Ruby Carter

100-year-old native of Cannonball Island, who still runs the original General Store on the island. Blunt but uncompromisingly honest. She has the Sight (aka ‘the Eye’), which means she knows that change is coming whether people like it or not. She bore 8 children, only 6 of which survived infancy: Sarah, Lisbeth, Mary Catherine, Ann, Harold Junior, and Simon. Ruby has outlived them all. Daughter Sarah was the mother of Kathleen, who is the mother of Lisbeth & Owen Parker. Ruby knows the history of Cannonball Island better than most: early settlers were forced onto the island because they sympathized with the British during the War of 1812. Owns Driftwood Point, the 22-acre spit of land that juts out into the Chesapeake Bay, since 1812. One of the last islanders to speak the unique Island dialect, she says “be” instead of “am”, “is,” or “are”.