The Brenan Weavers: A Travelers’ Novel

Prologue

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Travelers

Scottish travelers, or the people termed loosely as gypsies and tinkers in Scotland, consist of a number of diverse, unrelated communities, with groups speaking a variety of different languages and holding to distinct customs, histories, and traditions. There are six distinct gypsy communities in Scotland: Scottish Highland Travelers; Funfair Travelers, or Showmen; Irish Travelers; Scottish Lowland Travelers; and Romanichal gypsies. In modern times, New-Age Travelers and European Roma gypsy groups have immigrated to Scotland.

The broken world.

IN THE TWENTY FIRST century, the world went to war. None of the survivors were ever really sure over what. Some said it was over religion, others said economics; still others said it was over race. Whatever it was, it brought about the distortion and destruction of the world as it was. Technology became the enemy, as it caused the mutations of long ago conquered diseases. People died by the droves: those who didn’t die in battle had to battle disease and famine and each other.

The last hope of the living world was found in people who had maintained the Old Ways. From the ashes rose a phoenix; the Guilds were reborn. Lands, scared and soaked in blood, were divvied up. Rule of law was once more brought to the masses as the Ancient Clan system was revived. The machines of the dying world died with their creators, and humanity sought a simpler way.

The continents separated, and world trade ceased. Each of the remaining populaces began to rebuild on their own terms. What had once been called North America was now divided into small tribal territories. With the rise of the Clans and the Guilds came the rise of another segment of society: The travelers. People who roamed the earth settling when and where they could, but always ready to pack up and leave in the dead of night should the need arise. They who had been stripped of lands and titles in times long forgotten except for histories written by the victors. Seldom did they reveal the whole truth, for victors never wanted the whole truth to be revealed. Every continent was home to these wandering wayfarers. No nation could boast of being without a segment of these wandering nomads. They were called Gypsy in some lands, travelers in others. The one common thread that they all had was a deep distrust of whoever was in power.

Among those who wandered the scared and broken lands of the phoenix lands were tinkerers, and smiths, and weavers. They were the teachers and the saviors of mankind in the first few years of the New Order; keeping the remnants of humanity alive. Their thanks from the grateful masses were to be outcast once each community began to take form. Bit by bit they learned to disguise their identity once more. Hidden in the shadows, they lived within and without the community; keeping alive the secrets of their society, and the ways of the traveler.

Chapter 1. New Traverse, in what once was part of the upper state of Michigan. Thursday, February 2, 2265; midday.

MEGAN BRENAN MCKENNA paced the rough wooden planked floors of the dingy cabin that had been home for the last two years. She’d been only sixteen when she’d come here as a hand-fasted bride. Back then, she’d been fresh and dewy eyed with admiration if not love for her handsome and brash husband, Roland James. Far too soon the blush was off that rose, for Roland had turned out to be a rake and a scoundrel. He had been dealing with dishonest and shady men; cheating the honest villagers who were now out for blood. Now, he was gone, without a trace. Leaving his 'bride' and her siblings defenseless against the villagers’ anger.

New Traverse had been built on the ruins of what had once been Traverse City. Like most large cities of its time, Traverse City had been destroyed in the aftermath of the wars that had swept the middle of twenty-first century. The first blow to the nation that had existed then was when the twin towers in New York City had fallen. Years later all out war broke out all over the planet. Now, two hundred and sixty years later small gated communities were commonplace. Fortresses built on the scars and the remains of the past that was forcing its way back into the present, New Traverse was one of them. Times were hard, and only the strong survived. With Roland gone, it didn't look as if times would be getting better, anytime soon!

However, it was the past that was on Megan's mind at the moment. Not the far past, nor the years of war, or the years of rebuilding what remained of civilization. It was the years that had fashioned her personality. Megan began to remember the journey that had brought her to Tanglewood, long before Roland James had entered her life.

MEGAN, THE ELDEST OF the McKenna children, was born in the autumn. She had reddish brown hair that looked like leaves that had been turned, a common Brenan family trait. Like many members of her mother's clan, her hair was unruly. When she'd gone to gather herbs and mushrooms or roots for dyes, she looked like a wild child coming out of the forest. Her moss green eyes sparkled with willfulness when given an order she didn’t like. She was stubborn and headstrong, and it had always served her well. Her skin was not pale, but not swarthy either. In spite of everything she seemed content within herself. Her body was sturdy, built to endure; the picture of youthful health.

Megan’s birth had been followed two years later by Holly, and then when she was ten by Jacob, referred to by everyone as Jake. All three resembled their mother’s family far more than their father's. All three had the reddish brown hair that was prevalent in the Brenan clan. All three had green eyes, although it was only Megan, whose eyes were the color of forest moss. They were blessed with the Brenan tenacious spirit, wit and talents.

It never bothered her that she was a thorn in the side of her father, Roan McKenna. Father and daughter were most often at odds ends. Her mother, Rose Brenan, had said from the day she was born that she was Roan’s punishment for his sins. Megan seemed to take little notice, however, she remembered the words, locked in her mind for when she would need them. Instinct told her she would, for she’d been born with what the old ones called ‘The Owl’s gift of Wisdom’.

Their father lacked the wit and cunning of the Brenan men, charming as he might be. Their mother had been weakened by a constant atonement for some unknown sin. The driving force in the lives of the three children was their mother’s grandfather, Liam Brenan. The old man had taken them in when Roan lost the homestead he’d been working at the time of Megan’s birth. Liam had barely known his granddaughter as she had been raised in a settlement far east of his holdings in the woodlands of the Tanglewood settlement. His daughter, Bonnie-Lee had married a miller, James Brenan, a distant cousin who lived in the lands that were part of the McGregor holdings. 

Roan was also from the area of the McGregor holdings, and Megan understood there was some deep dark secret as to why they turned to old Liam instead of James Brenan when things fell apart. He had taken his young bride far from the authority of the house of McGregor to lands that were not under the Clan laws. He had tried to make a home, but he had no skill at working the land. It was never spoken of, but Megan knew there was a reason her father was a failure at everything he tired, as if he were cursed. For a man who was healthy and seemingly able, he was ill prepared to live the life of a homesteader. The only time he seemed comfortable was when he was working with the horses he kept.

Rose always seemed melancholy, in Megan’s opinion. As if she was atoning for something that could not be righted. Ashamed of some act of the past, embarrassed and feeling guilty that her husband was such a worthless failure she lived more like a servant than a family member in her grandfather’s house.

Liam lived alone, his wife having died long before the McKenna family came to his door. The Brenan homestead was average in size, and had been Liam’s home all his life having been his father’s holding. Liam had raised his family here. Four strapping sons, who had moved on to lands of their own and succeeded in all their endeavors, were raised on this homestead. And his three daughters, all of whom had married well.

MEGAN LOOKED AT THE rough plank floor; it was so dissimilar from the one in Grand-Dar’s house. That floor had been made with loving hands. Most likely those hands had belonged to great-great-grandfather Woodard. Although Liam had never come right out and said it, Megan suspected that the house had been built by the both of them during Liam’s courtship of Jeannie to replace the cottage Liam's father had built. The cottage was kept as well, but the house was what stood out in Megan's memory.

She knew it had been a common practice for the men of a family to help their daughter’s suitor build the house she would move to as a bride. She also knew all the Woodard men were skilled in working with wood. She missed the clean scents of butcher’s wax and flax soap. This floor in contrast was drab, rough sawn and uneven like the rest of the little cabin. No matter how hard she’d scrubbed, it never seemed to get clean. Nothing in this cabin ever seemed to come clean, not the floor, the walls or the waxy windows. The little cottage that her Gran-Dar had allowed her family to live in had been a palace compared to this hovel, once more Megan found reason to resent her father. Their being here rested solely on his shoulders in her mind and no other's. His mismanagement of their lives had delivered her into the hands of the very devil.

She covered her eyes, weary of looking at the squalor that Roland had brought her to. She missed the polished woods of the cottage of her youth and Grand-Dar’s beautiful house that she’d left behind. She missed the furnishings her great grandfather had crafted with loving hands.

Things that were gathering dust back in the Brenan homestead. ‘Labor o love,’ Gran-Dar had said time and again. Roland had made promises, and broken each and every one of them. Something that Liam would never have done. Liam would never have put her in this position, never.

Once more her thoughts returned to her father, Roan, and his faults.

ONE MORNING WHILE ROSE and the girls were tending the garden Liam appeared carrying a woven basket. I’m going to gather roots and barks today, he said to Rose. I want to take Megan with me. He held his basket out to her expectantly.

Megan, while surprised at the invitation, was overjoyed to be going into the woods with her Grand-Dar. She carried the basket, listening to him describe the plants as they passed by them. Pulling a little hand spade and a pair of work-gloves from his pocket, Liam gently removed soil and pointed to the root he was unearthing. This is called blood root, you have to be very careful when you harvest it or your hands will be red for months. He gently removed the root by moving the dirt away from the tangled root base with gloved hands and pulled it up by the woody stem. He then placed a ragged cloth over it in the basket. Only take as much as you need, never more... you want the plants to continue to grow and make more roots.

Megan carried the basket as they moved further into the forest, watching where she stepped. What else are we gathering today, Gran-Dar? She stayed to a worn pathway in the wooded area.

Today we are only taking what will make reds and browns, the old man said. I try not to mix my roots, or we come up with revolting combinations of dye. He pointed to the bark of a tree, and sheets that were pulled away from the wide trunk. That is red oak bark, and we’ll be taking some of that... over there, is a black swamp oak, and we’ll use that bark too.

Did you pull this bark free? the little girl asked.

No, the deer and other woodland creatures that feed off the trees pulled the bark free, Liam said wisely. We live in harmony with them when we can. They take what they need, we take what we need.

But never more, the child finished.

Liam smiled and nodded, Never more.

NEVER TAKE MORE THAN you need, Megan repeated the mantra aloud as she paced. She missed him, the old man whose shadow she'd become. She missed her mother and a bit grudgingly, her father as well.

It had been a very busy life, and so good. Megan had stored every bit of information the old man had shared with her. Memorized plant names, and measurements of their use. She knew it was going to come in handy one day; Liam must have thought so too. For now one day was here. Liam had trained her, taught her how to think, more importantly, how to react. And she was going to need every bit of knowledge he’d imparted to her to save Holly and Jake. It was a heavy responsibility for a girl of eighteen, one she wished she didn’t need to shoulder. However, it was one she accepted as her duty to her family. A family she was now the head of, one she had to keep from harms way. She'd made vows, to Old Liam, and to her mother... and even to Roan. She would protect the family and keep them safe.

She had the blood of the Brenan’s coursing in her veins, and Brenan women didn’t turn tail and run, or at least most of them didn’t. There were times when she was more Brenan than her own mother had been. Even Liam had commented on that fact, more than once.  It was perhaps why he had shown favoritism toward the her, and she remembered their times alone. Remember, she whispered to herself. Remember. Old Liam had given her more than just respect for the woods, and the fields. He had taught her and her sister the appreciation of art and music and of the simple life. He had taught them to live in harmony with the world around them.

Megan had learned; she had learned so much at the knee of the old Brenan patriarch. How to grow and process Flax, how to dye the threads and then weave them into cloth. She had learned what roots and barks made the best dyes. She learned to work with raw wool when it was available.  She had learned what plants in the woods could be used for food and what ones to stay clear of. What plants would give her the rich colors for dyes, and which were used for medicine or making soap. Megan knew how to garden, how to tend goats, geese, ducks and hens. She had learned the old ways of making fine cheeses. There was little on the homestead she could not do; Old Liam had taught her what he knew of the care of the Cobs that he prized so. She could harness them and they obeyed her as they did the old man, without hesitation. She could even shoe the great hooves of the beasts as well as any man.

The old man had taught her and Holly both how to read and write.  He'd taught them how to do sums, and to keep records. Things her father could not or had not thought of to pass on to her. She missed old Liam more than was bearable sometimes. His voice rang in her ears, in the innermost depths of her brain, and gave her answers when no one else seemed to be able to. Right now she needed his wisdom, his strength and his wits. She would need everything that old Liam had taught her to figure her way out of the corner that Roland had painted her and her younger siblings into.

She looked over at the two younger children sitting on the bench, eyes cast down and looking like whipped puppies at the moment; lamenting the fate that had befallen them. Megan felt the fires of Brenan anger stoking, as she began to fight what Roland’s selfishness had caused. Brenans were neither whipped puppies, nor were they fools and she’d be damned if she’d allow any of them to wallow in self pity for one moment longer. Liam Brenan would expect better from her! Liam Brenan had given her much, somewhere in all that he had bestowed was what she needed, she just had to remember.

TIMES ON THE HOMESTEAD were not easy, they hard and getting harder as Megan grew older. Bad weather had beset them. Lost crops and dead livestock were just part of the circle of life Liam had said. However, he had not been able to explain human death. Megan came face to face with death when her mother gave birth to Jake just before Megan turned ten. Rose had not told a soul that she was with child. She had not gained any weight, and hid the slight bulging of her belly under an apron that she wore like a uniform. Rose had continued working in the kitchen and the garden as if nothing were happening to her body, afraid to draw attention.

Things were getting harder, not all the crops were doing well. Several neighbors and some of the villagers had pulled up stakes, heading to other settlements in the hopes of a better life just as others had done from the settlement where Roan had tried his hand at homesteading. Rose had not planned on having another child; she’d had a very difficult time when Holly had been born. The midwife had told her not to even try to have another. When she found she was carrying another child, she denied its existence for as long as she could. But the life growing within her refused to be swept away.

Jake had been born at the end of the summer season just before harvest. Liam and Roan were in the fields tending the last planting of flax. Barely ten Megan and eight year old Holly were alone with their mother when she went into labor. Megan had been kept out of the room when Holly had been born, and knew only bits and pieces of how a child came into the world. That day, she learned more than she’d ever wanted to know. Living on the homestead, she had witnessed livestock being born. Everything she’d learned on the homestead served her well that day.

On the day that Rose died, Megan stood beside her Grand-Dar at the foot of the bed, not yet ten years old and frightened, but trying to put a brave face on it. Rose removed the silver brooch she’d always worn; it was an intricate piece of work. A sprig of Scotch-pine with a set of pine cones, on the back an inscription had been engraved. Words were deeply and beautifully engraved on the back side. Rose looked at the words with sad eyes full of longing and regret. 'S Rioghal Mo Dhream, a weak finger moved over the words before she called the child forward. She pinned it to the girls dress. It’s yours now, she hissed in an exhausted voice.

No, Rose! Roan reached out a hand to stop her, but a hiss from Liam halted him.

Rose placed a hand to the child’s face. You have to take my place now, she whispered weakly. Megan nodded, kissed her mother and stepped back so Liam, Holly and Roan could say their goodbyes to the dying woman.

When her mother had breathed her last, Megan shooed the men and her little sister from the room. Taking out the needle and flax thread, she showed her mother into the shroud. Her tears fell freely as she did this last service for her mother. She shed not another tear for her mother after that, not even when her father and Old Liam placed her in the hole in the ground they had dug. She carried her little brother in a sling her father had given her, caring for the motherless lad.

The next morning she rose as she was accustomed to doing. Today was different, and she knew it. Always before she’d accompanied her mother on chores. Today she dressed and walked across the yard to her grandfather’s barn on her own with her brother in a sling. She milked the goats and gathered the eggs before she made the breakfast as her mother showed her how. She set the table and tended the baby; giving him fresh goat’s milk to drink from a bladder shaped bottle  capped with a bit of something that worked as a nipple. Grand-Dar had said it belonged to a generation before her mother, before his even. The men folk entered the kitchen; she fed them and the little sister who was looking lost. Jake lay in a cradle, safe, warm and cared for, content to suck goat’s milk from the bottle as Megan saw to the needs of the rest of the family.

‘LITTLE MOTHER,’ LIAM had dubbed her. From that day on she became the woman of the house. Liam had moved the children into the big house from the cottage. Roan remained in the cottage, alone as he could not bear to move into the house without his Rose.  Megan had taken over her mother’s duties, learned at her mother’s knee. Liam treated Megan, Holly and Jake as if they were his own children. Megan knew the old man was feeling guilty that he had been so hard on Rose.

She looked at Jacob and Holly, sitting at the fire on the wooden bench, looking forlorn. Jake, who had never known a mother, other than her. In some ways she’d been mother also to Holly. She had been thrust into the unwanted role, and had performed it as well as she could for being a child herself. She managed her Grand-Dar’s house, as well if not better than Rose had. She made side money with eggs and vegetables she had sold. She could spin thread finer than any her mother ever had. Her stitches were better too, and she could weave any pattern her Grand-Dar showed her on the old sticks that counted out the patterns. It was an old Celtic weaving trick; Grand-Dar had told her how proud their ancestors would be. She was a throwback he told her. They had been weavers, tailors, workers in linen and wools. It was a fine old trade, old and proud and one passed from generation to generation.

She looked at the younger children; Jake not quite eight, Holly not quite sixteen. They were dressed in simple clothes, fashioned for them from the remains of cloth brought on the journey here to New Traverse nearly two years ago. That thought brought back the saddest memories, and Megan fought the urge to break down into bitter tears. Tears would do her no good, not now. What she needed was to remember. The past held her key to freedom; the key that would save her and her siblings.

She had been fourteen when she found Liam, leaning against a bit of fence at the edge of the lane leading to the dirt road. His face was pale and his skin was clammy. He died in her arms, begging her to remember all he’d taught her. He made her promise to take care of Holly and Jake as he had taken care of her. To teach them, as he had taught her.

More and more villagers were dying. There was not a house that was not touched by the fever that spread like wildfire that spring. Liam had been too weak to leave his bed, but leave it, he did; even with the fever Liam was master of his fate.  How it was that Megan herself, Holly and little Jake were not touched by the fevers was beyond her kin. She tended her father, who also had the fever. He lived through it, but was never again the man he had once been. With Holly’s help, Roan had been brought to the big house, as Megan insisted it was easier to care for him there. Gone were the pretty face, and the quick charming ways. These had been replaced with a broken spirit and a weak body that had lost the strength of the man who had been trained as a mason. Roan didn’t even have the strength to sow seeds in the fields about the house; more and more he became a shadow of his former self.

Likewise the village of Tanglewood, once lively and thriving, was now a ghost town. The village wells failed when the rains didn’t come that last spring, drying up as if they had never had a drop of water in them. When the rains finally did come in the autumn, the parched ground in the valley could not sop it up fast enough and the floods came. While the house was on high ground, they lost what was left of the year's crop of flax in the field. The waters drowned what crops they had in the garden as well. Those that could in the district, packed up what they could, and abandoned what was left of the settlement of Tanglewood.

Roan was too weak to be moved, and Megan refused to leave him behind. That’s when Roland had ridden into their lives. Megan, fatigued from the care of her invalid father, had made the mistake of taking him at face value. Like her father, he had a winning smile and a charming way about him. Had her father not been ill, he’d have seen through the façade and mask. Roland had stopped at the house, seeing it was the only inhabited place in the area. He had asked if he could spend a night in the cover of the barn before he journeyed on to New Traverse in the North Settlements. Roland invited the handsome man to break bread at his table, ordering Megan to put out a good spread. The men talked and Roland won Roan’s confidence easily.  Roan knew that his time was limited, that the girls would never be able to survive another season on the desolate land. His son was too young to shoulder the weight of being the man of the family. He begged the man to wed his eldest daughter and take her and the younger siblings away from this house of death.

Roland had agreed to the arrangement once the man had promised him what money was left in the house. Roan drew up a contract of hand fasted marriage; both he and Roland signed it, they had Megan sign her name. However, as the girl had not shown much sign of interest in the document, Roland supposed the girl could not read even, if she could sign her name. Roan had pulled her close, and Roland supposed he was giving her his final blessing. Roan whispered urgently in his daughter's ear, Mark down everything, leave nothing to chance or trust. He looked her in the eye, and made sure she understood. His having giving her in hand-fasting had been a desperate move, he didn't trust this man, but had little choice. She kissed her father's brow, and promised. She vowed to herself to carefully read the contract. Roan must have given her an out. 

Later that afternoon Roan died, in peace. Roland had been kindly Megan, even helping her bury the man who had died peacefully, thinking he had saved his family. Roland had helped the girls pack what he told them they were going to need. He had not allowed many luxuries.  Holly was allowed her mandolin, and Jake allowed his reed pipe. Megan, not liking being told what was of value, snuck a few things in here and there. Buried in clothes and cloth, Megan secreted away things that she wanted to keep. One possession that she valued more than any other was Gran-Dar’s book of faith. She had so little by which to remember her mother and her Gran-Dar by was it was, and no man, not even this new husband of hers was going to take away what little she had.

Roland allowed cooking gear, saying he had not packed any of his own for this move to New Traverse. In fact, he had only a small saddle bag with a change of clothes and his money-belt. He had said his father had given him, the second son a bit of cash to start out on his own as his elder brother was to inherit the lion’s share of the estate. Megan had not questioned this, it was common. First sons inherited the lion’s share, and the rest of the children of most families were trained to set out on their own and make a living. Roland had told the girls to carry only what they could on the old wagon that had been used to take produce and cloth into the village. Megan insisted on her Grand-Dar’s deacon’s bench and a few other items, including some laying hens, the rooster and a pair of goats. Skillfully she and Holly stacked the few things they could take. They covered the wagon with a tarp of canvas, Roland helped hitched up the pair of Cobs and away they went, the goats on a tether line behind the wagon. As Megan gave one last look at the only home she’d know, Roland promised that one day they would return to retrieve the belongings that had to be left behind. The promise was never kept. It was just one of his many lies.

New Traverse had not been what Roland had promised. He had leased the ramshackle little cabin with a little shop attached to it sight unseen. He set himself up a dry goods store, demanding that both Megan and Holly serve as clerks. He had made Jake an errand boy. He had kept all the money in a locked box in a locked closet in the cabin. He doled out only what he had to and even then it was grudging. From the moment they had signed the contract until they reached the new settlement, he treated Megan with mock considerations. He had refused to share a bed with her as he said that he didn’t wish to frighten her. He told her he preferred to court her and they would consummate the marriage in good time. However, his tenderness toward Megan had ceased a few weeks after they were settled into the cabin. He began to spend long nights out at the public house playing games of chance with the money that Megan and Holly earned and he began drinking.  Megan suspected he also had a woman away from the house that took care of his ‘manly’ needs. For this she was almost grateful as she found his presence in her life more inconvenience than help.

For over a year Megan had lived with this man as his wife, in name only. She cleaned his house, fixed his food, ran his shop, but had never once spent a night in his bed. Not that she minded all that much. On the way into New Traverse, Roland had become domineering and a bit pompous in his bossiness which he would quickly cover with a concerned comment. Megan had put it down to him wanting to be cautious about this move. Not wanting expectations to be too high; after all everyone had suffered in the worst drought, hadn’t they? Yet, after they were settled in the squalor of the cabin, his domineering ways had worsened, and his demands had begun.

Megan kept the house as neat and clean as was possible, and with Holly’s help had meals on the table on time. She taught both Holly and Jake to read in their spare time when Roland was not about, which turned out to be most of the time during work hours. For some reason she could not fathom, she instinctively knew it was best to keep these lessons a secret. Just as she kept how well she could read and write a secret from her husband. She taught them both to read the sett and pattern sticks she’d hidden in the wagon for the journey here. Both girls taught the boy what they knew of weaving. At first, the villagers of New Traverse welcomed the newcomers. The quality cloth made by the sisters was well received. The mending done in the little shop was desirable. The sisters worked long hours, with little thanks from the man who was keeping the rewards of their labors for himself.

Then things began to go sour about the village; fevers had begun to strike down the residents of the village.  Fevers that were so like the fevers that had cut down the village of Tanglewood. Roland began to drink and gamble heavily, and lost a great sum of money to one of the men in the public house. He had promised to make payment when he returned from the cloth buying trip to the north, where he said he had bid on a prime lot of fine wool. Without a word he crept into Megan’s bed on the night before he was to leave. He forced himself on her and when she tried to fight him off, said he was but taking what was already by rights his; after all she was his wife. He had laughed cruelly when she cried, telling her she was a foolish child; that she should not only welcome his attentions but be thankful for them.

Roland was gone before the sun rose and Megan, ashamed of what he had done to her, forced herself to go on with her daily chores. Covering up the bruises on her arms with the long sleeves of her blouse, she dressed as she always had, modestly. She opened the shop, but found that the money box was missing, and so was some of the best cloth. Doing a search of the shop she found other things missing as well. She left Holly to see to any customers who would wander while she did a search of the cabin. The bastard had taken everything he thought was of value. The cash boxes were gone and along with them the books and receipts that he’d been keeping. Returning to the shop, she found Holly being surrounded by angry customers, whom Roland had cheated. They were shouting at Holly, as if it was her fault.

Maybe we should take it out of your pretty hide, one of the men was saying when Megan entered the shop.

Take your hands off my sister, Mr. Wheeler, Megan ordered harshly. The mob that had gathered in the shop turned, looking at the woman in the doorway, about to make demands. Megan headed them off. "Mr. James is on a buying trip up to the north country, when he returns you can have your say to him. Until then don’t come back here!"

Wheeler had always been the most outspoken of the villagers, and now he seemed to be the ring leader of this unruly mob. He better be back soon, he threatened as he led the group of angry men from the public house out of the shop. That’s all I have to say.

Megan comforted her sister, and told her to get back to cleaning up the shop. She found that Roland had left them next to nothing. Each day for three weeks, their troubles mounted. Walking through the village on her way to make a delivery, she could hear the snickers, and the old women gossiping. She tried not to listen, but it was impossible not to once she heard her own name mentioned.

That Megan James is no better than her husband...

And him taking up with that pub whore, what does that say about her as a woman? Can’t even keep her man in his own bed?

There had been snickering and jests all made at her expense. She tried to stay as far from the milling gossips as was possible. She’d heard the rumors, heard that there was a whore missing from the pub. Could she have left with Roland as was being speculated by the gossips? When the whore returned two weeks later, new speculations began. More hurtful words, as each day someone from the village came to the shop to collect what they felt was owed them. Then the fevers came, shortly after the whore returned. It swept like wildfire through the village, and made matters and tempers worse.

This morning had been the last straw. Dr. Cassidy had come by in order to purchase surgical thread; he was amazed that the three young people were not down with the fevers that were raging in the village. I’m thankful to find you seemed to escape the fevers, he’d said carefully. I just wondered how it is that you have.

Megan had no explanation, but wondered that herself. Dr. Cassidy warned the young woman that the villagers were clamoring for repayment of funds given to Roland. This fever seems to have escalated everyone’s panic. Some of the villagers are even talking about pulling up stakes and moving on before they are infected. I heard some of the men threatening to come here and tear up the cottage, looking for what Roland has cheated them of. I hate to ask you this, but, are you aware of the kind of man you’ve~ married?

In the two years that the family had lived on the edge of the village, only Dr. Cassidy had been what Megan would call really welcoming without expecting something in return. He was the only person in the village that Roland had not seemed to have cheated. I didn’t know Roland twenty-four hours when my father talked him into this hand-fasted marriage and taking us from Tanglewood, she admitted to the doctor with a shamed face.

He appeared relieved and distressed at the same moment, My dear, I fear your family has been taken in, far worse than the foolish villagers here. He told the young woman he had some troubling news from a colleague in a distant settlement about a man fitting Roland’s description. I’ve heard from a friend, a fellow doctor, he has written that he’d heard of a young man named Roland James, who had left a young wife destitute, and had stolen away in the night with everything he thought was of value. That had been in the settlement of Goshen, and upon further investigation, my friend had uncovered a string of young women, whom he named in no less than four settlements whose families had been devastated by the bastard.  Dr. Cassidy gave the letter with the names of the women, the dates of their marriages, and the settlements they lived in to Megan. In each case, the women were left behind to clean up the mess, and repay funds that Roland had absconded with.

Your marriage was not legal, Dr. Cassidy warned Megan. He’s left a string of women and children behind, moving on to greener pastures each time things got rough.  The kind man spoke to her with caution and firmness. I cannot guarantee your continued safety here any longer. Even if I were to put up quarantine signs on the post of the fence, which I am still planning to do. It will buy you a day, maybe two. The fear of the fever will keep them back, but not for long. If I were you, I’d pack up what I could and run, he warned. Run for your life Megan, and don’t look back. Take yourself and your family as far from here as you can.

THAT HAD BEEN THREE hours ago, and since then Megan had been pacing, thinking and asking whatever spiritual guides watching over them for wisdom and guidance. She stopped pacing and looked at Holly and Jake who were both watching her now. Holly, Megan said at last, What happened to the cages we brought the last of our hens in?

Roland wanted to destroy them, Holly said, fearful of the man walking in and finding she had disobeyed him. Of late he had turned cruel if he was disobeyed and Holly had suffered his wrath once. That once was enough. I hid them under the house, she whispered, Where he’d never think to look for them. Her eyes darted, thinking he could return at any moment. Why?

Megan knew Roland was long gone, he was not returning. He had cut and run, leaving them to the will of the villagers. Get them and clean them, Megan said calmly nodding, knowing she was doing the right thing.  There was no other choice, if the family was to survive, she needed to act quickly. Get the two youngest laying hens and the rooster and put them in. She snapped her fingers at Jake to get his attention. I want you to go get the goats and find the crates we had for them.

Why, Jake said, rising from the bench. What do we need crates for?

We’re going to do what our people have always done when the tides turn, Megan announced. "We are going to survive."

How? Holly asked in a mystified tone, still seated on the bench. Megan knew Holly was clearly shaken by what she’d heard the doctor say about Roland. How a man could be so cold and cruel, she didn’t understand.

We’re going to pack up our wagon and leave this hovel in the middle of the night, Megan said, moving to a broken board on the floor; stomping once sharply she moved the board from the flooring. Bending down, she reached in and pulled out a small oblong shaped wooden box. Roland didn’t know I had this. she opened the box for her siblings to see. Inside were coins, lots of coins. It’s all the money I made selling eggs and doing sewing before Grand-Dar and Papa died. Grand-Dar told me to keep it separate from the household money. Somehow, he knew we would have need of it. She slipped the coins into bags and tied them before closing the box. We have the old wagon; we have to pack it carefully because it’s going to be home for a while. She knelt beside the box and looked at her siblings.

Where will we go? Holly stood up, gulping back the fear she felt. If Megan was willing to take a chance, so was she. Her voice held the sound of hope.

East, we’ll go east. Megan muttered before she repeated the destination aloud, making the thought a fact, a choice. We are going to the settlement that our mother and father came from. Hopefully there’s still family there, Megan stated. Well, she barked, "Let’s be quick about it. We have three hours until the sun sets, and then three hours to pack the wagon and be gone. By the time