She noted the tools available. Enslaved people had no access to cutlery or implements; field tools were locked up each night, and possession of metal meant severe flogging. But in Thornwood’s study, sitting openly upon his correspondence, lay a heavy letter opener. It was an eighteen-centimeter blade of forged carbon steel, double-edged and tapering to a sharp needle point, balanced by an unadorned brass hilt. He used it daily to slit envelopes, tossing it carelessly among his ledgers. It was a lethal instrument hiding in plain sight.
Sarah waited for the right alignment of circumstances. A failed assault would mean prolonged agony before death. It had to be decisive.
Through late June and into July, she maintained an attitude of complete, exhausted compliance. She answered his inquiries with dull monotone affirmations, allowing him to believe the experiment was nearing its conclusion.
“You have grown remarkably quiet,” Thornwood observed during a session in mid-July. “The friction has left you. The will to resist appears exhausted.”
“Yes, sir,” Sarah replied, eyes fixed on the floorboards.
“Tell me what you are thinking presently,” he demanded.
Sarah had prepared her response. “I am thinking that fighting changes nothing. It only makes the days harder. The only way through is to accept what cannot be moved.”
