ANNE ARUNDEL TOWN fell behind, lost and forgotten as a dream upon waking. With each hour they sailed, the land grew wilder and stranger. It reminded Hannah of the stories her father used to tell her. Once Britain had been covered in forest. Centuries ago, before the Civil War, before Henry VIII and the Reformation, before the tall trees had been cut down to make ships, there had been a lost wilderness full of bear and wild boar.
The ship sailed past harvested tobacco fields where the stripped earth stood out like a giant wound against the dense woods beyond. She sighted a group of black men burning harvest stubble. Although it was halfway into October, they worked shirtless, their backs glistening in the fire's heat. Their voices rose on the wind with the smoke as they sang in an unfamiliar language, their music so haunting that it made her shiver.
Those men, she gathered, were not free like Lucy and Cassie. She turned as the two women walked toward her.
"Soon we anchor at the Mearley Plantation," Lucy said when they joined her at the rail. "The ship only comes once a year, and when it comes, it is like Christmas."
"Christmas?"
"You will see for yourself," said Lucy. Cassie said nothing, only cracked a smile.
The ship swung around a bend, revealing a plantation that reminded Hannah of a prosperous yeoman's farmstead at home. The two-story house had a steep-pitched roof and red shutters flanking gabled windows of real glass that glinted in the dazzling autumn light.
"Do they make glass here?" she asked.
Cassie snorted.
Lucy shook her head. "I heard that the Mearleys did order their glass from Holland."
Scattered around the house were outbuildings of more primitive construction. Lucy pointed out the livestock barns and tobacco sheds.
"That little cottage you see with the smoke coming out the chimney," said Lucy, "that is the kitchen. They cook in there so the big house doesn't get too hot in summer."
"Then it must be very cold in winter." Hannah could not imagine a house without a kitchen.
What Lucy did not point out were the hovels half hidden among the bushes and pines. Hannah reckoned those were the slaves' quarters.
"Look," said Lucy. "The children are blowing horns." She raised her hand to wave at the cluster of young ones jumping and whooping. One boy shouted to the sailors to throw him a mooring line so he could tie it to the dock. A woman in a russet-colored dress waved so wildly, Hannah thought her arm would loosen from its socket. Hannah waved back. She was beginning to understand why Lucy said the ship's arrival was like Christmas. The woman in the russet dress was obviously the planter's wife and the mother of those children, yet she was waving with the enthusiasm of a young girl. Did May also wave to the ship like that?
Everyone clapped and cheered. Black men began rolling huge hogsheads from the tobacco sheds down to the dock.
"That is their entire fortune," Cassie said.
"What happens if the harvest fails?" Hannah asked.
"They go into debt to the ship captain. They pay by credit—as long as he allows it. If the debt keeps rising, they lose their leasehold. Not a single planter here truly owns his lands. All is on lease from the Lord Baltimore."
"Further north I hear that storms have ruined the crops," Lucy ventured.
May lived north of here, Hannah thought. What if her harvest had been lost?
When the sailors lowered the gangplank, the first mate stepped ashore, saying he had letters for Mrs. Mearley. Hannah watched how eagerly she took them from his hands, how she hugged them to her breast as if they contained jewels. Hannah allowed herself to pretend she saw May clasp letters from home.
Meanwhile the men unloaded the goods that the Mearleys had ordered the previous year. She listened to the first mate read the inventory to Mr. Mearley. "An oaken table and eight chairs, two casks of Rhenish wine, a box of China tea, a bolt of India silk, six cones of sugar, one steel plow..."
"Do they not have ironmongers here?" Hannah asked Lucy.
"Who would be an ironmonger when he could be a planter?"
"Come." Cassie tugged Lucy's arm. "Let us go down and see if we are needed."
"Is Mrs. Mearley expecting a baby?" Hannah asked. The woman on shore did not appear to be pregnant, though the fabric of her dress was bulky enough to hide a growing belly.
"We tend to the others, too." Lucy nodded toward the shacks in the pines.
***
Hannah wandered down the gangplank, but soon lost sight of Cassie and Lucy. Mrs. Mearley beckoned people off the ship to a table of rough planks, where a cask of ale and a plate of crabcakes were laid out.
"Come and refresh yourselves!" she cried. "I'll let no one say that the Mearleys are not liberal and generous."
Mrs. Mearley looked about thirty-five, still handsome, but when she smiled, Hannah saw the gaps in her teeth. For every child, a tooth, the saying went. She wondered if May had lost a tooth with her first pregnancy. Hannah reckoned Mrs. Mearley was hiding something behind her smile—she could make out the strain in her face as the lady pressed a pewter tankard of ale into the ship captain's hand.
"I cannot tell you how pleased we are," Mrs. Mearley said to the captain, "to finally have the good table and chairs. For years we made do with what the servants could cobble together. At last we shall be able to receive guests in style. There is nothing Mr. Mearley likes better than company."
Mr. Mearley, busy overseeing the loading of tobacco barrels, did not strike Hannah as a man who enjoyed guests, or much of anything. She observed him limping along as though every step caused him pain. His posture was one of forbearance, spine hunched and arms clutched to his belly as if to protect his inner organs.
"In his condition, he should rest indoors." The captain spoke delicately. "I heard the news of his malady in Anne Arundel Town."
A fretful look passed over Mrs. Mearley's face. "I tried to persuade him to book passage to Bristol so that he might have the care of a physician, but he refused." She lowered her voice. "He fears sea travel. Last time he boarded ship, he caught a fever that was nearly the end of him."
"Madam." Hannah spoke before she could stop herself. "What is the nature of your husband's illness?"
Mrs. Mearley and the captain turned to her with puzzled faces. Mrs. Mearley appeared affronted.
"This is young Mistress Powers from the ship," the captain said.
"If you please, madam, my father was a physician, and I know something of physick myself. Perhaps I could be of service." Hannah curtsied with what she hoped was appropriate deference.
"My dear girl, I think you overestimate your powers." Mrs. Mearley spoke in a high and brittle tone. "This is no matter for amateurs."
"Begging your pardon, madam." She swallowed. "I only wished to offer help."
"Your offer is kind, mistress," said a man who appeared at Mrs. Mearley's elbow. Hannah hadn't seen him until now. His voice was conciliatory and smooth as cream. "But Mr. Mearley requires a surgeon, not a nursemaid, however solicitous."
About forty years old, the man was easily the most sophisticated person she had seen on this shore. He wore a doublet of wine-colored leather over his voluminous linen shirt, which was laundered to such whiteness that it hurt her eyes. His wig, if modest, appeared brand new and of the latest fashion. His breeches were linen and his boots were of claret leather to match his doublet. Unlike the strutting planters she had seen on the ship and in Anne Arundel Town, there was a look of true nobility about him. He didn't need jeweled rings and silk waistcoats, Hannah thought, to prove he was a person of distinction.
"A surgeon, you say?" Her hands itched for the box of surgical instruments hidden at the bottom of her locked trunk.
"Seeing as you have so kindly expressed your concern, I trust Mrs. Mearley will not object if I share this revelation with you." He inclined his head. "The good lady's husband has a stone in his kidney."
Hannah opened her mouth in an O. She saw Mr. Byrd splayed on the table, the scalpel in her hand as she cut to the stone. How cleanly she had made the incision. How proud Father had been. She raised her eyes to the gentleman, about to tell him she could indeed operate on Mr. Mearley, when she caught herself. What possibility was there that Mrs. Mearley would let a strange young woman with a scalpel anywhere near her husband?
The gentleman addressed Mrs. Mearley. "If I were you, madam, I would try once more to persuade your husband to sail back to England at the first opportunity and there make use of a surgeon. In the meanwhile," he nodded to Hannah, "I understand there are two herb women aboard the ship. If you could fetch them, Mistress Powers, perhaps they might at least provide enough physick to dull Mr. Mearley's pain."
"Lucy Mackett and Cassie, you mean." Hannah ducked her head. "I will see if I can find them, sir."
***
Hannah joined Cassie and Lucy in the cooking house, where they measured out herbs for Mr. Mearley's remedy.
"Lucky for him, I had the witchgrass in my pouch," Lucy said.
Their tincture required young birch leaves, speedwell, and chicory. The last two they procured from Mrs. Mearley's store of dried kitchen herbs, but no new birch leaves would be found until spring.
"We must make do," said Lucy. "An incomplete remedy is better than none."
Cassie squatted at the hearth and poked the fire with a stick while waiting for the kettle to boil.
"If his stone is small, such a tincture might help him pass it," Hannah said. "But if the stone is large, only a surgeon can save him. Why can they not find a surgeon for him on this shore? The voyage to England might well kill him."
"My girl," said Lucy, "there are no surgeons on this shore."
"How can that be?"
"Who would trade a life of comfort in the mother country for this?" Lucy waved her hand around the cluttered cooking shack. "The patients are so far-flung, he would spend all his time traveling."
Cassie lifted her head from the hearth. "I hear in Anne Arundel Town there is a trained blacksmith. They could summon him to cut for the stone."
"A common blacksmith?" Hannah felt sick.
"Aye," Lucy said shortly. "Then he would die from the bleeding afterward."
"My father was a physician and surgeon." Hannah spoke rapidly so they wouldn't interrupt her. "Many times I assisted him. I saw him make the cuts. I have the instruments in my trunk. If the Mearleys would allow it, I could remove the stone."
Lucy laid her hand on Hannah's shoulder. She was struggling not to laugh. "You would offer to cut into a strange man's privy parts?"
Cassie guffawed.
Hannah's face burned. "But I—"
"No." Lucy spoke firmly. "A girl like you should not meddle in these things. Besides, the man is fifty. His sons are nearly grown. He has lived longer than most. God has not been unkind to him."
***
When the tincture was bottled and ready, Lucy and Cassie presented it to Mrs. Mearley.
"We are obliged," Mrs. Mearley said. She gave them a small cask of home-brewed ale as payment.
Back on deck, Hannah waved again at the children on the landing. She thought of Mrs. Mearley with her new oak table and chairs, of Mr. Mearley with his pinched gray face and his look of perpetual torment. What if she had been brave enough to present the scalpel and her book of anatomy? What if she had been courageous enough to tell them how she had successfully removed a kidney stone from Mr. Byrd back home? They would never believe you. She recalled the look Mrs. Mearley had given her. They would call you a lying, deluded girl.
"Still feeling pity for Mr. Mearley?" Cassie approached with a traveler's tin cup of Mrs. Mearley's ale. "The brew is weak," she complained.
Hannah looked out over the ship rail. The Mearley house had already vanished from view.
Cassie grinned. "Did you not say your sister lives upriver from the Banham Plantation?"
"I did."
"Well, there he is," she said coyly. "There is your Mr. Banham." She pointed to the man in the leather doublet who had told Hannah about Mr. Mearley's kidney stone. He sauntered past, a shining sun surrounded by a coterie of lesser planters who were like moons reflecting his brilliance. They competed for his attention and hung on his every word.
"Are you certain?"
Cassie nodded. "I heard the captain introduce him to some other men."
"So he is my sister's nearest neighbor." Hannah remembered what the man with the rotten teeth in Anne Arundel Town had said. Is your sister one of Banham's whores? Mr. Banham was certainly pleasing to look at. May would think so, too. Unwelcome thoughts crowded her head. No, surely May would have renounced her loose ways by now. She was a married woman, a mother. Surely she would not ply her charms on Mr. Banham.
Hannah clutched the ship rail. The man in Anne Arundel Town had said one of Banham's whores. Did he have a reputation as a libertine, then? He had not struck her that way. His gaze had been frank and open, befitting an upright man. Enough. She couldn't afford to tear herself apart over every scrap of gossip. Soon she would see May and be able to speak to her about everything. May would laugh at her worries.
"Why is he traveling at this time?" she asked Cassie. "Why is he not at his own plantation to oversee the loading of the harvest barrels?"
"A true gentleman never works," Cassie said slyly. "For that he has servants and slaves. I heard he has just returned from Virginia. He bought land there." She raised her eyebrows. "Two thousand acres."
Hannah could not fathom one man owning so much land.
"So you see," said Cassie, "he is far too busy to oversee his own harvest." At that she drained her cup of ale.
***
Hannah waited for a chance to ask Mr. Banham about her sister, but it was hard to approach him. He ate with the captain and slept in prime quarters with the ship's officers. She did not succeed in catching his eye. Before she could question Cassie further, the ship anchored at the Turlington Plantation, where Cassie and Lucy said their goodbyes to her.
"If you are ever in need of a midwife, send for us." Lucy winked, then shouldered her small trunk and trundled down the gangplank.
***
The journey up the Bay continued. The ship emptied of passengers and goods from England, but filled with hogsheads, which weighed down the hold. Their passage was so sluggish, Hannah wondered whether she would ever reach her destination. When at last they arrived at the Gardiner Plantation at the mouth of the Sequose River, word came that storms had knocked down trees, blocking the waterway. Even the sandbars had shifted. The ship would not be able to navigate the river.
Hannah stood on the pier in the midst of the men struggling to load tobacco and unload cargo before darkness fell. Judging from the way Mr. Banham leaned against a crate and smoked his pipe, the ship's blocked passage appeared to cause him no anxiety. His men had loaded the harvest barrels onto smaller boats and sailed them down to Gardiner's Landing. She could only hope that the Washbrooks had done the same.
"Any news of the Washbrooks?" Hannah shouted at two men rolling a barrel.
One of them laughed. The other shook his head in annoyance. "The Washbrooks? How should we know their business?"
When she approached Banham, one of his servants was addressing him. "There is no damage to your house or any of your buildings, sir, although some fences were knocked down. Mrs. Banham took a fright, she did, sir, but she is better now."
Before Hannah could hope to get a word in, a man in an embroidered waistcoat swept up and embraced Banham. "Never fear that you must make the journey home by darkness, my friend. You are welcome, as always, to bide with us. Mrs. Gardiner would never forgive me if I didn't invite you to stay the night."
The ship captain approached. "Evening, Mr. Gardiner, Mr. Banham." He bowed. "There is another matter to discuss. A girl named Hannah Powers is also bound for Banham's Landing, sir."
Although she stood a few feet away, the captain referred to her as if she were a child. Summoning her courage, she spoke up. "Mr. Banham." She dropped in a curtsy. "I am Hannah Powers, sir."
Banham smiled. "Ah, yes. The physician's daughter."
"Sir, I am bound for the Washbrook Plantation."
Something flickered across his face, but he said nothing. Inclining his head, he signaled her to go on.
"My sister is May Washbrook, wife of Gabriel Washbrook."
"Gabriel, you say?" He frowned. "I have only heard of Mr. Nathan Washbrook."
She flustered. "Gabriel is the young Mr. Washbrook, sir. Nathan's son."
"Ah, yes." He glanced around. "Have your people not come to meet the ship?"
"No, sir." Her voice shook. "I think not. The men I spoke to have heard no news of them."
"This is most unusual. Surely someone from their plantation must have made the journey down."
Hannah fought tears. "Maybe there was illness in their household, sir. Maybe their boats sank or their harvest was ruined..."
He held up his hand to silence her. "My dear girl, you are making yourself quite wretched, and probably for nothing. The tobacco was harvested in August, then hung up in barns to dry. Unless the storms brought down their barns, their harvest I'm sure is safe. Perhaps they are tardy because they could not yet clear the river for passage. Perhaps the storms damaged their boats. They might still bring their barrels down to Gardiner's Landing. I believe the ship will call here one more time before leaving the Bay.
"So you see, all will be well. Tomorrow I will take you upriver. When we reach my plantation, my men will take you on to the Washbrooks. Fret not, Mistress Powers. In the space of a day, you will be with your people."
Before she could thank him, he turned to Mr. Gardiner.
"The Gardiners, I am sure, will allow you to stay the night here in safety. All you need do is fetch your things off the ship. Oh, and whatever the Washbrooks have ordered." He turned to the captain. "Any goods for the Washbrook Plantation, sir?"
"And how will they pay with no harvest?" the captain inquired.
Hannah covered her mouth.
"Courage, my child." Mr. Banham spoke gently. "I can extend credit to the Washbrooks, sir. Now have you any goods for them on board?"
Hannah smiled, almost faint to witness such goodness.
"I think not, Mr. Banham," said the captain, "but I will look at the inventory."
Banham winked at her. "That's sorted, then." He snapped his fingers at one of the sailors. "If you please, fetch Mistress Powers's box from the hold. She is leaving ship."
Moments later, Banham led Hannah up the path to the Gardiner house with its lit-up windows glowing in the twilight. He told Hannah that he had a daughter her age who played the spinet. A dancing master had come all the way from London to teach her the minuet. Among the young planters she had many suitors. His favorite among them was a young Virginian who bred racehorses. Mr. Banham also had twins named Eleanor and Alice. His oldest son was a scholar at Oxford, while his youngest boy was not yet old enough to cut his hair and wear breeches.
"My father went to Oxford," Hannah said, unable to hide her pride.
"I should have deduced when I first laid eyes on you that you were an Oxford man's daughter."
She flushed in delight. "Sir, I hear you are my sister's nearest neighbor."
"That is the most curious thing. Though they are also my nearest neighbors, I know little of them. The Washbrooks have never been neighborly. Nathan Washbrook's son—pray, what did you say his name was?"
"Gabriel, sir." "Gabriel Washbrook." Mr. Banham spoke slowly, as though committing the name to memory. "Let me tell you of our Christmas parties at the plantation. They are famous. We invite every soul, rich and poor, in miles. There is music and dancing, food and drink in plenty. No one is turned away. People up and down the Bay come. Why, we have guests who hail from the Eastern Shore and as far as Virginia. But the Washbrooks never came once." He spoke with calm neutrality.
Hannah could not think what to say.
"Though on one occasion I did meet your sister," he said kindly.
"You did, sir?" She could barely restrain herself from kissing his hand in gratitude. "Do tell me of her."
"I only met her briefly." The expression on his face was difficult to read. "A proud and handsome woman. Maybe when you live there, we will see more of your people. Women are by nature more society-loving than men."
As they neared the house, Mr. Gardiner caught up with them, exchanging loud banter with Banham. Dropping behind, Hannah followed them over the threshold, down a wide central passageway, and into a chamber where a linen-draped table was set with china plates and silver goblets.
"Here is our hostess," Mr. Banham announced. "The incomparable Mrs. Gardiner."
A heavily pregnant woman extended her hand for Banham to kiss. She was lovely and golden-haired, and her belly thrust out grandly beneath her gown of watered silk. Mrs. Gardiner did not look a day over eighteen. Her bodice, cut fashionably low, exposed her breasts, which were even whiter than her face. She gave off the scent of tuberose. Behind her was an open doorway leading into a bedchamber. In the middle of that room, a black woman sat on a stool and nursed a white child who looked about a year old.
"Our son." Mr. Gardiner smiled indulgently. The boy had his mother's golden curls.
When everyone was seated, servants poured claret into the silver goblets. They brought out platters of pheasant, oysters, roast pork and beef, and sweetmeats. The smell of the food alone nearly undid Hannah. This feast on the remote plantation seemed fabulous, like Joan's tale of the weary traveler who stumbled into the faery palace. If she blundered, the illusion would shatter. The fine victuals would turn into a pile of dry old leaves and empty acorn cups.
Gardiner and Banham spoke heartily of tobacco prices, the London market, and the West India Company. Hannah imagined she should make conversation with Mrs. Gardiner, but she didn't know what to say. For all her blinding beauty, the lady was vacanteyed, smiling dimly without quite meeting anyone's gaze. She didn't utter a word, but merely went on chewing and swallowing the food that her servant placed in front of her. She sipped wine from her goblet until her face and breasts were rosy and flushed.
***
Afterward Mr. Banham retired to a pallet set out for him in the room where they had dined. Hannah slept in a narrow chamber with the wet nurse and the little boy.
In the pitch-dark, she awoke to the sound of footsteps on creaking floorboards, strange noises, dove-like cooing. The wet nurse muttered in her sleep and rolled over while Hannah froze, rigid on her pallet. Her skin burned as she listened to muffled laughter. There was a voice she distinctly recognized as Mr. Banham's, then Mr. Gardiner's. A woman sighed like a pigeon. Hannah thought of Mrs. Gardiner's breasts, trussed up and on display for the men. Her pregnant belly. A whimpering voice murmured unintelligible words.
A strand of her own hair caught in Hannah's mouth like a bit. She thought of May and her lovers, then of her own maidenhood, her ignorance. Even if it disgusted her to admit it, the moans and cries moved her. Closing her eyes, she imagined an invisible hand stroking her belly and thighs. She recalled the times May had crept into their bed in the early morning, still glowing from her trysts, the scent of her lover rising from her skin. How peacefully her sister had slept afterward. One of Banham's whores. Had he also made her sister cry out like that? A sob caught in Hannah's throat.
While the nurse slept on, the little boy began to cry. Hannah crept to his crib and tried to soothe him. "Shh," she whispered. "Shh."
***
The following morning, Mrs. Gardiner did not appear at breakfast. Her husband explained that owing to her delicate condition, she needed her rest. With perfect equanimity, Mr. Banham inquired if Hannah had slept well.
The convoy of low-slung boats set off early for the Banham Plantation. The first two boats were loaded with the supplies Banham had bought off the ship. Six men rowed each of these craft upstream. Hannah sat with Banham in the third and smallest boat, which had four men rowing. Huddled at the rudder was a boy of about sixteen—a new hireling Banham had bought off the ship. Silent as stone and looking weak from his poor rations, the boy was obliged to take his turn at the oars to relieve the other men. Hannah nearly offered to row in his place—he hardly looked sturdy enough to hold his own against the swollen river's current. Mr. Banham dozed most of the morning while his oarsmen labored, their faces impassive.
Storm damage notwithstanding, the forest appeared impenetrable. Immense trees that had never known a white man's ax closed in around the waterway. Blood-red maple, golden ash, and birch stood ablaze against dusky pines. It would take a hundred strong men or more, Hannah thought, to clear the land for planting. Deer flitted through the foliage. Were there still Indians in these woods? she wondered. Cousin Nathan's letter had claimed that the Indians here were peaceable, but she'd heard from Elizabeth Sharpe that there had been massacres on the western shore a few years back. She wished Mr. Banham were awake so she could ask him.
The wilderness made her think of the ancient forests of Britain where the first people had lived. Once, when digging in the garden, she had found a stone arrowhead. Joan had told her it was elf shot—a faery's arrow. Now she pictured the silent ones moving through the woods, watching their boats as they struggled upriver. She could not escape the notion that they were being watched. Shielding her eyes from the sun, she scanned the forest for staring faces. The first people were observing her from the dark green shadows where they hid. She imagined a head emerging from the oak leaves. The Green Man.
Mr. Banham grunted in his sleep.
***
A while later, on a rocky outcropping, a huge black shape reared, maw open. Screaming, Hannah clutched the side of the boat. Mr. Banham lurched awake and reached for his musket while the oarsmen laughed. The bear dropped to all fours before melting back into the forest.
It took some time before her heartbeat returned to normal. She had seen a bear only once before, at a country carnival, and it had been a tame and toothless old beast dancing on its hind legs. But the animal she had seen on the outcropping could have ripped out her throat had she stood undefended on land. The true meaning of the word wilderness sank into her. Beasts, not men, ruled this forest. This was their world.
They rowed past abandoned fields, the soil exhausted from tobacco. Weeds claimed that forsaken earth. Soon the forest would return, she thought, even thicker and darker than before.
To pass the time, Mr. Banham chatted about various subjects, such as the cultivation of tobacco and which fish could be caught in the river. Hannah could hardly concentrate on his words. Her eyes kept slipping toward his hands, resting neatly on his thighs. She imagined those long fingers all over Mrs. Gardiner. All over her sister.
"Mistress Powers, are you quite well?" he asked. "In another hour or two, we will reach my plantation. My daughters, I am sure, will be very curious to meet you."
He slapped at a fly that lighted on his sleeve. "Be glad it is late in the year, otherwise the mosquitoes would devour us."
Hannah nodded and tried to appear grateful for his kindness. Every pull of the oars was bringing her closer to May.
***
By noon they reached the Banham Plantation. Stiff from the journey, Hannah lurched out of the boat. Three pretty girls floated down the dock, rushing past her as though she were invisible. "Father!" they cried, fighting to see which one would embrace him first. Hannah noted that Mrs. Banham had not come down to greet her husband.
"Easy now!" Mr. Banham laughed. He was busy seeing that his men unloaded the cargo properly. "Careful with that parcel!" he called out. "There's a skein of Flemish lace in there!"
"Lace!" the girls all shouted at once. "Oh, Father!"
Finally Mr. Banham appeared to remember Hannah. "Ah yes, I must introduce you." He put his arm around the tallest and prettiest of the girls. "This is Anne. Those two are Alice and Nell."
How clean those girls were, their creamy faces protected from the sun by wide-brimmed hats and parasols. They were delicate as snowdrops while Hannah was gritty from the boat, her face scorched from the sun. Her once white neckcloth was mottled brown and gray. The Banham girls glanced at their father, as if to inquire how they should address her.
"This is Hannah Powers, sister to May Washbrook," he explained. "She just sailed from England."
The girls blushed. Hannah concluded that they probably assumed she was a new servant their father had bought off the ship. Her sunburnt forehead throbbed. After such a long voyage among strangers, how was anyone to know that she was a physician's daughter, a planter's sister-in-law? How was she herself to remember who she really was?
"I think you would like a meal," Mr. Banham said mildly, "and perhaps a bath before your journey onward."
Hannah saw how his daughters exchanged looks, wrinkling their noses and curling their pink lips into mocking smiles.
"Sir, if you please, I wish to continue on." She willed herself to speak with the authority of an Oxford man's daughter. "My sister will be happy to see me in any case."
Mr. Banham found two fresh oarsmen and a smaller boat, then sent her on her way.
***
According to Banham, the trip would take another three hours upriver, but the afternoon dragged on. Fallen trees and beaver dams blocked the watercourse. At least a dozen times, the oarsmen had to unload her trunk, climb out of the boat, then heave the craft around a dam or a logjam.
"Why can't your kinsmen keep their part of the waterway clear?" one of the men asked, glaring at Hannah as though it were her doing. "We'll be damned lucky if we make it back before nightfall."
"Maybe they have not enough hands to clear away all these trees," she said, mostly to herself. In her letters, May had said there were only seven manservants. If Banham truly considered himself a considerate neighbor, he should send some of his many servants to help. She had heard him say he had sixteen indentured servants and more than forty slaves.
When they weren't cursing, the men lapsed into sullen silence, rowing hard against the current, muscles straining under their skin.
***
At last they reached a dock with missing slats and a boathouse with a caved-in roof, the sight of which sobered the oarsmen.
"Are you sure your people are still here?" one of them asked. His anger had vanished.
"Of course they are." Hannah's heart was beating too fast to entertain any other possibility. Before they could stop her, she leapt onto the dock. A weather-worn sign said Washbrook. "Give me the rope." She barked the command as though she were some highborn lady and not an unwashed orphan alone in the wilderness with two strange men. When they threw the line to her, she tied it to a post. As the men hefted her trunk onto the dock, she heard a chorus of barking.
"Aye, they are here!" Her heart brimmed with happiness. "Can you not hear the dogs?"
Reaching into the cloth bag that hung from her belt, she extracted bright silver pennies, tuppences, even a glittering shilling. For once in her life she could be generous without a thought to economy, spending the entire contents of her purse as if she were a true gentlewoman. She had rejoined her sister and all would be well. The men stared in astonishment when she pressed the money into their blistered hands.
"Thank you for bringing me here." Picking her way over the broken dock, she shouted to the boatmen over her shoulder. "You may leave me now. You may return home. Go while there is still light." Their journey downriver, at least, would be swift.
Racing up the overgrown path, she failed to notice the weeds grown high in front of the tobacco barn door. Out of the tangled blood-red leaves, dogs jumped at her, barking excitedly, snapping at the air. "Leave me," she commanded, hoping to sound fearless as she darted past them. They chased her, nipping at her skirt. "May!" she cried.
Sprinting up the narrow path, she ducked her head under a low-hanging bough and lost her linen cap. Her hair flew out of its coil. From beyond a stand of dogwood, she saw a shingled roof, a stone chimney with a plume of smoke curling in the golden evening sky.
Smoke in the chimney! May and Adele must be preparing the evening meal. Lifting her skirts, she ran toward the house. An exposed tree root caught her foot and sent her sprawling. The dogs were on her, their paws on her back, their hot breath and tongues on her nape.
"Away!" Gasping, she struggled to her knees. She heard a shout, then the earth shuddered with pounding footsteps. A young man's startled face emerged from the autumn leaves. His eyes were dark pools. When he stepped forward into plain view, she saw that he was dressed entirely in buckskin. His long black hair hung loose and uncombed. A sparse beard grew on his face. With one shout, he called off the dogs. She rose to her feet while the dogs circled around him, whining and slavishly nuzzling him, licking his hands, which hung slack at his side.
"Who are you?" Hannah asked, temples pounding. Her eyes rested on the sheathed knife on his belt.
"Gabriel Washbrook." His voice was strained, barely audible over the dogs. "This is my land. Who are you?"
"Hannah Powers, your sister-in-law. Where is May?" He looked just like a tinker. Had Father only known, he would never have allowed May to marry him.
The young man shook his head.
She tried to collect herself. It was understandable that he would be surprised, seeing as there had been no chance of sending a letter announcing her arrival. But why did he look at her that way, as though she were a ghost?
"How came you here?" He spoke with antiquated speech. "Did you not get the letter?" His voice sounded rusty, as if he had lost the habit of conversation.
"May's letters are in my trunk," she replied. "Your neighbor Mr. Banham brought me upriver."
"Banham!" His jaw tightened. "Is he here?" He gripped the handle of his sheathed knife.
"No," she said warily. "He sent me on alone with two of his men."
Finally the young man looked her in the eye. His gaze was stern, even angry. "You will return with them anon. There is nothing for you here. Nothing. Get you back to the dock. Go!" Raising a trembling hand, he pointed toward the river.
"What of my sister?" She shouted with such venom that the dogs flew at her again.
He called them off. His pointing arm fell back to his side. Again he looked right through her as though she were vapor. "Your sister is dead. The baby didn't live." He covered his eyes. "My father died of the flux. Then after ... after your sister died, there was no rule, no rule ... The servant girl ran off and then I gave the boundsmen their freedom. There was little else I could do. I am the only one left."
"My sister," Hannah kept repeating. "My sister." She had to dig her toes into the soles of her shoes to keep herself upright. Then it sank in. "You sent no word!"
"I did send word. I told you already of the letter. When I gave the boundsmen their freedom, one of them promised to post it in Anne Arundel Town, to the ship that was to sail out in spring. Mayhap you set sail before it arrived. Mayhap it was lost."
He said something more, but Hannah was beyond hearing it. She couldn't feel her own heartbeat anymore. May's green cloak floated before her. Her sister's hair was soft and heavy in her hands as she plaited it. She heard her sister laughing, teasing her. Oh Hannah, you were always so somber!
The dogs bayed and May's widower stared, but their attention was of no consequence. It was coming. It had been years since her last attack, but the fog rolled in, carried her away. This time the fog was not gray but green as her sister's cloak. Her legs caved beneath her as she fell down the well, plummeting into the dark green place where May called to her.