NORTH MANOR         
MONDAY, APRIL 19

I need another quill and more ink. I meant to send one of the girls down to the mill this afternoon, but they are gone now—my entire brood of children—off to the Hook to shop and socialize for the evening, and there is no one to run the errand for me. So I gather my journal and make my way down the path.

Even now I am rehearsing how I will tell Ephraim that he has another grandson. I doubt he will be surprised at the news. Or even displeased—I have never known a man who enjoys being around children more than Ephraim Ballard—but the handling of Jonathan will not be pleasant. As far as I’m concerned, my husband cannot get home soon enough.

It is odd to be in Ephraim’s space without him. He’s been gone over a week, but it still smells of him. Yet without his voice and the constant fluttering of Percy’s wings, the mill feels abandoned. No matter. There’s the ink, on his worktable, along with a jar of new quills and the rest of his tools.

Ephraim’s draw blade and Revenge sit in a neat row with the chisels and handsaws. Cleaned and oiled. Precise. Just like the man who keeps them. I do my best not to mess with his things while he’s gone but I do pull a blueish gray quill from the jar and press the sharpened tip against the pad of my thumb.

My husband had been collecting feathers for a week before he left. Some from the loft where Percy now roosts, but others from the forest. One can’t simply dip a feather into ink and write, however. Ephraim prepares each quill by hand.

I’d watched him strip the lowest, finest feathers, then place the shafts into the ashes of the wood stove to harden.

He’d looked at me. Winked. Laughed and said, “I wouldn’t mind if you hardened my shaft tonight.”

I had no intention of waiting until nightfall but didn’t mention it then or the quills would be ruined. I’d simply returned his leer and watched as he took the feathers and laid them on his worktable. He flattened the shafts slightly, until they took on an oval shape, then rounded the tips with his fingers. It didn’t take long for them to cool, only moments. Then he shaved off the points at an angle with his knife, followed by a slit at the top so that the ink will draw into the shaft.

Such simple things, paper, quill, and ink. But I cannot imagine more tangible symbols of my husband’s love. I miss him and there is much I want to tell him, but no ability to do so yet.

I spread my journal open on the worktable, mix the ink, and dip my quill instead.

Monday, April 19—Clear morn. Cloudy afternoon, the wind very chilly. Mr. Ballard is still in Boston. My girls are at the Hook. My boys also.

I cannot say why it is so important that I make this daily record. Perhaps because I have been doing so for years on end? Or maybe—if I am being honest—it is because these markings of ink and paper will one day be the only proof that I have existed in this world. That I lived and breathed. That I loved a man and the many children he gave me. It is not that I want to be remembered, per se. I have done nothing remarkable. Not by the standards of history, at least. But I am here. And these words are the mark I will leave behind. So yes, it matters that I continue this ritual.

The ink is still wet on the page, and I leave it open on the table to dry. I’ll collect everything later, when I get home. For now, my conscience burns, and I must go see Lidia North.


The tonic is in my medical bag. It weighs but a few ounces. Yet to me it may as well be an anchor, for it feels as though I am dragging the full weight of my conscience up the front steps to Joseph North’s house.

Still, I knock.

Once.

Twice.

Three times I pound the knuckles of my right hand against the wooden door. Finally, after several minutes, it is answered by Lidia. I can see I’ve woken the woman. Her hair is mussed, her eyes watering, and there are pillow creases along her right cheek.

“Martha,” she says, wary, “what are you doing here?”

“I have come to bring your tonic.”

“But I thought—”

“I was wrong,” I tell her. “And I am sorry for being cruel. Will you let me in?”

The house is dark, all the shades drawn, when Lidia leads me through the front door and into the parlor. It is not a manor home, far from it, but as one of the largest houses in the Hook, that is what it’s called. North Manor. It sits against a large sweep of hill on the west side of Water Street, overlooking the river. Four full bedrooms upstairs. A kitchen, study, sitting room, and dining room downstairs. There are glass windows and velvet curtains and wood floors. But I can think only of the fact that Joseph North purchased this house with bounties paid on the heads of his enemies. I wonder if Lidia knows. Or if she cares.

“Do sit down,” Lidia tells me. “I can build the fire.”

“No need. I won’t stay long.” I lower myself onto the sofa beside her. “Where is Joseph this evening?”

Lidia shrugs. “Out for an evening walk.”

It’s best that way. I haven’t seen him since the trial and certainly don’t want to run into him now. “How have you been?”

“Worse. I wish it wasn’t so, but…”

“The headaches?”

“Every day. Sometimes for hours at a time. Joseph is so patient with me, but I know they wear on him as well.”

“I should have come sooner. I am sorry for that.”

Lidia looks at her fingers. They are long and thin, like twigs. She flexes them several times before answering. “It hasn’t been fair. For a lot of us.”

The medical bag sits at my feet, and I lean down to sift through the contents. Each item is as familiar to me as the faces of those I love, and I let my fingers roam, looking for the right one.

There.

It is small, with a slender neck and a wooden cork. The bottle feels cool against my palm when I pluck it out of the bag and set it in Lidia’s hand.

“You mustn’t take too much,” I tell her. “Only two teaspoons a day. Once in the morning. Once in the evening. Would you like me to get you the first one?”

“Please.”

“Stay here. I’ll get a spoon.”

I leave her, head tilted back against the sofa. The kitchen is small and tidy, located at the back of the house, and I find what I’m looking for in a small basket on the counter. A set of pewter spoons. Neatly stacked. Everything in its place. The house feels sterile to me. Devoid of all the life and noise and chaos that I am accustomed to.

“Here,” I say, once I am back in the sitting room, as I carefully pour a spoonful of the tonic and tip it into Lidia’s mouth. “You should feel better soon.”

She swallows the pale amber liquid. “Thank you.”

I expect her to shudder. The tonic is bitter and the reflex normal. But on Lidia’s thin frame, it looks like a seizure. I watch her carefully for a moment to make sure she is well.

“Let’s get you to bed. Rest will help.”

Lidia lifts an arm, flapping absentmindedly at the ceiling. “Upstairs.”

She can get there under her own power, but I follow her up the stairs, just in case. The last thing I need is for Lidia to take a dizzy tumble. But once at the top, she guides me down the hallway and into the bedroom she shares with her husband.

I help Lidia into bed and draw up the blanket. The woman looks so small and frail, in so much pain. She mutters her thanks and is asleep within moments.

I have known only two other women who suffer from the dreaded mygreyn, but neither were this debilitated. When the headaches descend upon Lidia, she is all but crippled, requiring a cold, dark room and no interference. Watching her now, I regret my cruelty. The woman is suffering, and I had no right to deny her any form of relief. Regardless of what her husband has done.

“Let me know when you need more,” I tell her.

I set the bottle and teaspoon on the small bedside table, then tiptoe from the room. Down the hall. Back to the parlor. I collect my medical bag and am almost at the entrance when I see that North has left the door to his study open.


I would have thought him a tidier man. But no, there are papers littered across his desk, books cracked open at the spine on every flat surface. The small, paneled room smells of pipe smoke, dust, old books, and candle wax. North has a straight-backed chair and a bookcase behind the desk. There is a wooden trunk beneath the window, and on the far wall, a side table with a decanter and two crystal glasses. The candles are all burned to an inch, and I reach out to touch the one on his desk. There are flakes of rosemary and lavender in the pooled wax.

They’re mine, I think. I made these.

Of all the things to give me pause. Just a candle. A simple thing. But a reminder that I am a woman who makes and heals, not a woman who snoops and schemes.

But if not me, who? If not now, when?

I turn, intending to leave, but my gaze falls on his desk. It is an orderly sort of chaos. Letters, surveys, and maps are strewn across the polished wood surface. Many of them are in Ephraim’s hand, and all of them relate to North’s work with the Kennebec Proprietors. I recognize the map of Hallowell and the survey of our property.

There is a letter—only partially drafted—in North’s handwriting. I lift it from the desk. Read it aloud. “…As per our discussion last month in Boston, please find the enclosed land surveys of three hundred acres between Mill Creek and Burnt Hill. I think you will find the lumber quantity and access to the river meets your growing needs to supply the shipyards in Boston. I am ready to assume the lease immediately. And, as agreed, I will take ownership of the aforementioned neglected Ballard lease—twelve years to be prorated to myself, and the deed finalized in April. Having a closer proximity to the property will better allow me to supervise the clearing of this forest….”

I stand there, paralyzed, gripping the letter. He has intended to take our land all along. And not just ours. He wants half of Hallowell. The realization is sickening, but I am out of time because I hear the sound of boots on the porch and then the front door swings open.

“Lidia?” North’s voice echoes through the first floor.

He is twelve, perhaps fifteen feet away when I make my decision. My last seconds are spent stuffing the letter into my medical bag. I am at the side table, decanter in hand, when he opens the door to his study.

“What are you doing in here?” North demands, his voice laced with fury and contempt. Beside him, Cicero growls low in his throat.

When I turn, I lift one of his crystal glasses. A finger of amber liquid sloshes at the bottom. “Brandy. For your wife. It will help settle the tonic in her stomach.”

The dog takes a menacing step toward me, and I see a freshly healed wound on his head, a long, jagged pink scar that runs diagonally across his snout. No doubt a run-in with a sharp set of talons.

Well done, Percy, I think.

I do not apologize for being in his study, nor ask his permission as I brush past him and go up the stairs, medical bag tucked in tight beneath my arm. He follows closely behind, furious glare burning into the back of my head as I wake Lidia and help her drink the brandy. Once more I give instruction for the tonic, and again Lidia thanks me for coming.

I neither look at North on my way out of the house, nor do I wish him farewell, for I do not trust myself to speak.