Year of Wonders

by Geraldine Brooks

“You throw her down there, and you’ll be murderers!” I yelled, trying to get in front of Brad Hamilton, who seemed the most sensible man amongst them.

myself, Mary Hadfield was wailing, “She’s sinking! She’s sinking! She’s no witch! God forgive us, we’ve killed

was Anys Gowdie. Breathing hard from running all the way up

Kneeling beside her, I counted out the breaths. After the third, Anys paused. Mem Gowdie’s chest rose by itself.

The relief I felt lasted only an instant, for Lib, in a crazed voice, began crying: “Anys Gowdie’s raised the dead! It’s her that’s the witch! Seize her!” “Lib!” I cried, rising dizzily up off the ground

to have our small village suddenly thrust into the high matters of king and parliament. It may seem

Not long after his protest, a law passed saying that dissenting clergy should keep at least five miles from their old parishes, so that they might not stir up differences. Another law prescribed harsh penalties—fines and prison and even transportation—for all meetings of more than five

Accordingly, Mr. Stanley moved from the rectory and left the village, and

“Yet God in His infinite and unknowable wisdom has singled us out, alone amongst all the villages in our shire, to receive this Plague. It is a trial for us, I am sure of it. Because of His great love

“Therefore, let us not flinch, let us not fail! Let us choose not the dull luster of our base state when God would have us shine!” “Amen!” Houghton’s gravelly

Others have connections upon whom we could prevail. Some few of us have means to go far from here—anywhere we choose.” My concentration broke as the Bradfords shifted in the foremost pew. “But how would we repay the kindness of those who received us, if we carried the seeds of the Plague to them? What

beloved. “Dear friends, here we are, and here we must stay. Let the boundaries of this village become our whole world. Let none enter and none leave while this Plague lasts.”

The earl had undertaken that if we sealed ourselves off he would provision us all from his own purse with our basic needs in food, fuel,

For loneliness awaits those who flee. Loneliness—like a flag staff on a mountain. Loneliness and shunning. The shunning

For in that stranger’s house, all you will receive is blame. For surely they will blame you, for bringing this thing to them. And they will blame you justly! And they will heap their hatred upon you, in the hour when your greatest need is love!”

And I promise you this: while I am spared no one in this village will face their death alone.” He advised us then to

we smiled as we caught one another’s eyes, aware of the

Maggie Cantwell, pacing by my gate. Maggie was the Bradfords’ cook, and as a consequence

puce with exertion. A bundle of belongings

for the Bradfords mean to leave this hour,

do, just put the food on the table and clear out.” While still far from

The rector was not to be gainsaid. He moved toward the colonel and clutched him by the arm. “Well, if the plight of strangers cannot move you, think of the good you might yet do here, among the villagers that know you and look to you. There will be much to be managed in this time of peril. Your courage has long been celebrated. Why not add a new chapter? You have led men to war. You have the skills to command all of us through this crisis. I do not have such skills. Furthermore, I am a new-comer to this place; I do not know these people as you and your family know them, who have been here for many generations. I could learn much from your counsel as to how best go on as events unfold here. And while

rector held the colonel’s letter still but seemed to have

turned his back to the hearth and again faced the colonel. “If you must send your wife and daughter away, then I pray you, stay here yourself and do your duty.”

day. A very pretty sermon. You are to be complimented upon it. I do not say that you do ill in making your congregation feel righteous in staying here. On the contrary, I think it was very well done of you. They may as well have some comfort, since they have no choice.” Since they have no choice.

Aphra had said to my father, it is not easy to surrender the safety of a roof and the certainty of bread for the perils of an open road, with winter setting in and no clear destination at its end. Villages in these parts did not love vagrants at any time, and whipped them on their way. How much less welcome would we be once the word went out of whence we came? Fleeing one danger would

“Colonel Bradford!” Mompellion’s voice rang through the Hall. “Enjoy your books. Enjoy them now! For there are no pockets in a shroud! Perhaps you do not care for the judgment of this village, but if you do not value these people,, there is one who does. He loves them dearly. And be sure, He is the one to whom you will have to answer. I do not lightly

Mrs. Bradford and her daughter seemed about to relent in the case of their maids, and inquired of the colonel whether two or three of the young women might not take shelter in the stables or the well house, but Colonel Bradford refused them even that. And so, as generally

happens, those who have most give least, and those with less somehow make shrift to share. By nightfall, all the Bradfords’ servants had been taken in by one or other village

And so the rest of us set about learning to live in the wide green prison of our own election. The weather warmed that week,

oath weighed upon me, for it was perhaps only a half dozen times a year that I ventured beyond the limits in which we had now confined ourselves. And yet I found myself walking that Monday morning in the direction of the Boundary Stone, which

“Randoll Daniel was here this morning,” she said. “His wife is in labor and, with the Gowdies gone, he knew not where to look for help for her. I told him we would be there directly.”

But you have, Anna. You will know what to do, and I will assist you as best I can.” “Mrs. Mompellion! Giving birth

is one thing! Midwifing is altogether another gate’s business. And neither is a lamb a living human soul. You

“See, Anna! You have already helped me,

The only time that mattered was measured in Mary’s ever-increasing intervals of pain. When she finally sank back, exhausted, upon the pallet, I waited for a surge to pass. As soon as it did I insinuated my fingers quickly inside her. The

truculent

and brown matter, there he was—a small, slippery boy. And a moment later, he was yelling, too. Randoll burst through the blanket-door when he heard his lusty son, and his big miner’s hand fluttered like a moth

But even in the midst of that joy, I knew that I would have to leave the babe nursing at his mother’s breast and return to my own cottage, silent and empty, where the only sound that would greet me would be the phantom echoes of my own boys’ infant cries. And so, before we took our leave of the Daniels, I found the phial of poppy in Mrs. Mompellion’s whisket. I closed my hand upon it, stealthy as a practiced thief, and plunged

legs folding up under him. Jakob, quickly comprehending the extremity of their state, dispatched his boy, Seth, to carry the news to the rector,

Maggie. When we drew up, Maggie still lay

covered a corpse, so blue was she with the cold, and

poppets for Aphra’s little ones. I would form the bodies of plaited grainstalks and then fashion faces from the yellow clay that lay at the base of the sillions.

Maggie was conscious, she was barely so, nor did she have command of her limbs. Mr. Mompellion squatted down behind and wrapped his arms around her chest

Maggie and raised a shout: “A woman from the Plague village! Beware! Beware!” Brand shuddered then. “Lord forgive me, I ran off and left her. I been gone out from Bakewell since I was a small

‘Lord help me,’ she said, ‘I feel like a lead pig is tied to me foot.’ And ’twere the last words I had from her. She crumbled up right there in the middle of the roadway. And that set the mob off into an even bigger to-do. One

“You did very well, Brand, even to taking the cart. Set your heart at rest over it. One day, after this travail is passed, you may return it. But think no more on it until

“This Plague will make heroes of us all, whether we will or no. But you are the first of them.”

CARE OF Maggie Cantwell seemed too big a burden for poor Jakob Merrill, struggling as he was in that one-room croft to rear a girl of ten and a boy not yet six. But he did say he would give Brand a roof until the boy was able to find a better. Mr. Mompellion said he would

You tell him you learned this day that there’s more good in a cask of ale than in the four Gospels. You tell him that malt does more to justify God’s ways to man than the Bible! Aye, you