My Name is Resolute by Nancy E. Turner
First Edition: February 2014
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
This book is dedicated to Jackson Bracht,
to Martin Richard, Krystle Campbell, Lu Lingzi, and Officer Sean Collier, killed in the second Boston Massacre, April 15, 2013, and to all, whether their acts be great or small, who ever have stood or ever shall stand fast in the face of tyranny and injustice.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Were it not for the encouragement from, patient rereading by, and good advice of brilliant writers and beautiful friends Bonnie Marson and Jennifer Lee Carrell, I would never have heard Resolute tell me her story as you find it here. My agent, the late John A. Ware, provided helpful feedback along the way, along with a line-by-line check as one of his last acts. My husband, John, went with me through the ups and downs of creating such a lengthy work, supporting every decision along the way, trudging the hills of Boston and the vales of New England, carrying the apple cider doughnuts necessary for intensive research. And, of course, my great thanks and appreciation go to Thomas Dunne of Thomas Dunne Books; my editor, Marcia Markland; her assistant, Kat Brzozowski; and copy editor Ragnhild Hagen for attention to detail above and beyond the call of duty. For the first time ever, I have included a bibliography at the end of a novel. It is not to be taken lightly, for those wonderful authors have recorded in their works much that is both fascinating and largely forgotten, and which should be read and relished as much as any fictional account of the world past.
Proclamation regarding linen and woolen goods … of use to the enemy:
I am informed there are large quantities of goods … which, if in the possession of the rebels, would enable them to carry on the war.
And, whereas I have given notice to all loyal inhabitants to remove such goods from hence, and all who do not remove them, or deliver them to your care,
will be considered abettors of the rebels.
You are hereby authorized and required to take into your possession all such goods as answer this description … And, you are to make inquiry if any such goods be secreted in stores, and you are to seize all …
—General William Howe, Commander in Chief of the British Army in America, March 10, 1776
CHAPTER 1
Two Crowns Plantation, Jamaica—September 30, 1729, by the old reckoning
Never step over a lighted candle. If you do, the flame she rise and the Shush-shush come and take you. Gumboo. I used to laugh when my favorite person on this earth, Old Poe, furrowed her brow and whispered that like a singsong rhyme, then put her finger against her lips, saying, “Hush, now, child. Don’ tease de devil, now, child.” When I heard Ma say it just now across the supper table, all fine and glowing with porcelain and crystal, and me nowhere near a candle other than those high above in the chandelier, it made me run cold, deep in my bones. There were few things in the life of a young girl wearing her first long skirts more treacherous than a candle on the floor. I held a picture I had drawn in India ink on heavy paper. A drip had formed at the bottom edge, pulling the shoe on one of the figures to unnatural length. My eyes went from my drawing to Ma, to Uncle Rafe. He had just invited me to sit upon his knee and show it to him.
My sister Patience had called me to dinner many minutes earlier and I had ignored her summons to put some finishing touches on it that were now ruining the picture. It depicted two little girls, one white, one black, holding hands and running across the white-sand beach. Their faces smiled quite cunningly, I thought. The figure of my dear Allsy in the picture held up an apple, precious fruit shipped here from far away, the last apple we shared, the danger of it so like one of my favorite stories in which a princess sleeps for a thousand years after a single bite. I had drawn crowns over Allsy’s and my heads, as if she and I were princesses.
Uncle Rafe slammed his tankard of rum on the table boards, and said, “Aye. A girl’s petticoats catch fire soon enough. Tender as tinder.” He laughed and winked at Ma, his face all bright and sweating in a way that made me push his cup and plate over into his lap. I stuck out my chin, thinking old Rafe did not know aught about a fiery petticoat. Uncle Rafe roared and hollered, “God’s balls!”