Aura of Nostalgia

By S.J. Walker

Laura has grown up in a home rife with secrets and mental illness, and craves a normal family. More than anything in her young life she wanted normal, but the secrets invaded the normalcy she tried to create.
And at age twenty-six when she thought that she had finally achieved the measure of normalcy she craved, and had put all the family secrets away in their pigeon holes, a monumental secret was dropped in her lap when her tea leaf reading grandmother is dying and gives Laura the family journals. The journals date back to the early 1600s and include a family secret that trumps all the other secrets that she has learned, along with family stories that needed to be told. Stories of choices that were made that changed lives and created victims. Secrets that could cost happiness and freedom. Her life would become wrapped up in those secrets in ways that she could never imagine.
The journals tell the story of eleven generations of Laura’s maternal family from New England, the Phipps, and prompt visions of the past as she reads them, sending her on a journey through history.
But the end of the journals reveals yet another secret. One that will change everything Laura thought she knew about herself.

In this epic historical fiction, Laura must decide if her visions are a symptom of the mental illness that plagues her father’s family, or simply a newly discovered paranormal gift. As she begins to read the Phipps family journals, she is transported back in time via her visions to view historical vignettes concerning;
•The early settlement of America.
•Native American depredations in Maine 1676 and 1689.
•Sir William Phipps, 1st native born Royal Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1st “American” knighted.
•Mysterious occurrences at Oak Island, Nova Scotia.
•A treasure hunting expedition complete with a mutiny.
•Piracy of Richard Phipps and Thomas Hawkins at Tarpaulin Cove.
•The 1690 Quebec expedition.
•The Salem Witchcraft trials, Sarah Towne and Peter Cloyes.
•The French and Indian War, massacre at Fort William Henry.
•Captivity by Native Americans, and redemption. Jemima Sawtell Phipps Tute.
•Colonial and modern effects of Tuberculosis (Consumption). The “Vampire” theory in Rhode Island and eastern Connecticut.
•The Revolutionary War with secrets involving George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and Nathan Hale. The Shot Heard ‘Round the World. The story of Valley Forge. Post-Revolution depression.
•The Phipps Loyalists (family of Spencer Bennett Phips, Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts)
•Love found and lost
•The Year Without a Summer (1816).
•The Parkhill legend
•A haunting, alchemy, and spirit writing.
•The Underground Railroad. Gerrit Smith.
•The California Gold Rush, The Watermelon War.
•The Great Depression.
•WWII.

• Language: English
• Publisher: S.J. Walker
• Release date: Aug 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463154519

S.J. Walker

This is S.J.’s first foray as an author. Until 2018 she worked as a certified Rehabilitation Registered Nurse for persons with physical and mental disabilities. Her hobby has been genealogy since 1976 and she has uncovered many family stories as she researched, some of which are included as a fictionalized version in this work. S.J. has been an avid reader all her life; reading a variety of genres, but her favorite being historical non-fiction and fiction. She has wished to write a book of her own since childhood. S.J. Walker lives in the rural mountains of southwest Virginia with her husband of 47 years, 3 dogs, and a cat.

Book preview

"All the moments that can’t be forgotten,

Sometimes circle like birds of prey."

E. Barker

I’ve known so many people whose lives were filled with drama. And I used to pride myself on having a ‘normal’ life – at least after I left my dysfunctional family behind and got married. But somehow my life took a left turn that I never could have predicted. First at age twenty-six, when I thought I might have inherited my father’s crazy gene, and then at age sixty-three when my life took a U turn back to the beginning, and turned into prime talk show material.

How did it happen? It all started with the secrets. We didn’t just have a skeleton in our closet, we had a whole cemetery. There were too many secrets to keep, and surely there were more that I never learned. How could one family have so many?

And perhaps at first when you read my story, you will think that my family sounds like many others. How many families are really ‘normal’ after all? Everyone has secrets and stories.

But the thing is, I craved normal. More than anything in my young life I wanted normal. And the secrets invaded the normalcy I tried to create.

And at twenty-six when I thought that I had finally achieved the measure of normalcy I craved, and had put all the family secrets away in their pigeon holes, a monumental secret was dropped in my lap along with family stories that needed to be told. Stories of choices that were made that changed lives and created victims. Secrets that cost happiness and freedom.

My life would become wrapped up in those secrets in ways that I could never imagine. And I wasn’t sure if I felt better or worse, when I finally learned the truth.

The crows watch me from their place in the tree near the window as I take up a pen,

My name is Laura…

Chapter One

I am a part of all that I have met.

Ulysses

It comes to me often. The memory of my grandmother Charlotte sitting at the cherry dining room table, an empty cup of tea upturned on its saucer in front of her, awaiting the mystery of her reading. When she picks up the cup, the tea leaves are in a pattern on the saucer that only she can discern. To all at the table it seems a game, or at least that’s how I interpreted it in my childhood innocence. Until I knew better, and learned some of the secrets she and others held close.

Our family was one of lies and secrets, doled out over time and distorting what I thought I knew. The earliest ones I remember; at age three the story of the bear that lived in the attic of the old home where we lived (meant to keep me from the rotting boards of the attic floor). At age five seeing my friend Gino’s penis and being told I must have seen something not really there, boys and girls have all the same parts (I eventually knew a lie and a penis when I saw it). Next, the true story of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy (at age eight, I felt betrayed). All of those meant to preserve safety and innocence. The kind of lies mothers and fathers tell. But there were other lies, other secrets, damaging and dangerous that would yet be revealed.

Reading tea leaves was my grandmother’s occupation. She first began it after my grandfather died at age fifty-six of a heart attack. After his death, my grandmother took her children and moved to the nearest big town. To provide for her family she cleaned houses, did yardwork, and styled women’s hair. Soon tea rooms became fashionable in the bigger cities and she found a job working in the Lincoln Tea Room in E.W. Edwards department store twenty-five miles away in Syracuse, taking the bus to and from work five days a week. One of her duties in the tea room was to read the tea leaves of anyone interested in having their fortune told. I’m not sure whether reading tea leaves was a job that she sought, or the only job available, but eventually she left the tea room, and continued to read tea leaves for paying customers in her home.

I remember the fashionable ladies coming to my grandmother’s small house, wearing silk stockings, fox stoles, fancy hats, and waving lace handkerchiefs. She would take them into a back room and thirty minutes later appear with cash in her hand as the ladies fluttered out the door leaving the sweet smell of their expensive perfumes in their wake. When I was very young, it was a mystery that I didn’t investigate, and my mother never shared. Maybe my mother was simply embarrassed that my grandmother made her living telling fortunes and perhaps committing fraud by doing so, because once I learned the truth, my mother said that fortune telling was illegal and must remain a secret. I didn’t understand, but it was a secret that I kept.

Soon my cousins and I would all beg for our own tea leaf readings. It took a lot out of my grandmother to do so many readings at one time, so eventually at family gatherings, the dining room table would include a special tea cup at one place setting. The person who received it could have a reading that day if they chose. Usually it was one of the grandchildren, my mother, aunts and uncles all having begged off. My mother later confessed to me that a reading had once come true and so disappointed her that she never wanted another. It would be more than forty years before I learned the truth of it – another secret, closely held, and one that would change what I knew of myself. But that story comes later.

Certainly, I knew that my grandmother was special in many ways. She had overcome an early life filled with adversity and was now the heart of our family, the ‘keeper of family traditions’, while at the same time flouting some of the traditions of society. She was also a philosopher, and from her I learned, ‘you catch more flies with sugar than with vinegar.’ She had many of those sayings, and I used plenty of them with good effect throughout my life. But did I really believe that she could tell fortunes in tea leaves? Was she a soothsayer, a witch? I didn’t know. Nor do I now remember if any of us ever asked her if she truly could see into our futures. But what I do remember is that my mother believed that the fortune that she was told had come true. And I remember that fortunes told to my cousin Sybil and I also later came true. Was my grandmother’s terrible fear of thunderstorms simply a phobia? Or was it a foreshadowing of what would happen one night when she called my mother and aunt Corinne down from their upstairs bedroom during a storm just before the huge pine tree next to their house crashed through the roof onto their beds? All coincidence? I know that skeptics would say so, and at one time, I might have agreed.

As I grew, some of the other family secrets began to unravel. Apparently, the secret of the tea leaf reading was only part of that story. My mother eventually revealed that my grandmother was not supposed to work around food due to her history of Typhoid, a disease that she, my grandfather, and Aunt Elizabeth all suffered through many years before. It was possible that she was a carrier of the disease like Typhoid Mary and could pass it on through any food she handled. It had to remain a secret.

There was the secret involving Aunt Elizabeth’s infancy, another concerning Grandmother’s brother Loren. And the secret of ‘Uncle’ Bill, thirteen years younger than Grandmother, who was her common-law husband for over thirty years yet still married to his wife, a Catholic, who didn’t believe in divorce. My mother was embarrassed by the arrangement, so it was not to be talked about outside the family.

My mother’s sisters had their own secrets that I may later reveal, but I think that it was my own parents who took the prize for things that were not to be spoken of, some that I wouldn’t learn until many years had passed. However, those secrets will have to wait a little, this part of the story is about my grandmother and I.

I was an only child, somewhat spoiled, lonely, loved, but living in a dysfunctional household. My favorite thing to do was read. The diversion of a solitary child, I could lose myself in a book and forget everything else. As a teenager, I would trade books with my grandmother and aunts who were also avid readers. Aunt Elizabeth had the best books! Art and history and science! National Geographic! I loved to sit and look at them in their little corner room while mom visited with her sister. But historical novels were my favorite, starting with the Little House books when I was about seven, the ‘normal’ family depicted in them calling to me. Later I embraced some of the required reading in school that my classmates abhorred. When I had to read the Scarlet Letter, Little Women, and The Crucible, I became enthralled with the stories of early Massachusetts life. Hearing of my historical interest, my grandmother pulled out a copy of our family tree that long ago had been started by Aunt Alice, my grandfather Alton’s sister. It showed that my paternal ancestry was from Massachusetts, and perhaps went back to the earliest founders. Grandmother showed me a Ripley’s Believe it or Not column from an old newspaper about a man named William Phipps, the same surname as my mother’s family. He was famous for being the first native born governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the first American knighted, and a treasure hunter. Grandmother said that it was believed my grandfather’s family descended from him.

When I was sixteen, I begged my parents to vacation in Massachusetts where we toured all the historic sites I had read about. At some of the sites, an odd sense of déjà vu overcame me that I couldn’t understand, and I wanted to learn more about the history of those places, to know why I felt a connection with them. But stuff happens, and the life of an average teenager intervened, interrupting my thoughts of history and family trees. It would be ten years before I once again thought of our family history and my place in it, and by then I had escaped my dysfunctional parents and was a young wife and mother living the ‘normal’ life that I had craved. But I was about to learn another secret. A secret that would become my own.

Chapter Two

"Time hurries on, turn around and it’s gone.

If only we could hold that dream."

Unknown

Do you know how when you haven’t seen somebody in a while and then you do, it suddenly hits you how much they’ve aged? Well, life had been pretty busy when I next saw my grandmother and realized that she was now in her eighties and failing. And then suddenly she was very ill. The news was that she had Stage IV breast cancer, as her mother did before her. There were no treatment options.

During a visit after learning the news, she asked me to go to the old kitchen at the back of her house and directed me to an old steamer trunk, requesting that I box up all the books and the old cane and take them home. My cousins and I had explored the old kitchen time and time again as children, and would frequently look through an old dresser where some of the family photo albums and mementos were kept. Things like Uncle David’s WWII medals, and the America flag that draped his coffin. So, I had seen the old trunk that she’d directed me to, but it had always been locked.

On this day, Uncle Bill was asked to unlock the trunk for me, and I dug beneath old quilts and my grandmother’s fragile wedding dress to find some yellowed family documents, a very old photo album of my Parkhill ancestors, and several thick old books with spidery hand writing inside each. When I picked up the first book, I felt a mild shock-like tingle in my fingertips that startled me and made me quickly withdraw my hand. Red thread wrapped the bindings of all of the books, with a braided bookmark attached to each in the same threads. There also was an aged cane, smoothed by multiple hands, and topped with an intricately decorated golden knob. Wrapped around the base of the golden knob was the same thin red thread tightly wrapped around and around. In the center of the knob at the top of the cane was a three-inch diameter circle of dull silver colored metal that did not quite fit with the richness of the cane, as though it replaced something long gone. When I picked the cane up to examine it closer, it felt warm in my hands, the wood like satin but not a wood that I was familiar with, yet for some reason the word Rowan was suddenly on my tongue. I had heard of Rowan trees only in passing but had never seen one before that I was aware of, nor did I know why I should think of it now. The cane was really a masterpiece – something that a rich gentleman would carry – what was it doing here? Who did it belong to?

Back at Grandmother’s bedside once the books and cane had been boxed up by Uncle Bill, my grandmother told me that she had watched closely as the cousins grew, and she knew that I was the correct one to own these family treasures. She could tell me nothing about the cane except that it had been in the Phipps family a very long time and had come to her with the books. She said the books were journals that were written by my grandfather’s ancestors and then passed to the one in each generation that was most likely to protect them and carry on the journal writing tradition. Grandmother said that they carried the secrets and stories of my grandfather’s family. Among those secrets, was the secret of a kind of magic. A special ‘gift’ of premonition, visions, or healing, that some of my grandfather’s ancestors were blessed with.

Grandmother shared that although she had the gift of second sight that allowed her to sometimes see things in the tea leaves, it was said that my grandfather’s ancestors carried a much stronger ‘gift’ or ‘sensitivity’, and she suspected that I might have inherited the trait. I was the one who showed interest in the family history. And I was the one to choose the cameo bracelet with the red thread intertwined when it was my turn to choose a family heirloom, keeping it as designed instead of having the jewelry reset for modern times as my cousins all did. The cameo set had belonged to my great-great grandmother Cloyes, who had a healing gift. Grandmother said that if the sensitivity did not appear to me, that at least I would know the stories and could maintain the tradition of passing the journals on to the most likely person in the next generation.

By the time she had told me all this, I was dumb-founded yet could see that she was very pale and fatigued. I wanted to ask her so much more, but admit that at that point, I was too shocked to even know what questions to ask. It was all too much to take in. A ‘gift?’ Magic? Did that mean that I might be able to read tea leaves too?

Grandmother told me that she was tired and wished to rest, saying that she knew only a little more about the journals and grandfather’s family since she had not read them herself, but today she was just too tired to say more. She promised to tell me what else she knew, and answer my questions the next time I visited. For now, she just wanted to make sure that I had them. And I was thrilled to have them, and anxious to look at them. I had just started my family research so this was like hitting the lottery for me. It would be fun to discover the true story, to learn things about my ancestors other than names and dates, and I hoped that I would uncover the secret of the family ‘gift’.

But the chance to ask Grandmother more questions never came. That same night Mom called to tell me that Grandmother had slipped into a coma. She lingered for two long months in that state. My mother and father moved into her upstairs apartment to care for her, with Aunt Corinne and hospice helping. Uncle Bill did all he could to help too, but he was in his seventies himself. The cousins and I visited our grandmother as often as our jobs and families allowed, sitting at her bedside and talking to her of past and present times.

While she lay unresponsive, I often wished that I could talk to her again, pictures whirling in and out of my mind in a kaleidoscope of memories, and I constantly wondered what it meant to have a ‘gift’. Grandmother thought that I was the one in the family to have the trait, but what was it about me that made me the one to receive the journals and why hadn’t my gift, if I had one, been revealed yet? Was it simply the odd feeling of déjà vu at the Massachusetts historic sites that I had visited, the immediate like or dislike of people I met that seemed almost pre-ordained by a sort of ‘shininess’ about those I liked – almost like an aura I hadn’t really considered until now? Was it how I sometimes sensed a person’s emotions or intent? Was it the occasional sudden thought that shortly became reality? The ominous feeling of dread that something wasn’t right, and then it wasn’t? Was it a song that I was humming that was suddenly next on the radio playlist? Or the people and places that connected Scott and I before we met, and then the absolute knowledge that he would be my husband on our first date? All of this I had dismissed as coincidence. Those things happen to everyone, don’t they? It wasn’t like I could bend spoons or levitate or anything, nor did I know anyone else who could do those kinds of things. What would down to earth Scott think if I suddenly found my gift? Would my daughter Rebecca think it was neat if I could do real magic tricks? Tell her friends?

But did I want to be something other than the normal I had always sought? I felt like I’d already lived a life full of secrets. You see, from an early age I knew that my life was not the ‘normal’ that I thought it should be. There were daily arguments between my parents that scared me, so I often stayed out of the way and tried not to call attention to myself or cause any disruption. It wasn’t that I was afraid of my father, he was never unkind or abusive to me in any way. I always knew that he loved me. But his anger was often so great, so out of control, that I sometimes feared that he would physically hurt my mother, or that they would get divorced and I would have to choose between them. And I would have nightmares about riding in a car while my parents argued or my father jotted down license plate numbers as he drove, something causing multiple accidents over the years. I was afraid that there would be another accident and we would be hurt or killed.

It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I learned why my life was not the same as my cousins or my friends. It was a secret that my mother Emma, and my father Michael shared. One that I had long suspected but didn’t have a name for. When I was fifteen my father became ‘sick’ and was hospitalized, one of many hospitalizations, but the first time that I was allowed to visit, and it was at the hospital where I learned the truth. He was mentally ill. They called it Manic-Depression back then, and he was receiving electric shock treatments again. I always understood that he was different from the other men I knew, but I never knew that his strange behaviors were something that had a name. Something that explained his spending sprees and why the garage of our tiny home was filled floor to ceiling with papers - newspapers, notes with license plate numbers on, copies of anything my father was interested at the time.

My father’s Italian family kept the shameful secret of his ‘sickness’, from the time he was a child, locking him away in a back bedroom if anyone should visit during one of his episodes. Back then if the victim wasn’t ‘sick’ enough to be institutionalized, this was the way it was done. As a teenager he was taken to a Cathedral in Canada that was rumored to cure disabilities, but it didn’t take for him. While other family members surely suspected that there was something not right about him, it wasn’t discussed, and even though his family was rife with mental illnesses, the secret of his disorder was never talked about.

I was happiest when my father was at work, the house was quiet, and my mother and I would sometimes play games or watch TV together. My mother did all she could to keep my father’s ‘sickness’ secret, hiding us away from friends and family at crucial times. But it took a toll on her. She couldn’t work outside the home, had constant financial concerns because of my father’s mindless spending during manic episodes, had no close friends, and avoided social obligations whenever she could unless it was with her own family. And then when I was seventeen, we learned the secret of my father’s infidelities, and many years later following my father’s death, that he had shared a twelve-year relationship with another woman. It seemed my mother’s heart could not be spared even after his death, and I was angry at my father for many years.

But Mom wasn’t right either. She wasn’t like other moms, even though she managed to hide it well and function normally outside of our home. Over the years of her marriage she had become chronically depressed and developed OCD tendencies, a secret that I tried hard to keep from my friends and family. Each morning she would kiss the small statue of St. Francis in our kitchen cupboard ten times. She repeatedly checked the locks on our doors, and the car ignition ten times saying under her breath Dub-1, Dub-2, Dub-3, etc., to make sure the car was turned off. She gained a tremendous amount of weight, neglected her hygiene, and spent a lot of time doing nothing – sleeping, watching TV, talking on the phone, reading True Love magazine, watching the neighbors. If my father was at work, she refused to answer the door to neighbors or anyone in my father’s family. Our house was never clean unless I cleaned it. She didn’t bake and rarely cooked. And there was the money she hid from my father, five purses stuffed with coins and bills that she locked away in the safe. Besides money she hoarded balls of string, rubber bands, wire, you name it. There were times as a pre-adolescent and teen that I was terribly embarrassed by her and I avoided having my friends visit whenever I could. But even though she wasn’t like other moms in many ways, I knew that she loved me. She was the one who was always at school functions, who asked about my friends and wanted to know them, who played games with me and read to me, who took an interest in everything I did and encouraged me to do the best I could with everything.

But the best memories I have of my childhood were all times that I spent away from my home with my grandmother, aunts, and cousins, where I felt a measure of ‘normalcy’, the feeling of belonging and safety. My grandmother lived twenty-five miles away and my parents didn’t always have a car due to my father’s multiple accidents, or the cheap cars that we owned breaking down, and we never could afford more than one car, so we couldn’t visit as often as I’d like. My grandmother and aunts became my role models, and I remember that after I was married and had children of my own my Aunt Corinne asked me how I had turned out ‘so normal’, I had to stop and think, had I? If so, it was because of my aunts and my grandmother.

Aunt Elizabeth was the oldest of my mother’s sisters. She and Aunt Katherine were most alike – tough farm wives and mothers with professions of their own. Both had grit, and were strong, independent women like my grandmother. We didn’t see either of them often though, they both had busy lives, and Aunt Katherine lived even further away than my grandmother.

Aunt Corinne and my mother were several years younger than their older sisters, both cautious and shy, and seeming to prefer the role of homemaker. Aunt Corinne and Uncle Samuel lived in an apartment in my grandmother’s house, so if we visited, we got to see Grandmother too. So that was where we visited most often, and it was Aunt Corinne’s three girls, Felicity, Katherine ‘Kat’, and Sybil, that I played with. They became like sisters to me over the years, and my parents took every opportunity to make sure that I had them as playmates.

As a child I thought that Aunt Corinne was a stern disciplinarian, and being a somewhat coddled only child, I was sometimes a little afraid of her and Uncle Samuel whose opinions about how children should be raised differed from my parents. Each of their daughters had their daily chores, and when I stayed there, I had to help. Unlike ours, their house was always spic and span and ran on a schedule. Sundays and all Holy Days meant church, and I was an unwilling, squirming participant, disciplined accordingly. Their motto was ‘waste not, want not’. Food placed in front of you must be eaten whether liked or not. While my father was a spendthrift, Uncle Samuel who grew up in a poor household of 15 during the depression, was a miser, right down to the toilet paper. And although they were on city water, the toilet was flushed with well water from their hand pump to avoid the high cost of the monthly water bill. The Italian bread was sliced so thin you could see through it. Hickory nuts were gathered and a day spent cracking them instead of buying nuts at a store. It was all pretty foreign to me, and it took growing up and learning about the depression to get all this. But in the end, it was somewhat comforting for me to have a routine and a break from the chaos that was usual in our home. And when Uncle Samuel pulled out his harmonica, and Aunt Corinne passed the best homemade chocolate chip cookies in the world, everything else was forgotten.

I wasn’t there when my grandmother died, but that morning, mom said that she suddenly sat straight up in bed as natural as if she had been doing it every day lately, eyes open and peering into the corner of the room as though seeing something there. Then she smiled briefly, fell back to the bed, and was gone from us.

With Grandmother ill and then dying, and my other obligations, I had not had the time or the heart to open the journals yet. But Rebecca had just started kindergarten and I needed something to fill my days. So, on a clear day with Scott at work and Rebecca at school, it was time to dig into them to look for the answers I sought. I sat by the window at our antique pub table and planned to finally take a few minutes to start reading before the ten o’clock appointment to get my hair cut. A cup of tea and our cat Carmel joined me at the table. When I reached for the first journal, I felt the mild shock-like tingle in my fingertips like static electricity that I’d forgotten about, but it passed quickly, and as I opened the journal, I noted that the number five, like an after-thought, had been penciled at the corner of the first page. The other journals had similar markings and I interpreted them as a guide denoting the consecutive order of the journals. I looked for number one and was rewarded by the date of February 27th 1648. Wow! I had no idea that they were that old, but this one was likely the first of the series since this was also the journal that was most tattered and worn, the spidery handwriting on the thick yellowed pages faded and difficult to read. I took a long sip of my tea and began to read.

Anne Phipps – Maine

Journal Recording 1648-1657

"Blackbird sitting in a tree

Observing what’s below

Acorns falling to the ground

He’ll stay,

and watch them grow."

J. Hayward

Chapter Three

27 February 1648

I know the date because today is my natal day. I have now 12 years. This empty book is my gift, and very precious since books and paper are costly and hard to find. Mama says I must use it to practice my letters, she and I the only ones to read and write. Brother John can write his name, but reads little. Even Da can only write his name, but he does read and knows numbers. My sisters still learn, all but Margaret think it of no use.

I’m not sure what writing I should put down to practice but will tell of our family. Anne is my name. My Da is James Phipps and my mother Mary. I have 6 living brothers and sisters. John is 14, then me, Mary is 10, Margaret 8, Elizabeth 6, Richard 4, and James 2. Da says he is 38 years, but Mama is only 30.

Margaret is my favorite, sweet natured and adventuresome. Mary is shy and fair of face, and Elizabeth has a sharp tongue despite her young age. Mama calls her contrary. John is of good nature but always away working with Da. The rest are but babies.

Our house is big and made of timbers cut from the giant pine trees. Da and his partner John White built the house, and a house for John’s family, and a workshop and trading post on this river called Sheepscot. The ocean is near and we see many great ships. Da is a gunsmith, and John White runs the trading post where Indians, Sailors, Fur Traders, and neighbors, come to barter. We have few neighbors and it is oft many days before we see anyone but our own family. Winter is when the fisherman come so then we do see more people about. I do like the quiet of this place.

Mama’s Papa John Brown and Joan lived near until 2 years past when they went to New Harbor above Pemaquid. It is Papa Brown’s 2nd family. His wife Miriam and their new babe died many years hence.

Da’s family is still in England except his brother William who lives at Penobscot and visited us one time. And he has a cousin Solomon Phipps at Charlestown in the Bay Colony.

Mama and Da lived first at Pemaquid where John and I were born. We came to Jeremisquam neck at Nequassett when I was but 2 so I don’t remember it.

Mama says our house is not as nice as their house in England where they had no children yet. I do like it but ‘twould be nice to have glass windows to look out of when the weather is bad. Mama says the price of them is too dear and they would have to come from England as no one does make glass here yet. Summer last Da made a floor of wood, many of our neighbors still have only dirt. Part of our house is a bier for our animals. Some of them came on the ship with us, our rooster and 3 Red Dorking chickens and a young goose and gander. Also 2 piglets. Da says that our red Devon cows, and our goats and sheep were born here. One of our chickens lets me hold and pet her like John White’s grey cat named Soot. I call her Mistress Cluck.

We have a big rock fireplace to cook on and keep us warm. There is a heart shaped stone above the fire opening that is pretty. Over the fireplace hang apples, herbs, and pumpkin drying. Foodstuffs that need cold are cellar stored, food needing drying is most in the loft with other things to store. Da made us some furniture and some came on the ship with them. At night we light pine-knot torches instead of candles like they had in England. Mama said someday we will make candles so we don’t have all the pitchy tar from the knots, but the tar can be most useful and can be traded at the trading post. Mama and Da have a sleeping place that is closed by a pretty curtain Mama made. Mama says that one day there may be real beds made of wood and rope with mattresses stuffed with flock. Now our beds are all together on the floor and stuffed with itchy straw that must be replaced twice a year. The straw makes the bed rustle at every move so we try to lie still.

There are Indians that have always lived here, but Da says none in England. Mary is very afeared of them, Mama sometimes too. Their skin is brown and the men sometimes paint their faces with black or red. Their shirts are like a big shawl past their knees and of deer or beaver skin. Some have sleeves, but most with none. In winter they have a bear or wolf skin over their shoulders and pointed hats. In summer their chests are bare, the women with a shawl-like cover. Their private parts are covered with a short skirt, their feet without shoes. Their hair is all black, the men’s shaved at the sides with a long braid starting from the top of their heads, but the women’s hair is long and braided. They are called Kennebec Indians like the next river. We got our land from the Chief who is called Robin Hood, and he kept the right to fish, fowl and hunt, also to set otter traps here. Da allows others to fish and collect quahogs as they always have. They come to trade furs and game at the trading post, sometimes baskets or clay pots. Da and John will not trade them guns or rum, and some of the Indians don’t like that. Da and John can now understand their speech and speak a few words. Some of the Indians know English and most are friendly. Kaneenawup is very nice. He sometimes comes with his father. I think he is as old as Margaret and he always smiles when he is here. He fishes with Da and John sometimes, and he did teach John to swim.

I have used much paper today but this is my first time. I will try to make my next writings short so this book will last.

1648 April

I have sharpened my quill this day not knowing what I will write. There is rarely time for frivolity. There is no preacher here yet, but on the Sabbath, Mama reads to us from the bible and Da teaches us some Indian words. Sometimes Mama and Da tell us about their family in England and how we came to be here. There are stories about terrible sicknesses that killed many people and about rich Kings and Queens who rule the country and tell everyone which church they must attend, who they can marry, and who they should hate. I’m happy that in this place no one rules us in those ways. And happy that it is the Sabbath and I have some time to write here while the others play hubbub.

Today Mama told us of England again. She does miss it sometimes. Mama and Da used to live in a place with many people and very big houses, churches, shops, and schools. There was always people and animals about in the streets, making the streets muddy and dirty. The houses had many rooms, each person with a sleeping place on real beds with curtains. Walls are the color of the sky or grass or snow or sand, some with fancy patterned paper or embroidered cloths. There are woolen rugs for the floors with decorations, images of people or places on the walls bordered in wood, candles made from beeswax, furniture made by craftsman that have cushioned seats and fine carvings, a box to tell the time of day. And many, many books. I would like to see that someday but do not know a way that I could travel that far.

Laura

Chapter Four

"Something calls to me.

The trees are drawing me near.

Those gentle voices I hear

explain it all with a sigh.

I’ve got to find out why."

J. Hayward

I closed the journal and got ready for my appointment, thinking about how stark and simple life was in those early days. How hard it must have been to come to an alien place with nothing and no way to get anything except through your own very hard work. No houses to rent or buy. No roads to travel. No grocery stores to purchase food. No department stores for clothing, home-goods, or tools. Leaving a known world to live in a vast nothingness, not seeing other people for days, maybe weeks. All kinds of danger. I could not imagine it. It gave me a lot to think about. How brave those people were!

That night I dreamed. It was like a movie that I was watching, yet at the same time I felt a part of it all. Like I was a ghost in the room that no one could see.

I smell charcoal. I am inside a brick and timber building, blackened with age and smoke. All around the room are the tools and products of a blacksmith, and there is a crackling fire with a stack of wood nearby. The room is hot and dark, despite the doors and windows being wide open. Outside rain is pelting the ground but it does not drown out the clatter of the endless carts, carriages, and wagons going past in the muddy streets, or the neighing of horses, the shouts of the hawkers and beggars.

I see a man in coarse breeches the color of walnuts, fawn-colored muslin shirt laced at the neck, and a leather jerkin that is covered by a long, scuffed leather apron speckled with singe marks. He is perhaps five foot nine inches, and is broad of chest with thickly muscled arms. His chestnut hair is tied back in a queue with a strip of leather at the nape of his neck, and his blue eyes are tired as he pulls off the thick leather gloves that cover his arms to the elbow and throws them to a scarred table. A single wavy red thread runs between he and I, connecting us in an unearthly way that he seems unaware of.

Across the room a thick-set man of middle age removed his leather apron and hung it on a hook then went to the windows and doors pulling them closed, shutting out some of the noise and light. He turned to face the younger man while wiping the sheen of sweat from his forehead with a rag and ran a hand through his damp, sparse, grey-streaked hair. James, put up your tools for the day and come sit with me awhile, we must talk of something. He tiredly pulled up a stool and leaned his elbows on the table in front of him watching James as he readied himself for days end.

James looked over at the older man with a quizzical expression and a small smile as he put his tools in their place and took up a rag to wipe the sweat from his own forehead. I did wonder when you would get to it. Something is bothering you Father Brown, you have been too quiet today, ‘tis unlike you.

John flickered a slight smile. Do you say that I do speak too much James?

Nay, just more than you did today. James replied with a short laugh. What is it that does bother you?

John cleared his throat. I was at Edward Jones smithy three days past and saw your brother William there.

William? The last I knew of him he was in the New World as gunsmith for Astley. What is he doing back here?

He comes to depose against Astley for selling guns and liquor to the Indians against the law. He expects that he will be here for two months and then returns. He does look well James, and is happy with his life there.

James looked at John with a mixture of puzzlement and curiosity, I don’t understand what your upset is. Did you not want to mention it knowing that William and I have been estranged, or did William say something off? He did always have a way of that.

No. No, James. Nothing like that. But I have been wondering, did you ever think to go with him? To escape this place of uncertainty? To go to the New World where you could live in more freedom, own your own land, not worry about what religion you worship for fear of retribution?

Father, there be nothing there but savages and starving Separatists I do hear. I am surprised to hear that William has survived it, so many do not. Mayhap this time in the New World has made him a difference. I warrant it surely would be the hardest he has ever worked, and hard work is good for a change in any man whose bringing up was comfortable. William’s thought was too much like my father and my other brothers who were apt to change allegiance with each new regent to protect their hides and holdings. But William and I had no holdings to worry of, being the last of the family. We were lucky to get our apprenticeships. James’ voice trailed off before continuing. But I did get off aside for a moment. No, I did never think seriously of it, did not wish to die so hard. Why do you ask me of it now?

Father Brown hesitated and then pulled in a deep breath. This be very hard. I have tried to get to it all week but did not know how to start. I be very tired James, and not getting any younger as the days pass by. I’m tired of a place where the rulers change with the wind and expect us to go the same way each time. We cannot make our own decisions and live like men should. They can but sniff out blasphemy in a winter gale so we cannot worship as we choose but must worship as our regent tells us. Under Elizabeth it is said that the last years were hard, but at least the simple man knew how to act and did not have to worry overmuch about losing their heads. With King Charles disbanding parliament and ruling on his own, the parliamentarians are not happy and I expect that we will soon suffer for it. They will not continue to stand with it, and I fear we will shortly have civil war again. Bristol will have much a time of it because there are so many Royalists here about. He paused and scrubbed a hand over the dark stubble flecked with silver on his chin.

I don’t need to tell you that we already see wages half what they were and had to decrease our charges to keep up the business. I do worry what a war would do to us. As it is now, there is no extra money about. And then the dratted plagues that never seem to cease for long. You know it killed off so many again just five years past including my own two daughters. The older man sighed in remembrance.

James’ eyebrows dipped together, a ripple of uneasiness coursing through him, unsure what John expects him to say. He well remembered the cartloads of dead being driven through the streets. He had lost a nephew, as well as the whole family of his closest friend in Mangotsfield, during the last black time. Father, what are you saying? What is it that you are thinking you can do to change things that will harm you or your business not?

John rubbed a finger across a small blister on the back of his hand. James, an agent of Robert Eldridge himself approached me starting six months past to beg that I go and serve as smith in the New World….

James interrupted his father-in-law, thoughts and suspicions flitting across his face, Surely you do not think to leave your livelihood here and go to certain death?

John laid a hand on James’ shoulder, Now you just did say that your brother still lives so death be not certain it seems. And yes, we have decided. We do leave in but a month. I have been having great difficulty sharing it with you, knowing how hard it would be, and wanting to have some things settled first.

The suddenness of John’s intent left James’ incredulous, What? A month? How can you do that father? All your family and your livelihood are here. The settlers die of starvation and live in mud huts. You would bring your family to that? To a place where you must wait for supplies from England to arrive to eat and till your fields? Where attack by the savages is a daily worry? Whyever do you think to do this?

John swept James a sharp glance. Son, you have not heard the truth of it. That was all many years past. It is different now. And where we go be a different place as well, very much further north. There are no Separatists in the place I go to, although trade is sometimes with some who are with Calvin. This place be near where William is and he does well. There are resources there to sustain a man. It is a land of fisheries, furs, timber, and shipbuilding. Even now there are settlements going up among the natives who have thus far been most helpful and cooperative with those fair settlers in the region. Craftsmen are needed there. Each man can have his own land, and it is rich land with game plentiful and no fear of poaching when it is taken. Handfuls of fish can be virtually scooped from the sea and rivers where the waters run clean and clear. There is no absence of trees as there is here. Oak, ash, beech, and pine grow to two hundred feet tall and ten feet around, and in the forests and fields there are all manner of nuts, wild peas and greens, berries, and other fruits. Wildlife, birds and fowl are everywhere.

James ran a hand through his hair, the tone of his voice petulant, That is a pretty speech John. And did William confirm all this when you did speak to him or do you speak from one of the broadsheets that try to sell all on going there?

John’s eyes showed hurt as he looked at his son-in-law. James, I know that this be a shock to you, but I thought that you knew me better than to guess that I would not investigate before making such a decision, and yea, William did confirm it all, as did others I spoke with.

Shame surged through him for his outburst and he made to run his hand though his hair again but dropped his hands to his sides and sighed deeply. I am sorry Father. It just is most upsetting to think that you shall soon leave us. He sank to the stool next to John, his father-in-law’s announcement carving a raw and heavy place in his chest. I can see that you are convinced, but I know not how to tell Mary that you will leave us. She will miss her mother and father dearly, especially now that she is increasing. And her brothers and sisters as well. Mary is counting on mother being there for the birth. And you know that you have been more a father to me than my own was. Our thinking is kindred.

John crossed his arms across his chest and cast a sympathetic look at James, Aye, we would miss you both terribly as well, and I know Joan will take it hard not being here for the birth of the babe, our first grandchild. But having apprenticed you these several years, and now as my partner and son-in-law, I think I do know you well, and I think you could thrive in the New World. You are young, strong, and a hard worker. Think of it! No man rules there James! There are no churches to abide by, no men to tell us how to dress or act. A freedom like we have never known here. There is trade from the Indians, the Massachusetts Bay settlers from the south, and even the French from the north. Ships arrive often from England because of the fisheries and the abundance of wood for shipbuilding. I think a good living is to be made there if one is willing to work hard. I am told that the smiths at Pemaquid earn 12-15£ a year.

James forehead was furrowed as he pulled his clay pipe from a pocket, tamped in his tobacco and lit the pipe with a twig from the fire, a cloud of grey smoke obscuring his vision for a moment. He could see his father-in-law’s excitement at the prospect, his voice gradually rising as he tried to sell it to James. Father, are you asking if we will also go?

I want you to do what you believe best for yourself, my daughter, and our grandchild, and I do not want to take your livelihood from you. I have thought long and hard on this. You may take over my leasehold here when I leave, you know that it is a good business even though Jones nearby now competes with us. It will continue to serve you well, even in these hard times, if you do work it alone. But yes, what mother and I prefer is that you and Mary come with us. Your brother returns to New Plymouth with Robert Knight, agent of Aldworth and Elbridge in two months-time, and he says that there is space yet for you on the ship Lyon. As William is in partner, if you agree to set up as gunsmith, only Mary’s passage would need payment and I can vouch for that as well as for any livestock, and foodstuffs you would need to start out. As it is done, my passage was paid by Elbridge.

James stood and paced the length of the smithy, his pipe in his mouth, his dark countenance showing his troubled thoughts. Everything Father Brown said about the problems here he was in agreement with, but he had tried not to think much on any of it, knowing that as most men of his stature, his options were few. What he really wished for was that he could make a good enough living to buy a small cottage of their own in the country, and to there live a good, simple life. To raise his children as God-fearing persons, without the interference of a priest or a King to tell him how to do it. But he knew that there was little chance for any of that happening in this place. How could he possibly ever raise enough money to do so? Maybe it could be thus in the New World if what John said is true.

He turned back to John his face creased with indecision. You say that there is enough work there?

There will be enough work for two smiths in New Plymouth of a certain, and they will grant you fifty acres of your own land to do with as you will. I have already been awarded my free land and purchased more at Nequasett with Edward Bateman who is also to go. Joan and I will already have a start there when you arrive so we could help get you settled.

Jason shook his pipe out into the fire. Fifty acres of my own land? That is much more than I could ever hope to purchase here in a lifetime. But the New World? I’m just not sure. I will need to think much on it. I don’t know what is best for us, and I warrant Mary would not be happy with the sea voyage so close to her time. I could not in fairness try to convince her if she would be set against it. She would have to agree with me that it is best, I would not take her from a life she is comfortable with no matter if I did decide I much wanted to go. He turned back to John, his brow wrinkling. How did you get Mother Joan to agree to this?

You know that we are like the peas in a pod, and she has always been an adventuresome sort. It was not as difficult as I supposed. But I would not want to be in your boots for the speaking with Mary if you settle on our path. My Mary likes her markets and shops, her friends and teas. And she has just settled in your little house with new glass windows. My reckoning is that it may not go well if I know my Mary. She will certainly stamp her feet.’ John smiled wryly then sighed, She does like her family close by though, it could be enough to sway her."

James blew out a deep breath. Nay, it will not be an easy conversation. Mayhap mother Joan would speak with her if I do decide on it. But father, the time is so short, have you gathered all you need for the voyage and thought what to do with this business if we were all to go? Are there any prospects?

Jones has an apprentice with him now whose time is nearly up. Edward says he may consider setting him up here if the price is right. Since you would still be here a little longer, perhaps you would see to the paperwork for me if we cannot complete it before I leave. I have known Edward a long time and your own brother William apprenticed with him so you know that Jones is trustworthy. He said that he would help me with getting someone else to take it on if the apprentice does not work out. As far as gathering supplies, we have been doing so the last weeks and it is progressing well. One of our neighbors will take some of our furnishings, and my sister Lettis the rest. There will be little room for furnishings and personal belongings on ship. I do have a small book I can give you if you decide on it. The book tells what is needed.

John gave his son-in-law a long hopeful look. Do think on it James, and talk to William. You will see he be not starving, and he can tell you the truth of it and quell your thoughts about the tales you’ve heard. Now, you best be off, ‘tis getting late. My daughter will be worried. I will bank the fire and finish up here.

James was thoughtful a moment and then looked towards the window where the light is now fading. He removed his apron, hanging it on a hook near the door, and picked up his coat and Monmouth cap, his expression remaining troubled. I thank you for considering us and the offer to help father. I will think more on this and see if I can find William on the morrow. He made his way through the doors calling back, Good eve, father.

The slanting rain had slowed to a drizzle and darkness was quickly descending, the streets no longer teeming with activity now the linkboys and watchmen were coming out to make their rounds. James headed down the narrow muddy streets towards the quay, past candle-lit homes and small shops now closed, then under the shadow of Bristol Cathedral on Trinity Street. The stench of the refuge and sewage flowing with the rainwater in the troughs alongside the roadways wrinkled his nose and masked the smell of smoke from countless chimneys. A boy streaked by him with a torch as he side-stepped two crows who pecked at a pile of scummy cabbage leaves, lifting their heads to look at him.

The river had its own stench, but it was where he could be alone for a time, a place he often went to think on important decisions. The tide was up so he sat on the wall and watched the rise and fall of the ships anchored or tied up there, hearing the water slapping against the wall. A wherryman slumbered in his craft and a large barge passed slowly down the river, the moon now a pale gleam on the water. A few men loaded barrels and boxes into the hold of one of the vessels, but most sailors were filling the taverns and bawdy houses at this time. He was barely aware of the surroundings as his thoughts swirled, and after more than an hour, he thought to stop for an ale at The Three Tuns on St. George’s, but Mary would be worried with the lateness of the hour and he hated to trouble her more, so instead he headed towards his cozy home on York Place with no decision made.

The wind was coming up and it was full dark as he approached the small half-timbered house that he leased. In the scant moonlight he saw candlelight flickering in peaceful welcome from the one window at the front of the house, a window box awaiting spring flowers underneath. He heard the screeching of a cat-fight in an alley nearby as a gust of wind nearly blew the heavy wooden door from his hand when he stepped into the front room of the house.

I notice that the strange red thread now also stretches to the woman I assume to be Mary as she stood from the