“This was the site of an old grist mill,” she said. “That’s the headrace, and on the other side is where the wheel would have been. The dam was destroyed in the yellow fever epidemic.” “To kill off mosquitoes?” “Exactly. There are so many memories on this piece of land, piled up top of one another. So many lives.” She exhaled. “So many deaths.”
In the original manuscript, a family had been murdered on the land and the father survived only to be chased down the mountain and butchered near the site of the cottage. When Will moved in with his bottled-up grief, he triggered the emotions of the fleeing father. Emotions stored on the land. Pretty weird, huh?
