October, 1799.

There are more than a few ghosts within the walls of Danesmoor and more than a few dark secrets…

Filled with panic and despair after being falsely accused of a crime and banished from her village, Anna stumbles on to Danesmoor—a remote castle outside of Dover—and takes up a secret residence within. She’s like a ghost; silent and unseen, always observing, never being observed. She lives to rescue her daughters from their father and stepmother, who betrayed her, and so, every day, she works to prepare a place for her family to survive the brutal winter months. In this unnatural state, she studies the inmates of Danesmoor, and is particularly drawn to John Holbrecht, the master of Danesmoor. John seems preoccupied with his own unhappiness, despite the fact that he is engaged to be married to the utterly beautiful Josephine Preston.

The Telling is an epic tale of betrayal and revenge, heartbreak and survival, friendship and love. As each character encounters another, the story unfolds, providing an intimate glimpse at lives in England at the dawn of the nineteenth century.

21 November, 1799

It is an absurd practice, talking to one’s self, and yet I find myself doing it. Not talking, really, but whispering—too fearful to talk aloud. What if someone should hear and discover me? So, I whisper and I attempt to write on parchment I have stolen, with a quill and ink I have borrowed and stolen. I feel only half alive—and even that I am because of what I have stolen and borrowed.

I feel utterly detached from myself as I sit at this worn table and prepare to write. A blob of ink coagulates on the ivory parchment in my hesitation and I stare at it, wondering if I have lost the ability to write along with everything else I have lost. How can I begin to explain the unraveling of my world from its well-knit order when I do not understand it myself?

I stroke the smooth grooves and scratches of the table top and wonder at the others who have sat at it as I do. Write one word, I command myself, one line. Write a letter. Write to the girls, to Jason, to yourself. Dear Anna—

The terrible pressure inside my head and chest begins to dissipate some as words form, flow and cover the page. Thought put into words and made into action shall be my motto. Perhaps it is false bravado, but what choice am I given?

My purpose in writing down what has happened is to, first, clear my mind so that I may focus on what must be done, and second, to come to some reckoning regarding these events. The third purpose may be in the sharing of these pages and yet I cannot think of anyone at this moment that would be interested in the telling. I do not yet know how my story will turn out, but I will account for how it began.

Should I be found dead, I wish the finder to know that I am Annamae Sario of Choldra, formerly the wife of Jason Sario. I am the mother of three young daughters, Elisabeth, Charlotte and Olivia. I have been cast out from Choldra, and my children taken from me by Jason and his new wife, Zanyia. I fear for the safety and well being of my girls. If my thoughts are to be put into words, then made into action, let it begin here: I must, I will, find a way back to my daughters. I must and will get them out of Choldra.

I am a simple woman. I am merely a link in a chain and, I fear, not even a strong link. Everything I know and everything I am, I learned from my father and passed on to my children; a knowledge of reading, writing, music and drawing. I have an appreciation for beautiful language, but do not possess the ability to generate it. Therefore, I shall not attempt to be clever or poetic, but merely faithful to truth and fact in what I write here.

It was a bolt of lightning that sparked the beginning of the end less than a year ago. The lightning struck the Duncan’s home, which burst into flames that leapt down the row, devouring sixteen more homes in its path. They were sixteen of the finest homes and businesses along the most coveted road facing the bay.

The victims of the fire, those who lost lives or homes, were all descendants of the Anglo Settlers like myself. It is a significant point because the Hyliz either took the fire as a sign or decided to make it one and, in doing so, a resurgence of ethnic madness took hold. One mindset, one terrible thought, seemed to grow throughout the native Hyliz in Choldra; they, the rightful tenants of the land, would be better served without Anglos. At the very least, Anglos should be kept down and, better yet, forced out entirely.

Choldra is a large village on the inland side of Golhead, which is as far out as one can get and still be in England. If not for a wide strip of land that connects us to Dover, Golhead would be a separate entity altogether. It is said that Golhead was the last of England to begin the process of civilization and the process has not yet been completed. I always thought it a statement as one of jest. Now, I wonder at its validity.

Anglos began moving into the peninsula of Golhead more than a hundred years ago. We came from the south, from France, and from the north, from mainland England. There was great resistance from the Hyliz at first. The native dark haired, olive skinned Hyliz had been badly treated. They had been forced out of countless cities and towns and, when they reached Golhead and having nowhere else to go, they claimed it with a fierce nationalism that would exclude all other races for centuries.

But change comes and Anglo settlers eventually integrated. For more than a hundred years, we made Choldra our home—my father and his father and his. We have always been known in separatist terms, as the ‘settlers’ but it never seemed a slur. Perhaps it should have served as a warning, but who could have guessed after all this time that racial hatred would suddenly snake between our races?

After the fire, there was a marked strain, which quickly evolved into glares, avoidance’s and boycotts. School children were suddenly calling each other names and distancing themselves from the others. Invisible lines were drawn, natives on one side, settlers on the other—Hyliz versus Anglo. We were too small a village for such a great hatred.

Looking back, it seems clear that a village war was declared before we ever realized it. Both the census count and temperament favored the natives. They were double our numbers and a people of fire and ice—passionate in their love and in their hatred.

On the first day of September, four men were hung in the village square—four decent, law-abiding men, Anglos all, accused of coining. There had been protests and petitions to free the four from the time they were detained on suspicion. Even a few Hyliz had signed the petitions, which seemed a good sign. Most of us believed the detainment was a scare tactic. We assumed that one, or possibly all, of the men had angered a native, someone with power and authority and that this was yet another opportunity to force us all back a step.

But there was a trial, a conviction and a sentence of death. A sense of panic and disbelief set in. One wanted to withdraw from everything and everyone—as if it was not happening to one’s self and one’s family.

I did not go to the hanging. I waited at home with the girls, hoping and praying for word that the men had been pardoned. If it was a scare tactic, it had worked most effectively. I waited, full of a terrible tension, and watched for Jason to return. When I saw the faces of my neighbors returning, grief-stricken, I knew, and I lost control and cried for days.

William Langstrom and his younger brother, Cannan, Jenks Alvey and Peter Newkirk; those were the names of the four men. I knew every one of them and I know them to have been decent men. Most all of us knew them and knew them to be innocent, and yet we were powerless to stop their execution. I think of them often and pray to them often. I hope that is not construed as blasphemy by man or by God. I pray to them in the same way I pray to my father. I speak to them in my mind to ask for guidance and wisdom. And if I have condemned myself to blasphemy, I might as well go the full distance. I believe I have felt their spirits and heard their answers in my mind.

On the morning following the hanging, before families were allowed to cut down the bodies of the men, a sign saying “Anglos Leave or Die” appeared in front of the gallows. Even after the bodies were removed and buried, the sign remained. Of course, by then we realized a war had been declared and begun. We residents of Choldra were neighbors one day and enemies the next.

I wonder if the revolution of our neighbors, the French, has not somehow contributed to the hatred within the village. For months, they have passed through. Often fed and housed temporarily but never welcomed to stay, they’ve spoken of the torture and execution of hundreds, even thousands. Many claimed to have personally witnessed mass beheadings. While it is unimaginable, and in no way can I personally verify the truth of their statements, I can say this; there was a shadow in their eyes that was real enough. They had witnessed something truly great and terrible, something that filled them with such horror as to flee for their lives, leaving every possession behind. What a time we are living in when man seems bent on destruction.

I am tired. Tired of body and mind, tired of generalities. Circumstances do not improve with distance, they are only slightly less in focus.

All I know is that, for too long, we Anglos went about our lives in a painfully small way. Afraid to look up and make eye contact, afraid to look up and be noticed, afraid of staying or of leaving. Beginning a new life in a strange, new place, surrounded by a strange people is a terrifying, almost unthinkable option when you have known only one home.

I know that focusing on a past you cannot change is self-defeating; a waste of time and energy—both of which are precious to me. I know this and yet the regret I feel for not leaving with my daughters when I could have is an acute physical agony I bear all the time. I cannot stop dwelling on it, no matter how I try to drive it from my mind.

* * * *

A month to the day after the hanging, Jason, my husband, came in for supper, looking pale and strange. I thought something had happened—that, perhaps, he had been harassed or had seen more violence. Jason is a brew master and he works near the center of the village every day. He had been as affected as any of us by the civil hatred in the village, despite the fact that he makes a beverage that is well liked by natives and settlers alike—the recipe handed down, father to son, through many generations. Even as he launched into a blunt explanation, that evening, I failed to comprehend what he was saying.

“Zanyia DeGreggia has offered to house the brewery on the bay road,” he blurted.
My confusion was obvious and justifiable for two reasons. First, the row is gone. All debris from the fire, all evidence of existence of the former homes and businesses, has been completely cleared away. I should also make clear that the area has been a prime source of tension and violence. Every time the Fisher’s have begun to rebuild, they have been burned out, and the morning after Lo Duncan had begun to rebuild, he was found floating in the bay. Two families left without attempting to reclaim their place on the row. They were the first to leave.

No settlers will be allowed to build on the bay road. It is the new decree—unwritten and unofficial but unmistakably clear. That was the main reason for my bewilderment.

The second reason for my bewilderment was Zanyia herself. She is as much as stranger to us as anyone in a village of five hundred souls can be. That evening, as Jason stood before me, I could not fathom why a DeGreggia—proud, haughty Hyliz, every one of them—would offer to house our brewery; especially when Dolf DeGreggia, a cousin of Zanyia, runs his own similar business. It made no sense unless it was a trap of some sort—a trap to get Jason and all our stock and equipment under their control. I began to verbalize my fear and suspicions when the look on his face, the guilt and shame, penetrated enough to silence me.

“She wants to marry me,” he admitted.

My legs lost all their strength and I sat without realizing I was doing it. I felt dull, stunned—absolutely speechless. We don’t even know her, I thought. “You are married,” I said, stupidly.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered.

“You’re sorry?” I repeated. My own voice sounded strange to me, high and strained, as if it were the voice of someone else. I realized he was kneeling before me, although I had not seen him do it. He looked different to me then. He was still handsome, with the same dark brown hair and sweeping mustache, but his eyes seemed different. I saw the deceit behind them and it sent a terrible chill through me.

“The brewery can be made into a highly profitable business,” he explained.

Business! Was this not our lives he was talking about? I felt my heart beat vibrating my entire body and I wondered if he, too, could feel it or perhaps see it. To consider the prospect of marriage, he had to have been carrying on a dalliance behind my back when he’d claimed to be working, and the sheer deceit of it made me ache all over. My skin prickled and I felt sick to my stomach.

“I have never wanted to hurt you, Anna,” he said. “But the times—”

I jerked away from him and looked around for the girls. They were sitting in their places for dinner, every bit as pale and stunned as I. God forgive me, I had forgotten them. I looked back to Jason, who still knelt before me. “And what of us?”

“It’s not a good place here for us, anymore,” he replied, in a calm and rational manner.

I will swear here and now that I had never experienced a violent tendency or thought in my life until that moment when I had the urge to grab and pull out handfuls of his hair. I wanted to pummel him bloody and senseless. How could he be both so cruel and so calm?
His voice dropped to a whisper. “You should go.”

An insane urge to laugh gripped me. “Go?” I sputtered. “Where shall we go? And how?”
“Zanyia has said we might keep the children.”

The desire to laugh vanished as quickly as it had come and a weight I cannot accurately describe began pressing in on me. I could not speak, nor breathe, for the bitter hurt of the outrageous suggestion.

“Anna,” he moaned, leaning close to my face as I threatened to topple from the chair.

I slowly became aware of his hands on my wrists, bracing me. It was infuriating, his hands on me, his hot breath on my cheek. I righted myself and pulled back from him. “You will not take my children from me.” I wanted to scream the words, but they came out in no more than a husky whisper.

He stood, all tenderness gone from his face. “Nothing is the same, Anna. The world has gone mad, and we must think of the girls and do what is best for them.”

I could not believe my ears. “Best for them? Do what’s best for them?”

He merely shook his head and stepped around me.

Pins seemed to jab at me from every direction as I struggled to breathe and remain upright in my chair. I heard his voice as he said something to the girls. I do not know what he said. I heard it as though it was a great distance away.

I heard his footsteps, leaving, and then I heard the door open and shut. I went very still until I felt a small, warm hand on my arm in the same spot where his hand had clutched me, only a moment before.

I looked down at the small, white hand and followed it up to the bluest eyes I know. My youngest, my four-year old Olivia, stood silently watching me.

“Mama?”

It was Elisabeth’s voice.

I turned to her. She and Charlotte were standing behind their chairs, their faces wet with tears. I looked back to Olivia. She was not crying. I bent down and cupped Olivia’s face in my hands and kissed her. She smiled then. It was a sad smile and cockeyed, but it was all the fuel my heart needed. I stood. My knees felt so weak that I held onto the chair for support.

“Girls—” was all I managed to get out before they all rushed to me. I wanted to reassure them, but I could not find the words. It was not only my heart broken to bits, and I knew it as the four of us clung together and cried.

Jason. His hair is not dark enough. His skin is not olive enough. He will never be confused with a native. But he made his choice. I will not grieve for Jason.

* * * *
22 November

My days must be spent readying this room I have claimed and so I allow myself time to write only when I am too exhausted for any further physical labor. Finding myself at that very point, I shall begin again where I left off.

Not even a fortnight went by between the time Jason left us and the time he married Zanyia. I know because I received a decree of divorce on the day of their marriage. It was a queer thing—to be delivered a document stating, by the mere fact of its existence, I was no longer married. I was fifteen when we married and that was fourteen years ago. It was mind boggling to me.

The girls and I drew up our lives around us. The tension at school had grown intolerable and I could no longer bear Elisabeth and Charlotte coming home in distress from taunts and cruelties that should never have been allowed, so I began keeping them home.

Elisabeth will be thirteen in February. She is a quiet, studious girl who resembles her father, but, in truth, is a great deal more like myself. She enjoys her studies and she is a good help around the house. She is of even temperament, sweet and slow to anger, protective of her sisters. She enjoys needlework and she displays a talent at music, both singing and piano.

Charlotte has just turned eight. She has darker hair than Elisabeth but a quite similar face. They are both lovely. My energy-filled middle child does not have the patience or discipline for studies or domestics of any sort. She would rather be out of doors, making up some wild game than anything. I do not know where her boisterous personality came from, but she is amusing and dear.

Olivia inherited my light hair and blue eyes. She is small with a unique look; a kind of fragility that makes people take notice. She is shy and does not welcome the attention. I have been told repeatedly that she looks like a miniature of myself—but I do not see it. I am not, nor do I believe I ever was, so angelic looking or so beautiful.

My girls cannot possibly know how much they are a part of me. How very much I need them.
* * * *

I thought my personal ordeal began on that late summer day Jason left us but, in truth, it began just over a month ago, on the day the first winter storm hit. The snow was early and as wondrous as first snows always are. It came down hard and fast, as if the heavens could not wait to cleanse the earth with it. My heart thrilled at the sight, but my delight paled in comparison to that of my girls.

Our spirits had been vastly diminished since Jason left. His abandonment was a greater blow to all of us than I could ever find words to express. But, that morning, our spirits soared. It was a joyous feeling we shared that day—a snug security. The snow made us feel cut off from the world. Our world was our home and it was warm and filled with everything we needed: food, firewood, love and affection. Jason may have abandoned us, but my father had left me what he had. It was no fortune but we would get by and I made a silent vow of determination that there would be no more grieving or pining for something that was no longer to be.

Everything changed late that afternoon when the snow stopped as suddenly as it had begun. We heard a commotion from beyond our front door and opened it to learn that Ishan Cross, a child from three doors down, had been attacked. Ishan was a soft-spoken boy with fair skin and light brown hair. Even though he was a year older than Elisabeth, he and the girls had often played together in the alley and woods in back of our houses, especially when they were younger. The girls wanted to go to him, but I had a feeling of such foreboding that I insisted they stay behind.

I went to see if I might be of assistance. I do not know what I was expecting but, whatever I was expecting, it was not what I saw. I was not braced properly and the sight of him hit me like a great blow. I have never seen, nor could I have ever imagined, so battered a child. It seemed contrary to nature that he could still be living. The only way we knew he was alive was the pained rasp that came from his throat.

He’d been hung from the neck and beaten and pelted by a group of Hyliz boys—his former classmates. They had only cut him down when he lost consciousness.

I was given the explanation, but it was beyond my grasp. I gaped at the sight but could not comprehend what I saw. The instant that his breathing stopped was the most intense quiet I have yet experienced in my life; so quiet, it hurt my ears. The stillness was pressing and absolute.

A wail from the grieving survivors began in the next moment and built to a shattering racket. There was not ample space in the room, indeed in the house, to contain the agony.

Fear wrapped cold fingers around me and squeezed. Evil had been loosed round us and we had failed to see its magnitude for destruction. I had to get back to my own children and we had to leave this place. I did not know then it was already too late.

The instant I stepped outside, my eyes lit on the elegant DeGreggia carriage stopped in front of our house and I felt as much fury as fear. I rushed home and bolted through the door to witness Charlotte struggling against her father as he attempted to keep her cloak around her. “Mama!” she cried, when she spied me.

I demanded to know what he was doing, but much of my fury died in me as I saw how distraught and gray he looked as he walked toward me with an unsteady gait. “I know about Ishan,” he said. “The girls must come with me. It’s the only way to keep them safe.”

He had closed the distance between us and whispered the last of this and I smelled alcohol on his breath. I tried to pull away from him to respond but he yanked me close again with a desperate look on his face. “You have to go or she will have you arrested,” he whispered in my ear.

I jerked away from him, astonished at the prospect. “What are you talking about?”

He put both hands to his head for a moment as if he was taken with a terrible pain. Then he let them down with an extended sigh that seemed to deflate him. What I saw at that moment was a man who had experienced a rude awakening. He had bargained what he thought was only a portion of his integrity for a greater lot in life, only to discover he’d traded everything of value—family, home, the whole of his integrity, his very soul. It was gone. All gone. Dealt straight to the Devil.

“Things are in motion,” he was saying, with an expression that suggested the words had a bad taste to them. “They can get away with anything now. She wants the children.”

The realization that there was a plan at work struck as hard as a physical blow.

“Why does she want my children?” I asked.

“They are my children, too,” he replied.

Run! Run with them, I thought.

As if he’d read my mind, Jason said, “If you try to leave with them, she will have you arrested and take them anyway.”

I looked around the room. I felt it necessary to do something, but what? Pack? Run?

“Please, Anna. They are coming and this is difficult enough.”

“Difficult enough?” I repeated, stupidly, not believing my own ears. My heart was beating such a sick and unnatural rhythm, I wondered if I might faint there on the spot.

He gripped my arm and squeezed it. “Do you understand what I’m saying? If you don’t give me the children—”

I am not prone to fainting spells. In my entire life, I have fainted only once, during the birth of Elisabeth. But I was experiencing light-headedness and such extremity of emotion, I was unable to process what was happening. There was such painful tingling throughout my body. Even when I think back on it, there seems to be black holes in my memory. I cannot accurately represent the order of events or the length of time each took.

The door swung open and Zanyia strode in, in all her shiny, plumbed, green-silk glory. Zanyia. Her white skin is flawless, her features even and well placed, and yet her face holds no beauty. She looks as cruel as she is.

Although she is but a few years older than myself, she attended school with us for only a few months before returning to private instruction. I was thirteen or fourteen at the time. I never knew her as much as I knew of her. I do not recall ever having a conversation before that day—if one could call what we exchanged a conversation.

When she walked in our door, the village constable, a man I know well, William Elsworth, followed her. He did not meet my eyes. The next moment lasted an eternity. I noted Jason’s expression and his dismay at Zanyia’s sudden appearance. Zanyia, on the other hand, looked cold, cunning and vastly superior. She lifted one highly arched brow and said to Jason, “You did not wait for me. I had to take another carriage.”

Elisabeth was standing behind her chair at the table, clutching it so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. Olivia stood beside her. I could see the top of her white-blonde head and the occasional flash of blue eyes as she looked around the room. Charlotte was still sitting in the middle of the floor, her cloak beside her.

Jason’s movement broke the spell. He turned to me, pleading with his eyes and his barely audible voice. “Anna, please. I will take care of them. I swear it.”

“It’s time,” Zanyia said, from across the room. Ice crystals could have formed on her words.

Was I now to be arrested, tried and hanged, too? For what? I had committed no crime. Then again, William, Cannan, Jenks and Peter had committed no crime.

“Mother?” Elisabeth spoke, panicked.

There was a plan here, an evil plan, and I was too late to thwart it. Why hadn’t I taken us away from this place?

“Anna,” Will said. “Jason is going to take the girls—”

“For what reason?” I spoke up. “I have done nothing—”

Jason leaned in to me, still pleading, “You’ll be safe if you let them go. There are men outside to help take them—”

I pulled back and studied his haggard face. I could see the regret in his eyes, but I could also see weakness and shame. He would not help me.

I felt the walls closing in. There were men outside who would take my children by force if I resisted. “G-give me a moment,” I stammered.

Jason bowed his head and made his way toward Zanyia. She was perched near the door—erect and disdainful. She had condemned me, but was willing to save my daughters. Why? Was it because she could not have children of her own, or perhaps she wanted them as pawns to control Jason?

The girls all rushed to me. Elisabeth carried Olivia, and they were all crying. Charlotte reached me first and I reached out to touch her face. On contact, her face felt hot, but as she jerked at my touch, I realized my hands had gone ice cold. I gathered them all in my arms.

“Why are they taking us?” Charlotte moaned.

“What did father say?” Elizabeth asked.

There was no time to explain even if I’d had an explanation. “I’ll go and find a new home for us,” I pledged in a whisper. I felt immediate relief from them and it bolstered my strength. When I pulled back, Olivia leapt into my arms and I held her as tightly as I could, loving the spirit in that tiny body better than I loved my own.

“I want to stay with you,” she begged.

Zanyia’s patience had worn through. I could see the disgusted expression on her face as she directed Jason to get the girls. “I will come for you,” I whispered. “I swear it.”

“Tomorrow?” she whispered back.

“No, not tomorrow. A week or two.”

“That’s too long, Mama.”

“I know. I know.”

Jason was walking toward us. “Get your cloaks,” he snapped at the older girls. “Go, now. Hurry,” he ordered. He began to pry Olivia from around me. She did not want to release her grip.

“Mama! Mama!” she cried, still reaching out for me.

I did not want to make it harder for her, but my arms reached out for her involuntarily and I may have cried out. I don’t know.

Once Jason had succeeded in separating us, she began crying for Hannah, her doll.

“No dolls,” Zanyia spoke up. “No possessions from here, whatsoever. Even their clothes will be burned.” She glared at me when she said this. “We cannot be certain they are not transporting lice.”

Her malevolence was paralyzing. How could she or anyone hate me so much? She did not even know me. I tore away from her hate filled glare and found the blue eyes of my youngest.

“I will keep Hannah,” I told Olivia to reassure her. “I will take care of her for you.”

Olivia was crying and her hand flew out at me as her father carried her away behind her sisters. The gesture hurt my heart and tears began streaming down my face.

Zanyia and Will remained; Will hanging back at the door with his hat in his hand.

At first, there was silence and then I heard the carriage move away. It was the most terrible sound I have ever heard. I wanted to control myself. I wanted to stop the flow of tears, but I could not.

“She broke into my home,” Zanyia said, looking directly at me. “Vandalized my things and stole a ring. I feel quite certain you will find it here among her possessions.”

I felt a searing indignation. It was a plot. She exuded a zealous confidence in the same way that Jason had exuded shame. Had he stashed a ring where it could be found and used against me? He had. I knew it and my anger provided resolve enough to stop my weeping. “How is it possible that you hate me so much?” I demanded of her.

“If you leave this minute,” she said, ignoring my question, “I will let you go without having you arrested. But if you remain or if you ever return, I will see you hung. And I will make sure your daughters see it as well.”

The thought was sickening, and horror instantly replaced my anger. I looked to Will, whom I had considered to be a friend. “I have never been to her home. And I have never stolen anything.”

“I have witnesses,” Zanyia snarled. She turned to Will. “Either take her to the gates or arrest her,” she demanded. “Someone will be watching.” She turned and walked to the door, then hesitated. Will dashed to open it for her.

I watched her walk out and be assisted into her carriage. My throat felt closed up and it was difficult to get the words, “You know she is lying” out.

Will closed the door and turned back toward me. He met my eyes and I saw that he did indeed know, but it mattered not at all. “We have to go, Anna. Get your cloak.”

Shaking with disbelief, I went to get my cloak. I hadn’t even bothered with it when I’d rushed to the Cross home. Unbelievably, Will moved closer to help me. If it had not been such a painful, surreal moment, it would have been laughable. He was helping me to put on my coat, as any gentleman would, so I could be taken to the village gates and banished from my home.

“May I pack some things?” I asked.

He averted his eyes. “She said no.”

“She is lying,” I repeated.

“But the ring is here, I’m sure. And she will have you arrested. She’ll have you hung, Anna.”

“Where do you expect me to go?”

I saw it very clearly, then. He was an outsider, too. Saved only because he had married into a powerful Hyliz family. Saved for how long, he did not know. He could not risk helping me.

It was queer, the way life looked normal as we drove through the village. Ishan had been murdered and my daughters taken from me. I was being banished, branded a common thief. Yet, despite that, people scurried for home as the snow began to fall again. Two men worked along the side of the road, fixing a broken wagon wheel. A woman arrived home with a basket from the market and kicked the snow off her shoes, and a small boy flattened his nose against the window of his home and looked out at the swirling snow. Golden lights filtered out from the windows of homes on the snowy, darkening evening. It had never looked so lovely.

When Will stopped at the gates, he either would not or could not look my way. All he said was, “I cannot believe it has come to this. I’m sorry, Anna.”

He was sorry and yet I still had to go. It felt as though I had legs of wood as I climbed from the wagon. Numbly, I walked through the gate and out of the village. Walking had never before been so difficult, surely not even when I first learned. I recall that the light was going and it gave the snow on the ground a strange blue color. My shoes crunched against the frozen earth and a myriad of torturous thoughts ransacked my mind, but the cold penetrated and soon there was nothing but the sound of my footsteps and the snow in my face.

A deer jumped into my path, or perhaps I walked into his. Both of us were startled; both of us stopped in our tracks and considered the other. And then, the snow began falling so densely that the deer blurred and vanished right in front of my eyes.

A vicious wind blew and nearly toppled me and I could do nothing but hunch my back against it, cover my ears and endure it. When it subsided, I began to think more clearly. There was no other village or town closer than a half-day’s walk and I could not feel my feet or hands. I had failed to wear gloves. I had also forgotten Olivia’s doll. I had promised to keep her, yet I had left her behind. I turned in a slow circle. I could not keep going in this storm. It would be dark soon. I would never make it to the next village. If I went back and was seen, they would arrest me. But if I kept going, I would die.

“I have to go back.” My voice sounded small in the vast openness.

Go back home; wait out the storm. The answer came like a command. Was I thinking that or was I being told?

Go home; wait out the storm.

I took a single step back toward the village and then another. I had to go back. I had to have shelter through the storm. I needed gloves on my hands. I needed Hannah. I needed food and drink. I had to go back or I would die.

There is a twelve-foot fence that runs along most of the south side—the backside—of the village. Most consider the north side, facing the bay, as the front side. Beyond the east and west perimeters of the village and beyond the gates of the south side, lay dense forest. It is by going the south road that one reaches the main road that eventually diverges into three separate roads, each leading to a town or village.

I have only been to Danton, the next village, a few times in my life and those trips were made with my father for the summer festival. I have, I freely admit, lived a pitifully sheltered existence. My mother did not survive my birth, so I was all the family my father had and he was a protective man.

I remained outside the village walls as I worked my way east through the woods to the spot closest to our home. Once there, I hung at the edge of the woods, terrified by the prospect of being discovered, despite the fact that the snow was turning the world white. I prayed that I would not bee seen, and I stepped out. Once I began moving toward the house, I did not stop until I reached our back cellar door. I looked around me then and felt assured that the snow was so thick that I could not be seen. I slipped inside, shut the door as silently as possible and crouched in the dank, smelly darkness of the cellar, listening intently for sounds of occupation or confiscation.

Our home is a modest one; four rooms plus a cellar, which was built to store equipment and stock before Jason was successful enough to build a separate brewery. I had never before felt sentimental regarding the cellar, but I remember looking around and feeling a crushing sadness at every empty barrel and crate. Each represented my life. It had been full, but was now empty and meaningless. How was it possible that everything had been taken from me?

After a time, and hearing no sounds of occupation, I made my way to the stairs and began ascending them slowly. I was clumsy from being near-frozen. My feet were completely numb and my face and ears beginning to throb painfully due to the blood rushing back to them after the icy assault.

At the top of the staircase, I had difficulty coming up with the nerve to push the door open; so full of fear was I that I would open it to Zanyia’s leering face. I finally did, of course. The house seemed dark and quiet, and yet I felt true fear as I crept through to make certain of it. I could see nothing beyond the house, but nor—I realized—could anyone have seen me. The snowfall, which I now viewed as a blessing, made it impossible. It was as if God was conspiring to hide me from my enemies.

Despite the empty state of the house, I hid myself in the girls’ room. I wrapped myself in quilts and held Hannah for comfort. She is but a simple, cloth doll I made; complete with a sky-blue dress and hair of yellow yarn.

“Like my hair.” Olivia had delighted upon receiving it. “She is so pretty, Mama.”

“What will you name her?” Charlotte asked.

“Anna.” Olivia instantly decided. “Like Mama.”

“But then I shall get confused when you speak to her,” I teased. “I will wonder who you are talking to.”

Olivia pondered the matter with a serious frown. We suggested countless names but she shook her head at each, usually with a pained expression that suggested that, while we were kind to try, they were, in fact, utterly horrid suggestions. When inspiration hit, it was obvious by her smile and by the way her blue eyes danced. “Hannah!”

“You shall have to speak it clearly or I’ll still be confused,” I replied. “You’ll say, ‘Hannah, let’s play,’ and I will say, ‘I cannot play, for I have to make supper.’”

She had laughed with delight, so I had continued to tease. “And I will also say that you should call me Mama.”

Elisabeth and Charlotte joined in then, making up supposed conversations between mother, child and doll.

It was cold in the house that night, but I dared not stoke the dying fire. I never even lit a candle. When it was very late, I fumbled around in the dark and forced myself to eat some of the meat I had roasted earlier. I had no appetite for the grief and worry that filled my belly, but I knew I would need strength for whatever lay ahead of me.

After eating, I bundled in blankets again and cried until my head felt swollen to twice its normal size. I know that I finally slept because I awoke with a painful start; the words ‘get up and go’ hung in the air as if someone had just said them to me.

Daylight was beginning to break, revealing that the snow had stopped falling; although more than a foot of it lay on the ground. I needed to get out of the house and out of Choldra. Think, I commanded myself. Move fast, but make wise choices.

This would be the last time I would be within these walls, of that I felt certain. What was important? What would I take with me? My consciousness whispered back that my girls were all that was important. Still, my eyes lingered on my treasures, or what in my recent past I had considered to be my treasures—the velvet settee, the polished piano, the set of crystal goblets. In my bedroom, my eyes danced over my silver pin tray and the cameo resting in it and the wool and lace mantelette I had loved. Would these things end up at Zanyia’s house or would she burn them in spite?

“It doesn’t matter,” I whispered. “It doesn’t matter. They are only things.”

I retrieved a sturdy burlap sack and loaded it with the two warmest blankets I could find and a sensible change of garments for me—a black wool skirt and two shirtwaists. I went for a change of underclothing and experienced a sickening shock when a silver ring with a large sapphire setting was exposed from within the folds. I had never before seen it and yet I had no doubt it was the very ring I had been accused of stealing. I held my breath as I picked it up and studied it. I hesitated momentarily and then dropped it into my bag. What made me take it? Perhaps it was spite or perhaps pride; not wanting them to be able to hold the ring up for all to see while proclaiming, ‘I told you she was a common thief!’ Of course, this is all speculation after the fact. I did not dwell on it then, for the silent warning continued to berate me; Hurry! Go!

I added two extra pairs of stockings onto my feet and went for Jason’s boots. He has small feet for a man, only slightly larger than my own, and his boots are far sturdier than my own. I added Hannah to the bag then hurried to the kitchen for sustenance: bread, cheese and dried beef.

I found my gloves and put them on. It was not easy; my hands were shaking so. I did not even bother to button them, but instead placed a second pair of gloves—Jason’s gloves—over them. I wrapped a scarf around my neck, secured the hat upon my head and put on my warmest cloak.

It was then that I remembered the toy horses. I was torn between panic to clear out of the house and a desire to go back for the six, hand-carved horses the girls had spent so many hours playing with. They had been made by my father before his death and they were the only ‘inside’ toys Charlotte had ever taken to. I could not bear the thought of them being destroyed, and so I dashed to the hearth to get them, glancing out the front window as I did. My heart pounded at the sight of a carriage moving toward the house. I felt certain it was transporting someone who posed a grave threat to me. In what felt like one continual movement, I swept the horses into the bag, slipped down into the cellar and out into the gray morning, then ran blindly, thinking of nothing but getting to the forest.

Once there, I thought of nothing and I never once turned back. I ran, consumed by fear of being caught and a desire to survive. I ran for as long as I was able and then I walked, pressing a hand against the painful stitch in my side. Panic provided excellent fuel and I continued a long way, not paying much heed to the bag, which was awkward and heavy on my shoulder.

I knew that I needed to make my way back around to the southern road and yet I continued onward. What kept me going on that eastern trail was, at first, only a compulsion to keep moving away from the village. However, when the woods finally ended, there was a wide clearing and, ahead of that, a path through a new woods. I decided to follow it, hoping—no, believing—that I was being led. It was a definite path, worn well into the earth, although it had not been attended for many years. I looked around and was vaguely surprised at the veil of sweat on me and by the position of the sun overhead. I had lost all track of time.

Toward the end of day, I was fumbling pathetically and frightened out of my wits. I suppose it was being hungry that made me think of food, and food that made me think of money, but it suddenly occurred to me that I had failed to take my strong box. All my money, all the money my father had left me, had been left behind. I tripped and fell and did not have the strength to go on. Instead, I gave in to the wear and emotion of the last twenty-four hours. “How could I have been so stupid?” I railed. “How? And why? Why is this happening to me?”

I should have known better, or been stronger, because the bitter tears I cried and the congestion that followed only markedly increased my misery.

Get up. Keep walking.

The voice again. Was I imagining it or was there a presence guiding and commanding me?

By nightfall, I no longer felt I was being led. I felt doomed—certain it would be my last night on earth. Despite my layers of stockings and Jason’s superior boots, I could not feel my feet as they hit the ground. I tortured myself by wondering whether or not the girls would remember me as the years passed. Elisabeth surely would, but would Charlotte and Olivia? I tried to recall a memory from my own childhood, and could not recall one before the age of five or six. It was crushing to think that Charlotte might not remember much of me, and Olivia, perhaps nothing at all. How would they ever know how much I had loved them? Perhaps they would think I had abandoned them.

The woods that had enclosed me and buffeted much of the night wind came to an abrupt end. As I emerged from it, I was awed by a glorious full moon, but it became immediately and painfully obvious that it was far colder out of the shelter of the woods. A freezing wind lashed my ears and face and I stopped, realized I would have to turn back and make the best shelter I could in the woods. I hesitated, wondering if I could survive through the freezing night, but what choice was there? I could think of none. I turned and came face to face with a beautiful young man in a shimmering silver-gray nightshirt.
“Go,” he entreated, pointing beyond me.

I was so shocked by his presence that my breath caught and my heart swelled in terror. In a blink, the specter had vanished, and I backed several steps away before I could make myself turn and continue on. At the base of a rise, I turned back but saw no one. A ghost, I thought. I had just encountered a ghost.

When I topped the rise and saw dancing lights before me, I did not trust what I saw. I held my hand up to provide some protection from the wind and squeezed my stinging eyes shut, striving to clear my vision. I reopened them and saw that I had not experienced a mirage. There were lights shining from some of the windows of an enormous structure. The dancing effect had come from my own blurred vision but the structure was real, and I suddenly knew I was where I had to be. I was standing before Danesmoor, Holbrecht’s Castle.

That is why the ghost beckoned me on, I thought. Danesmoor. I had only heard talk of it; mostly from my father, who had always had a fascination for anything whimsical and fantastic. He had claimed it was some sixty miles northeast of the village, but it was not possible that I had come that far.

The castle was a wondrous sight. I’m told that castles are not rare in our country, but it was the first I had beheld. An entire section had been destroyed and left to the ravages of exposure, but the remainder of the structure was solid and imposing-looking, and lights were emanating from what looked like the second and third floors. The bottom of the castle was dark, as was the top.

I would throw myself on the mercy of the inhabitants of Danesmoor. I made my way there as quickly as I could, which was not quick at all. I was frozen and clumsy—tired to the bone and numb from all that had been thrust upon me. I was relieved, but also terrified. Shelter was found, but what if I was turned away? My vision was beginning to play tricks on me. The castle blurred and cleared, blurred and cleared, as I made my way toward it.

The front doors of Danesmoor finally loomed in front of me. I remember leaning my head against the door and wondering what I would say when they were thrown open. The doorknob was in my field of vision and I reached down, placed my hand around it and began to twist. I am quite sure, based on the shock I experienced that I was not expecting the door to yield, but yield, it did.

I did not, could not, move for several moments, even though admittance was suddenly provided. I did, of course, eventually collect my wits and step inside. I thought of calling out and announcing my presence, but the quiet and the warmth made me hesitate. I closed the door behind me, as quietly as I could, and waited to see if someone would come, having heard the great door open and shut.

Nothing. No steps. No one.

I had been so buffeted by the freezing wind that I still felt dizzy from it. It was suddenly so quiet that I could hear the blood pound in my ears.

It was dark in the hall, but I could see light coming from a bend in the hall ahead. After a long few moments, when I realized that no one was coming for me, I stepped into a room to my right and set down my bag.

I could not believe I had just entered this place, uninvited and unbeknownst to anyone. Was it a crime? The strangeness of it gripped me.

The room I had entered was a dining hall. It was lit by moonlight that poured through the windows. I walked around a cloth-draped table—the longest I had ever seen—listening for sounds of anyone approaching. It took all my energy to pull back a heavy chair and sit.

I would not announce my presence because I could not risk being turned away. I would not survive this night in the elements. I struggled to pull the chairs out on either side of me and stretched out along the three.

After the numbness wore away, the pain in my limbs was intense, especially my feet. It felt as though a thousand sharp needles pricked at me and, for a while, I know not how long, I could do nothing except endure the pain. I could not think beyond it. When it subsided, I reflected on stories my father had told about the castle. I do not know where he heard the stories, but he’d told of great rooms with twenty-foot ceilings, tapestry-lined walls and hundreds of secret passages. Countless servants went about the castle within these hidden passages. They would enter and exit rooms through cleverly concealed doors, hidden behind the tapestries or in the paneling. A good servant was rarely seen or heard, he explained. He or she would simply appear when needed.

I could still recall my father’s description of grand balls with beautiful music and a never-ending stream of food and drink. I could picture gentlemen lining up to dance with beautiful ladies who wore elegant, form-fitting gowns unlike anything I had ever owned—glorious silks in vivid, varying colors. All the ladies would have fans in hand and all the wigged gentlemen would hold a glass of sherry.

In my fantasy, the young man from the woods was there amongst them, dressed in the same long jacket and tightly fitted breeches that the rest of the men wore, but outshining them with his charm and astonishingly comely face. Beautiful was the word that had occurred to me in the woods, and indeed his face was, even if it seems an unfitting description for a man.

I do not remember drifting to sleep that first evening, but my fantasy must have morphed into dream and I do remember fragments of the dream. It made the ball I had imagined pale by comparison, as dreams so often do. There was a complex waltz being played by a large orchestra, and there was a dizzying array of colors as women in gowns swirled around and around the floor. The young man I’d seen in the woods locked eyes with me from across the room. He walked toward me with a pleased smile on his face and my heart beat faster knowing I was about to make his acquaintance.

He had nearly reached me when a clock began striking. It struck four and I was torn from the dream. I sat up, utterly disoriented and thoroughly battered. Events revisited in sharp-edged snippets of memory; Olivia being carried out, her small hand stretched out to me; Charlotte drawing back at the touch of my cold fingers; Zanyia’s hate-filled expression; Elisabeth clutching the back of her chair, her knuckles white with tension. Once again, I was consumed by grief and panic. There is no time for pity, the voice in my mind insisted.

My legs were so weak that the mere act of standing took several attempts before it could be managed. I picked up my bag—it felt like it contained boulders—and crept through the castle one small step at a time. It was like being lost in an immense, black maze. I found a ribbon of light, which led to a kitchen that was larger than our entire house.

The moon provided ample light to see two long tables running down the center of the room. Upon one, several large bowls of cloth-covered dough had been left to rise. There were massive fireplaces and ovens and several walk-in pantries, most nearly filled. There must be many, many people living here, I reasoned. I ate what was easily accessible and stashed some in my bag. I felt conflicted at the theft, but never faltered.

The clock struck again, announcing the half hour, and I realized I needed a place to hide. There were a pile of candles on a small table by the door and I took several of these before creeping out of the kitchen and back into the maze. Eventually, I came upon a back stairwell and started up. My eyes were well trained to the dark by then, but the stairwell was inky-black and I had to feel my way up. Exhaustion was pulling at me and each step required an inordinate amount of strength.

The second floor was lovely; lit with wall-mounted oil lamps. Not all of them were lit, but enough that I could make out evenly spaced rugs along a highly polished floor. I recall seeing one room and feeling particularly drawn to it, but I quickly reasoned the strange compulsion away and continued upward.

The third floor was plain in comparison to the one below, but it, too, was lit and in use. I continued up. The stairwell ended on the fourth floor and I stepped into a dark hallway, directly through a thick cobweb. I dropped my bag, shuddering and swiping at myself to rid myself of the soft, sticky web and all the spiders I imagined came with it. After the initial fright passed, I realized that this must be an uninhabited area for so thick a web to be across the entryway.

There was enough light to make out doors on either side of the hall, but I had lost all sense of bearing. I opened one door and found a room filled with blackness. I tried one directly across the hall and discovered it possessed of a small window, and thus lit by moonlight. The light revealed a small, stark, cheerless bedroom. It would have been a servant’s quarters at one time, I felt sure. The isolation and disuse of the room would serve my purposes and I would accept its shelter, gratefully.

Dust rose into the air as I slowly perched on the side of the long-dormant bed. I was too exhausted to care. I stretched out on the bed, still wearing my cloak, and fell into a deep sleep.