Chapter 45
Harper lay in bed not sleeping. Her head was full of a thousand floating thoughts.
Lady Bell, Anna, Meg all intermingled, their words spinning around each other, becoming one, the clicks from her octopus, each voice merging with the other to become a single narrative.
She sat up. Polly and another gray and white cat were sleeping on her bed.
Careful not to disturb them, Harper slipped out of bed, pulling on sweatpants and a hoodie.
Outside, the rain and wind were back en force.
She crossed to the window to see the trees whipping around, the rain being thrown against the glass.
Harper grabbed her phone and, careful not to disturb her roommates, stepped into the hall, leaving her bedroom door open enough for the cats.
She headed down the stairs. The lights were on a dull setting, just enough for her to find her way through the labyrinth-like hallways.
Once in the library, she fumbled along the wall until she came to a panel of switches.
Harper blinked in surprise as the grand chandelier was illuminated.
She was hit with a wave of slight panic that it would be noticed, that it would wake someone, but it passed.
She was welcome here, the library lay waiting for her.
Harper made her way to the third floor, where she pulled not only the journal but also the historian’s account, and the plastic-protected documents.
At the desk, she examined the documents first. One was a notice from the Boston Circuit Court. Harper squinted at the scrawled writing.
Publick Occurrences
Both Foreign and Domestic
Thursday, September 14, 1690
It is designed, that the Country shall be furnished once a month (or if any Glut of Occurrences happen, oftener), with an Account of such consider-able things as have arrived unto our Notice.
A very Tragical Accident happened at sea aboard the British Freight Ship The Mary Clarence on September 7, 1690.
One Ewin Taine, a man of a somewhat Silent and Morose Temper, is charged with the most heinous murder of young Meg MacGruer, as well as that of an Irish ship’s hand, Liam Kelly.
Master Taine, along with the young women he claimed as Wives, were fleeing on The Mary Clarence from Loch Lomond, Scotland, having been charged with Wickednesse and Heresy by the Church Court of Greater Glasgow under the writ of Laird Gregor MacGregor of the Clan MacGregor of the Highland Scots.
We have not so exactly related the Circumstances of this business, but this Account is as near exactness as any could be had, in the midst of many various reports regarding this most heinous incident.
It is the findings of the Court that the young women who accompanied the Villian Taine are of a most Sober and Pious nature.
Among them is an infant child, and a young girl of four.
Is a most Divine Providence that these Innocente Souls be delivered to in health and our Lord’s good graces.
They are to be housed at The Temporary Home for Women and Children on New Chardon Street in Boston’s West End.
Ewin Taine’s trial proceeds and will be documented in order that Memorable Occurrences of Divine Providence may not be neglected or forgotten, as they too often are.
It is in this manner that we call on the Lord Duke Angus Dewitt of Kinross and goodly Lady Duchess Loreana Bell Dewitt of Kinross to testify as to any unseemly events that occurred off the shores of New Kinross on the dark eve of September 7, 1690.
By Order of the Governour and Council
Franklin Maddington, Secr.
Boston, September 14, 1690
Harper stared at the document. This was the same Father Taine whom Meg had written about in the journal.
Obviously, Meg had not died aboard The Mary Clarence or the journal would not exist. The mystery of what had happened to her and how she had ended up in Bell Manor was waiting to be discovered in the papers that lay before her.
Also intriguing was the fact that the Lady Duchess Loreana Bell Dewitt had to be the same original Lady Loreana Bell.
Harper pulled her phone out and googled “Lord Duke Angus Dewitt of Kinross.” A Wikipedia page immediately popped up.
It contained the bones of the stories she had been told.
In 1680, Angus Dewitt, the Duke of Kinross, is sent to Massachusetts Bay Colony with his wife, Duchess Lady Loreana Bell Dewitt, by William of Orange, who would become William III eventually, to establish a new colony off the coast of Boston.
Harper skipped through the records of the building of the manor house and the Duke and Duchess’s stay in Boston, and stopped at a note toward the bottom of the page.
Bell Island, originally intended as a society for the kingdoms of Scotland and England, slipped into obscurity shortly after its inception.
The Duke of Kinross, Lord Angus Dewitt, died of complications due to gout in 1701, by which time Bell Island had ceased receiving official guests from Scotland or England.
The Lady Loreana Bell Dewitt retained control of the island.
Bell Island developed a reputation as a magnet for esoteric societies and spiritualists, and remains closed to all but residents to this day.
It would later be connected to the Society of Psychical Research, the College of Psychic Studies, and the ancient order of the St. Cyprian Society.
Harper stared at the words. There was more about the flora and fauna of the island, links one could follow to request a tour of Bell, articles about the water pipeline to the mainland established in 1971, and more, but Harper was more interested in the connection to this docking register and the idea that Bell had “slipped into obscurity.”
With a deep breath she gingerly removed the journal from its case and began reading.
On the night that we set sail from Glasgow Harbour I saw the future in my cursèd dreams. While my waking-self lay slumbering in the stinking hull of the ship, my godly vision showed me my Rory’s still form, his soul flown to Heaven above.
I was told by an Angel of our Lord not to mourn his passing, though I would not find strength enough to follow that command when the time came to pass.
I was also shown the green-eyed young man who would be as such to start my earthly troubles, but in truthe is he who opened my sleeping eyes and revealed the rot that I had become blind to.
I also felt the sharp bite of the water, even the summer ocean stings with ice, and I felt the sensation of falling, drifting to my death and then the gentle caress of not angel or man, but God himself in creature form as He wrapped me in His arms not of this worlde and lifted me above.
I was privy to all this, so when it came to pass it was more memory than happening, though that did not stop my sorrow nor my suffering.
My dearest one, my Rory came down with the cough and fever as the others, my sisters did.
Even Father Taine lay in a fevered state, his condition attended to by my sisters.
My sister’s bairn, little Addie, and the infant Olevar, kept to the shadows.
Rory was the only one to pass to our Lord, though I do not know what became of them as time follows.
I stayed by Rory’s bedside for all the nights of his suffering, wiping his brow and forcing his parched lips to take water.
He cried and clung to my breast, and my heart broke a thousand times over in these dark days.
His small form was taken hence and wrapped in rough linen.
It was in this way that he was given to the sea, a block of iron to weigh down his form so that his spirit would be at rest among those creatures that haunt the darkness of the water.
I do not remember the days that followed, only that I wished to die despite what the Angels had shown me of my fate to come.
My Rory, my little one, lay alone and cold in the depths, and I tried to join him one night as I stared into the night water.
I gripped the rail of the cursèd ship and was set to throw myself into the mercy of our Lord, when I was stopped in a way both foretolde and blessèd by the Angels themselves.
It would be this saving that would also seal my fate.
In the days to come my sisters would plead with Father to consider a civille body politick and for the equall lawes on all men to be by vertue enacted upon my humble person, though a woman and though young that I should be treated as a childe of our Lord, and the justice of our Lord’s court should consider the evidence of my grief and innocence.
My sisters, despite the bad blood that permeated our bond, pleaded to Father in this matter to act as he would be a father of the publick and reasonable man.
Their pleas fell on deaf ears and the sailors who manned this ship held no sway in the trappings of Father’s law.
It was in this way I was to stay for three and twenty days while I endured the torture of penance to my perceived guilt.
Much of these days my soul has not permitted me to remember.
Forgive me, dear reader, as it pains me to recall the events that transpired as I awaited my grim fate during this time.