As Father and Abigail made wedding plans, I was shuffled off to a new home under the roof of Dr. Samuel Pruitt, for whom I was contracted to work without pay for seven years in exchange for whatever he would to teach me. When my father had signed the papers with me and left, the doctor looked me up and down, frowning, and squinted at me. I gathered he didn’t like what he saw. “Well,” he grunted. “There’s room for improvement. Tomorrow morning, empty all the chamber pots in my home.”

I felt as if I had been slapped in the face. “What does that have to do with medicine? And I thought you had slaves to do that! If I was mistaken, your youngest child is—”

“It’s your job until further notice!” he barked.

He kept me working from dawn to dusk on the most menial tasks available. When I complained, in the politest of terms this time, reminding him my father had not intended to sell me as a slave, he doubled up the tasks and removed the few opportunities I had to accompany him on his visits to patients.

At first, in the evenings I nodded off at the dinner table, too exhausted to finish my meals. But with time I fought that urge to sleep so I could go out at night and have time to myself. I brought my knife and eventually borrowed medical supplies. If Dr. Pruitt wouldn’t teach me, I would learn on my own. I captured small animals and dissected them to learn something about anatomy. I found that each kind was different inside than others, but I found some similarities. I compared what I discovered with the books I had read in my father’s mansion, and gradually I managed to peek into the doctor’s books as well. With interest, I studied the reflexes, the lungs, the heart, all that would function until each creature died. Frogs were enough at first, but their parts were smaller and simpler than, say, a pig’s or a dog’s. I learned how the workings of each animal differed, and also things they had in common, which they might also have in common with humans. I checked the books again for comparison. I learned that doctors and medical students needed human bodies to study so that they could understand anatomy better. I also experimented with substances to see if any normally used for healing might do other things to these creatures. Large doses of some of the medicines were fatal to them. I wondered what it would take to kill a person. And as I poked and stabbed and watched the animals squirm and fianally convulse in death throes, I imagined they were the people who had harmed me throughout all fourteen years of my life.

One day I came home and through a window heard Dr. Pruitt talking to a guest. “Before he came under my charge, I watched him. I observed that Luke had a proud manner about him, and I decided to work the arrogance out of him.”

So that was why he had given me the most menial chores! He did it to humiliate me.

“And is it working?” his friend asked.

“It may take longer than I thought to make him pliable,” the doctor returned. “Perhaps a few years…”

Years? Like this? I contemplated escaping but didn’t know how I would survive or where I would go. I would probably be caught and sent back, and then treated even worse.

I thought how things were better for Asher, who still lived with Father. He worked with Father in his exporting and importing. Another unfortunate detail of my birth. Although Father had given away or destroyed much in the bonfire, he retained enough to get by, if he and the rest of the family worked hard. Asher, Father, Dr. Pruitt, and my new stepmother became the animals I stabbed with my knife—and to a lesser extent, so did Jonathan, the next in line after Asher. Mother’s dream of all of us having enough to pursue our futures comfortably was gone. Father, Abigail, the revivalists, and God Himself were to blame. I could make things different, better, for the family and for myself. I just needed the opportunity, and a little more learning. I studied poisons, and substances that might be healing in small amounts but deadly in others.

I worked on acting more docile and humble around Dr. Pruitt, in the hope that I would have more opportunities not only to learn medicine but to pursue my other interests.