Year of Wonders

by Geraldine Brooks

I had always had admiration for Anys. She was

And she had a deft-handedness in difficult deliveries that her aunt had come to rely upon. I liked

A good infusion would have served George better than the empty mutterings of a priest.”

Puritans held sway here, we wore for our outer garments only what they called the Sadd Colors—black for preference, or the dark brown called Dying

Few of us here live in ample circumstances, and none loves waste. Anyone who had placed a deposit on work from Mr. Viccars would want whatever of that work he had accomplished, and notwithstanding Mr. Mompellion’s injunction, I had no

Anys Gowdie left with her harlot’s gown folded under her arm, and as the day wore on and the news of Mr. Viccars’s death spread, as news does here,

even paler froth atop it. “Nettle beer. It will strengthen your blood,” Anys said. “All women should drink it daily.” As I lifted the cup, I remembered, with embarrassment,

have something very few women can claim: my freedom. I will not lightly surrender it. And besides,” she said, shooting me a sly sideways glance from under her long lashes, “sometimes a woman needs a draught of nettle beer to wake her up, and sometimes she needs a dish of valerian tea to calm her down. Why cultivate a garden with only one plant in it?”

Anys Gowdie confounded such thinking. There was no doubt that she did good: in many ways, the well-being of our village rested more on her works, and those of her aunt, than on the works of the rectory’s occupant. And yet her fornication and her blasphemy branded her a sinner in the reckoning of our religion. I was still puzzling over this

which I had the right to confide to her, and then that which I did not: the news I’d just learned of Anys’s sport with my lodger. “Now, Lib,” I said at last, rising reluctantly to continue on my way,

Miss Bradford was, as I have said, a proud and sour young woman, whose only glimmer of goodness seemed to come from a real solicitude for her unhappy mother. When her father was away,

The colonel’s pride was gratified by the presence of Elinor Mompellion at his table. For one thing, she looked exquisite that afternoon in a simple gown of creamy

Colonel Bradford appreciated her substantial connections. She had been a member of one of the

prattle.

the twittering of birds in a distant thicket. At that large table, little of the conversation was general. Most

horseback, wagons, and carts bulging with baggage. I tell you, everyone capable of leaving the city is doing so or plans to do it. The poor meantimes

herb-stuffed masks contrived like the beaks of great birds. People go through the streets like drunkards,

the screams of the dying, locked up all alone in the

innocents, Jamie’s little face flashed before me. What if the young Londoner were correct? Jamie had lived in George Viccars’s pocket. All that day before the illness first rose in him, Jamie had been climbing on his back, prancing by his side.

green, and this we have in every shade: the emerald velvet mosses, the glossy, tangled ivies, and in spring, the gold-greens of tender new grasses. For the rest, we move through a patchwork of

Jamie himself was downcast, having lost his dear friend Mr. Viccars. In truth, the death of his father had been easier for him to bear, because with Sam down the mine for most of Jamie’s waking hours, the two had spent little time in each other’s

Suddenly a bundle of wet wool flew out with a big, sucking slosh, and the two of us fell backward on the grass. It was a fine lamb, small but strong,

was too surprised and mortified by the rector’s sudden appearance to make any civil reply to him. To my further astonishment, he did not walk on then, but sat down upon a neighboring rock and pulled off his own boots so that his feet, too, could dandle in the rills. He reached down into the clear water

my eyes to find myself in a velvet rain of rose petals. The soft, sweet-scented shower brushed my cheeks. I pulled off my cap and shook out my long hair and let the petals land in its tangles. Little Tom gurgled with joy, his fat fists batting at

Alexander Hadfield was a fastidious man who preferred cutting cloth

Mem who met me on the step, her shawl saying she was on her way

Mem was straight and lithe as a green cornstalk, and she moved with the vigor

Mr. Hadfield had cleared his tailor’s bench and little Edward was laid naked upon it. At first, I could not see the child

Edward was too far gone in his feverish delirium to understand what had befallen him. Mary’s face creased with

When the time had elapsed to his satisfaction, he called for vinegar and applied it to the engorged creatures so that they twitched all the harder, their jaws relaxing as they sought to escape the irritant.

each leech in a cup of water and dropped it into a leather pouch alive

twenty years, then perhaps you have seen no cases against which to rightly judge the child’s condition.” “Ignorant woman!” he

“Are lumps at the neck and rosy rings on the body not Plague tokens?” I cried. He pulled up sharply and looked me in the

“Then God save you and this village,” he said. “And tell your neighbors to call upon me no more.”

LITTLE EDWARD COOPER was dead before sunset. His brother, Jonathan, lay ill a day later, and Alexander Hadfield but two days after that. At the end of a sennight,

My Tom died as babies do, gently and without complaint. Because

pasty features came into focus through my tears,

“Why do you let yourself love an infant so? I warned you, did I not, to school your heart against this?” It

deaths, marveling at her dry eyes. “It is folly and ill fortune to love a child until it walks and is well grown.

upbraid me for my grieving but shared in it with me, and so calmed my

weeping and my rage. Afterward, she drew a chair near to the window

Generally, it was her way to shrug off thanks or praise with a gruff set-down, but that morning she was tender with me and took my outstretched hand. “You are a good mother, Anna Frith.” She regarded me gravely. “Your arms will not be empty forever. Remember that when the way looks bleak to you.” Anys, I now see, knew well enough

Jamie suffered for five days before God finally saw fit to take him. The day of his death, the strange circles bloomed on him: vivid crimson welts rising in rings just beneath the topmost layer of his skin. As the hours passed, these turned violet and

Elinor Mompellion raised her eyes and looked at me. I shook my head as the tears ran down my face, and she knew her husband’s pleas had been in vain. I cannot recount the

Why was I not one of the many in the chamber of Death? My husband dead, and yet not me. My lodger gone, and yet not me. My neighbors, and yet not me. My babies—my babies! My eyes stung. I pressed my face against

God who seemed to want not the love and awe that the Scriptures asked of us, but an endless surfeit of our suffering. According to Thy Word. Why were God’s words always so harsh? I believe I might have gone

Mem Gowdie, her frail old arms bound before her with a length of fraying rope. Brad Hamilton knelt across her chest as his daughter, Faith, grasped a fistful of the old woman’s sparse silver hair and raked at her cheek with a hawthorn prick. “I’ll

witch!” she cried, as Mem moaned and tried to raise her bound hands to her face to fend off the blows. “Your blood will drive this sickness from my mother’s body.” In the circle, Hamilton’s oldest boy, Jude, held

Mary Hadfield broke from the throng and flung herself down beside poor Mem, pushing her face, all twisted with rage, within inches of the old woman’s. “You killed my family, hag!” Mem writhed, trying to shake her head in denial.

“Let’s swim her!” yelled an ale-soused voice. “Then we’ll see if she’s witch or no!” “Aye!” yelled another, and soon they were dragging Mem, who seemed near insensible from beatings, toward the adit of the flooded mine. Her old, much-mended bodice had given way with the tugging, exposing one withered pap, purple from bruising. The