November 1684
The early winter storm drove snow across the land. I struggled against it, dragging the sled with increasingly weary steps. Occasionally I looked back at Mary and William; they were swaddled in furs, cloaks, and blankets, now rimed with frost and snow. An especially powerful gust rocked me and I stumbled, steadied, then moved forward again.
We made the decision to abandon our home too late. Not wanting to give up on the dream, not wanting to forsake the effort we put into creating our own Eden.
Winter came early. We considered heading to Willington, but it was too great a journey for Mary and young William. Without supplies to see us through the winter, and spurned by our fellow colonists, the freely offered friendship of the Lenape was our only chance. We could only hope we had not left it too late, that they held to their plans to leave after the new moon, and not gone with the early coming of the snow.
The early afternoon light was already beginning to diminish, shades of darkening grey which, with the driving snow, smoothed the contours of the land to give none of the usual way-markers to their encampment. I could only head in, what I hoped was, the right direction.
One foot went in front of the other, the wind unrelenting, the cold deepening with the darkness. My muscles burned as if boiling lead flowed through them instead of blood, and they continually attempted to stiffen and cramp.
The straps securing Mary and William’s travois to me dug and chafed, the design had been given me by the clan, and they swore to covering huge distances without discomfort. I must have got something wrong when I made it, for only the knowledge that it was my wife and son I pulled, prevented me from abandoning the sled altogether. It would have been easier if we still had my roan, but the poor beast had broken a leg and wouldn’t have survived the winter.
I dared not stop. The fear of becoming still, of allowing my limbs the respite they screamed for, drove me on. Slow, stumbling, at times nearly crawling up a slope, or against the strongest of gusts, I ground on. We came to the river, and by luck I recognised the curve it took, in summer we had been here, learning to catch fish the Lenape way, Mary learning how to weave the rich warm cloaks.
I was out in my dead reckoning, but not by much, the camp was not far, in clear weather, would even be visible. I turned and, with the gale now buffeting me sideways, I struck out over the last few hundreds of yards.
January 1685 - October 1685
“He awakens. Welcome back from the the spirit lands my friend.” Blinking, my eyes blurred, fuzzed and gradually focused on Kitakima. “You have been travelling a long time.”
“Mary.” My voice croaked, hoarse and dry, and Kitakima nodded.
“She is coming. Here, take a drink for your throat.” I sat forward and drank something warm, and redolent with herbs. I lay back and fell asleep.
When I woke again Mary was sitting next to me and she smiled, but it was weak and weary, not her normal radiant smile.
“Hey.” I smiled and her face split, crumpling in grief, tears streamed from her eyes.
“Sorry.” She muttered and stumbled out through the flap.
Kitakima came back in shortly after, I was struggling to get up.
“Here, let me help you.” I grasped his arm, my legs would not hold me. The tremors in my thighs and calves threatened to topple us both, and he supported me as I lay back down.
“What has happened?” There were things I could not work out what. Kitakima looked at me and slowly nodded.
“My friend, Mary has been sat by your side day and night for two moons. We found you collapsed in the snow; you are lucky that the dogs had to go outside.” He sighed and shifted position slightly. “Your son is dead, you have been dead in all but breathe for two months, and Mary is nearly dead inside. She is grieving the death of your boy.” He shook his head slightly.
I lay, slumped into the furs of my bed. At no time in my life had I felt so lost, so uncertain of how, or what, to do. Every decision I made with confidence was turned to ash beneath me, and it was not only myself consumed in the pyre.
“There is another thing you must know.” He looked at me, and I could see un-surety in him.
I wondered what further disaster there could be. There was nothing left for me to lose.
“What?”
“You and Mary are now different, changed.”
“How? What do you mean changed?” His words made no sense.
“There are times when a body should die, but the earth, the land is not ready to release it. You and Mary should have died in the storm, you should not have survived. But the land has sustained you, kept you for itself, will keep you so eternally.”
“I don’t understand.” Weary, worried, confused, I could hear him speaking, but my mind was full of thoughts of Mary and William and his words were sounds without meaning.
“You and Mary will live on, but there are limits to how far you may travel, limits to the land that sustains you. If you try to travel further, you will die. We are at the edge of your lands. We nearly lost you altogether.”
I gave up trying to understand. “Where is my Mary? I need to see Mary.”
§
Eventually we began to comprehend, if not to understand. The life that we lived now was dependent on the land upon which we stood. But there was a limit to where we could go. As we drew near to that limit, we could both feel a tangible force, a vibration in the soul that disturbed, and there was a sense of nothingness for what lay in front of us. We could see the land stretching before us, we could hear the call of wild animals. In the spring we smelt the scent of flowers borne on the wind, but it was as if it sprang from nowhere.
“What did you do to us Kitakima?” I asked him as we trudged through deep snow, following tracks and hoping to bring meat back to camp. He shook his head and carried on.
It was a conversation we kept having. Mary was convinced they had used some demonic magic.
“It is not our magic,” he said to us, to her. “It is the magic of the land. You must find where your boundaries are, learn where the land wants you to live. No one knows why this happens. But it happens.”
“It has never happened in England,” Mary replied.
“Maybe it has,” said Opala, “but your strange beliefs make people afraid to say.”
We considered that a lot.
§
When spring arrived, we decided to follow Kitakima’s advice, to test our boundaries. Our friends provided us with a wiquoam and food. We started up near Newport and went east to the Maryland border, down through Kent and Sussex counties to the ocean, then along the sea front, where we turned back, up the broad muddy flats of Delaware Bay.
We avoided towns and settlements until eventually we were back where we started. William’s grave was covered in a blanket of wild flowers, a small magnolia tree providing shade from the summer’s heat.
Meeting up with the clan again and the warmth of their concern was a sweet balm. But beneath, our wounds lay open and burning. For Mary, they festered, though I did not know.
Nothing soothed the loss. I had promised her life in the new world, and provided isolation, death, and an unreal twilight existence neither of us fully comprehended.
As the summer drew to a close the trees took on golden hues and the clan made plans to move westward. Mary’s mood started to darken. I tried to keep her busy, planning how we would spend the winter, deciding where we would travel, and how we would protect ourselves from winter storms. She barely responded, until one morning, as we sat on the riverbank watching our friends head into the distance.
“Can we go to Willington? I think I need to be around English people again.” I looked at her, blue eyes peering at me from dark hollows.
“Of course. We will do that first if you want.” She nodded, and reached to take my hand, we leaned together and with her hair soft on my cheek I wondered if she was, at last, finding a way forward.
Notes
Although now called Wilmington, in the period of this story Delaware's capital was still called Willington.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Five
Part Six
text and picture by stuartcturnbull. picture created via openart.ai