes to contractions. Ammanee fetches Miss Emilienne and Janie, and together the three women help Stella deliver a healthy baby boy. On seeing her son’s dark skin, Stella knows immediately that William is his father. She names him Wade. Ammanee tucks Wade into Stella’s embroidered swaddling cloth, noting that the baby is “already protected” by her blue thread.

In the month following Wade’s birth, Stella stays near him all the time. Caring for her son makes her feel closer to William and renews her hope for his safe return. Stella’s old Rampart Street neighbors bring her gifts, food, and advice.

One night in November, Frye awakes Stella, arriving at the cottage drunk and bleeding heavily. He attributes his injury to a pipe bomb he was constructing, which went off prematurely. Frye lashes out angrily at Ammanee, demanding that she and Stella take care of him before falling unconscious.

While Frye is unconscious, Ammanee hides Wade in a drawer in Stella’s bedroom. The women clean and bandage Frye’s wound. Stella worries about what will happen when he awakes to see that she is no longer pregnant, but Ammanee promises that they will keep Wade safe.

On the third night of Frye’s stay at the Rampart Street cottage, he discovers Wade’s hiding place. Frye is incensed to discover that the baby is not his. He calls Stella a whore and tells her that Wade is his property, threatening to sell him off to a plantation. Ammanee intercedes, offering to make Frye a drink to calm him down.

With Ammanee’s help, Stella mixes a concoction of brandy with a lethal tincture of violet-colored wolfsbane flowers. Ammanee insists on bringing Frye the poisoned drink, stating that it has always been her job to protect Stella. After Frye downs the concoction, he rapidly loses consciousness. As Stella watches him die, she picks up his elaborate brocade vest and begins unraveling the threads.

This chapter consists entirely of a letter from Lily. She describes President Lincoln’s recent Gettysburg Address, which has inspired her anew to fight against enslavement. She has restarted the quilting bee and convinced her father to print additional copies of abolitionist newspapers.

Stella and Ammanee agree to never tell anyone about Frye’s murder. Ammanee visits Deacon Dupont, telling him that Frye came to the cottage gravely wounded and died despite their best efforts. The following day, Deacon Dupont arrives to bless the body. He has the body removed discreetly, not wanting to stir up more unrest in the community. After Frye’s body is removed from the cottage, Stella and Ammanee burn sage to cleanse the air.

In New York, Lily keeps herself busy through her activism. She has recently befriended Frances Gage, an abolitionist and suffragette. The work of her women’s group has expanded to include women’s rights as well as abolition. Though Lily’s work inspires her, Jacob’s absence is becoming increasingly taxing.

In her childhood bedroom, Lily reads through one of her old journals. She pauses on an entry from six years ago, which describes the incident that inspired her to join the abolitionist cause. Lily was walking up a street in Brooklyn when she witnessed a group of white men who seized, tied up, and dragged away a young Black woman. When Lily protested to a nearby police officer, she was told that the men were just enacting their rights under the Fugitive Slave Act. Lily was horrified to realize that people escaping enslavement were not safe, even in the North.

In December, William and Teddy are ordered to follow an army unit to Lafayette; the unit general, Phipps, wants them to perform for the men on Christmas. On the four-day march from Port Hudson to Lafayette, news spreads that the Union has taken Knoxville, increasing their odds of winning the war.

Stella visits Miss Claudette, who has become a good friend. Miss Claudette says that one of her Union clients has taken an interest in Stella’s embroidery and would be willing to pay her to make a handkerchief for his wife. With Miss Claudette’s help, Stella begins selling handkerchiefs to the Union soldiers on the side, bringing in a little bit of money. Ammanee takes a new job as a cook at the Union barracks, which allows her to bring home leftover food for Stella.

As Christmas approaches, the Confederate and Union soldiers call a truce, set to last until the New Year. Men at the camp begin receiving care packages. Jacob has not received a package from Lily since Port Hudson but reminds himself that he is lucky compared to many of the Black soldiers, who receive nothing at all.

William contemplates his first Christmas Eve spent away from a plantation. He recalls how Eleanor Righter used to make him perform all day, causing him to miss the celebration put on by the enslaved people. He wants to make Teddy’s first Christmas away from home special by procuring a Christmas tree.

On Christmas morning, William and Jacob wake Teddy and lead him into the woods to cut down a pine. Teddy runs ahead, hoping to catch a rabbit. As William and Jacob contemplate which tree to cut down, a shot rings out. They run toward the source to find Teddy, who has been killed by a gunshot to the neck. Jacob runs toward his assailant, “who looked to be a mere boy himself” (199), but he trips over a tree and severely injures his ankle.

William begins to weep. He believes that Teddy’s death is his fault. Jacob suggests that they take him back to camp, but William retorts that they will just throw him in a ditch. Jacob tells him that they will give Teddy a proper soldier’s burial. William digs a hole and buries Teddy with the handkerchief Stella gave him. He places Teddy’s drumsticks on the grave, echoing a Gullah tradition. Afterward, Jacob marks the grave with two stones and prays the Lord’s Prayer and the Kaddish in Hebrew.

On Christmas Day, Ammanee takes leftovers from the Union soldiers’ feast to Burgundy Street. She invites Miss Emilienne and Miss Hyacinth over for dinner, and the women celebrate together. As they wash dishes afterward, Ammanee shows Stella a silver promise ring that Benjamin has gifted to her. While Percy is away at war, his wife has promised that he and Ammanee can live and work on Percy’s farm together. Ammanee is torn—she wants a future with Benjamin, but after Frye’s death, she finds it hard to stomach voluntarily returning to enslavement. Stella tries to talk to Janie about this, but Janie brushes her off, saying that Stella can’t understand the extent of Ammanee’s hardship. Stella is stung by this because she considers herself just as much of a survivor as her sister.

Jacob, who can’t walk on his injured ankle, advises William to leave him in the woods. William refuses, stating, “I’m not gonna lose you, too” (208). When Jacob falls unconscious, William carries him through the woods until he reaches a weathered cottage. He knows that knocking on the door as a Black man out of uniform and covered in blood risks his life, but he also knows that it’s his only chance to save Jacob.

The elderly woman who answers the door mistakes Jacob for her son Johnny and asks William to bring him inside. She is hostile and racist toward William, telling him to stay away from “Johnny.” She attempts to kick William out of the house until he offers to help her during “Johnny’s” recovery. Reluctantly, she agrees, though she stipulates that William sleeps in the shed.

For three days, William works “like a mule” (214), chopping wood for the old woman’s fireplace. On the third day, the woman tells him that Jacob has a fever and orders him into a nearby town called to purchase medicine. Before William sets off, she forces him to hand over his flute, believing it to belong to “Johnny” because it is too nice to belong to a Black man. William sets out through the snowy woods. Fearful of becoming lost, he draws a map on the back of a piece of Jacob’s sheet music.