BALLARD’S MILL         
MONDAY, MARCH 1

I finish yesterday’s journal entry while Ephraim reads the letters. There are three in total—one of them in his own handwriting—and I can hear the papers crinkle between his fingers as I record the details of Eliza Robbins’s delivery in my journal.

Sunday, February 28. Birth. Chandler Robbins’s son. Snowed in the afternoon. I was called to see Mrs. Robbins who is unwell. Mrs. Robbins lingered until four p.m. when her illness came on. Doctor Page was called but she did not wish to see him when he came. She was safe delivered of a son, her first born, at the tenth and one half hour last evening and is as well as can be expected. I tarried and watched. Mrs. Ney was there and she only.

I’d recognized Ephraim’s writing on the envelope, of course. There is no mistaking the precise and lovely lines, how the stem of every d curls up and to the left, making a perfect half loop above the letter. The only mystery is how a survey that my husband completed almost twelve years ago had come to be in the saddlebag of a dead man.

Ephraim wanted the entire story, of course—where I’d been and what I’d been up to—not to mention how I got out of that shed. He wanted it the moment I got home, but, exhausted and stiff, I’d promised to give him every detail if he would wait until the morning.

Now, I tap my quill on the little pewter dish to knock off the remaining ink and push my journal aside. I turn to Ephraim. Wait.

“But”—Ephraim drops the letter to his lap and looks up at me, staggered—“this says—”

“I know what it says.”

“They can’t.”

“They can, apparently. With that affidavit from North.”

Ephraim folds each letter methodically and places it back in its envelope. Bits of wax seal break off and fall to the floor, but he doesn’t notice. He taps the letters against his thigh. Then he’s up and pacing.

“This is an eviction notice.”

“Yes. I read it.”

And I had. After dressing this morning, but before leaving our room, I sat on the edge of the bed and read each of the letters in Burgess’s saddlebag: a survey drawn almost twelve years ago by Ephraim of our eighty acres, along with a detailed property description; a certified letter to the Kennebec Proprietors from Joseph North stating that the Ballard family had failed to meet the third condition for acquiring the deed to this property; and a response from said Proprietors noting that the Ballard lease is heretofore canceled and—as North suggested—reassigned to one Captain Joshua Burgess.

The fact that the saddlebag came home with me last night is another thing I will have to explain to my husband. He hasn’t asked yet. Therefore, I haven’t volunteered.

“But it’s a lie. Everything he said in that letter is demonstrably false. We have met every condition.”

“Not the third. Not technically.”

“Only because next month will mark our twelfth year on this property. But we have most certainly maintained a permanent residence. There are hundreds of people who will testify to that!”

“Will that matter if North refuses to certify the claim? He is the Kennebec Proprietor, not you. And it would require a lengthy appeal regardless. And in the meantime, we would have been evicted. Turned into the street so Burgess could have all we’ve built.”

“Except he’s dead. And we are still here.”

I shake my head. “That’s the part I don’t understand. Why would North go to all the trouble of transferring the mill to Burgess only to kill him?”

He looks at me with those steely blue eyes. “You believe it was North?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense. He’s the only one to profit from Burgess’s death.”

Ephraim goes to stand before the window, the letters pinched between two fingers on his left hand. His back is straight and strong, as is his profile, and I watch him stare into the distance. After a moment he scratches at the scruff along his jawline.

A thought occurs to me, and I sit up straighter on the stool. “Oh.”

“What?”

“When is North’s letter dated?”

He pulls it from the envelope. Holds it at arm’s length. Gives it a myopic squint. “October first. Why?”

The date is familiar. So I reach for my journal and flip back to October first, looking for a clue. And there it is, in black-and-white, written by my own hand.

Thursday, October 1—Clear except some showers. We had company this afternoon. Mr. Savage here, informs us that Mrs. Foster has sworn a rape on a number of men, among whom is Joseph North. Shocking indeed! I have been at home.

“That was the day that Rebecca Foster came forward with her accusation of rape.”

“What are you saying?”

“I think North was buying Joshua Burgess’s silence with this property.”

“So why kill him?”

It’s a valid question. One that I can’t answer with any degree of certainty. “I don’t know. Not yet at any rate.”

“All your scheming hasn’t produced a solution?”

“I do not scheme.

“If that were the case, you wouldn’t have found yourself locked in the Pollard shed in the middle of the night. Or come home with a saddlebag that does not belong to you.” Ephraim leans against the wall. Gives me a stern look. “Do not think I have not forgotten simply because of”—he holds up the letters—“these.”

I take a deep breath. Puff it out. “I did think I was in trouble for a moment. It had gotten as cold as a well-digger’s arse in there, and I couldn’t decide whether or not to call for help.”

“Intrigued by the idea of freezing to death, were you?”

I glare at him. “It hadn’t gotten to that point. And besides, I had no way of explaining what I was doing there or why I had that damn saddlebag over my arm.”

“Well, I’m guessing you didn’t walk through the wall or dig your way out. So who rescued you?”

“Moses.” I laugh. “Amos had gone back in and flayed him in German for leaving the shed door unlocked. Didn’t take him long to figure out where I’d gone with that lantern. It did, however, take him a while to come for me. He had to wait until his father fell asleep.”

Ephraim runs his fingers through the hair at his temples. Shakes his head. Growls. “You will be the death of me, woman.”

“All’s well that ends well.”

He does not think it funny, this use of the Bard against him, and his eyes thin to slits of irritation.

“I would have got out. Eventually,” I say.

“Maybe. Maybe not. But I see you have not solved our current predicament.”

“Which is?”

“How in the name of seven hells we are going to explain how you came to be in possession of that saddlebag.”

“No one is asking that particular question just yet.”

“They will. The moment we go public with these letters. Which we’ll have to do because, technically, we no longer have a legal right to live on this property.”

I am about to tell him that, by the time anyone thinks to ask that question, we’ll have figured out a way to answer. But that’s when Jonathan throws back the door to my workroom without knocking.

“Yes?” Ephraim asks.

Jonathan looks at his father with pity and dread. “Something has killed Percy.”


The wooden slats have been torn apart, and there is blood on the floor. A riot of feathers litter the mews. It is a grim scene, not much different from the block I use to butcher chickens.

I watch Ephraim. He stands still—too still—as he takes in the sight. “What was it?” Jonathan asks.

Ephraim steps back and inspects the ground. There are paw prints in the snow. A mad tangle of them, crisscrossing and mashed together.

“A coyote,” he says.

“Not a wolf? Those are big tracks.”

“It was a big coyote.” He kneels and draws one finger along the print. “See, the toes are oblong, and the pad is scalloped. A wolf has round toes, an angular pad.”

“I’m sorry,” Jonathan says. “It’s a shame to lose that bird.”

Ephraim grunts but doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, he walks around the mews, hunched over, until he finds a set of prints leading into the forest. These are wider apart, like the animal was running, and there are small drops of blood splattered between them.

To me it looks as though the coyote ran off with Percy between his jaws, but Ephraim returns, shaking his head. “I don’t think he’s dead.”

“Dad, are you…?” Jonathan’s voice trails off when I shake my head.

Let him be, my expression says.

“If it got him, it would have torn Percy apart right here.” He points to the ground in front of the mews.

“There are a lot of feathers,” I say.

“It got into the mews. Took a few swipes, no doubt. But I think Percy got his licks in, scared the thing, and flew away.”

We all three look to the sky as though the falcon might be circling above us.

“Will he come back?” I ask.

Ephraim is less sure about this, and a frown clouds his expression. “I suppose we’ll see how well I’ve trained him.”