At last they had come to Kings County, where the blue air tasted like salt and seabirds dropped clams onto the dirt roads to crack them open to feast upon. It was the last outpost, and the place where they would stay. As always, Faith was made to call the lady who took care of her “Mother”; the word continued to stick in her throat. She was certain that if she waited long enough her true mother would find her, and that one bright morning when she opened her eyes, Maria Owens would be there.

Faith had turned nine when they first came to settle in Gravesend, the land of seabirds and outcasts. There were few outsiders who passed through this place, and most residents who abided here had reasons to be in a town that seemed to be perched at the end of the earth. There were husbands who had quit their wives, and women who’d been cast out, and robbers who were tired of running from the law.

“We’ll be safe here,” Martha told Faith, although safe from what, Faith wasn’t quite sure. She was now called Comfort, a name she despised, not that there were many to call her by name. Quiet was a certainty here, and it was possible to be alone for weeks on end, whether one was walking along on the dirt roads or through the sandy fields. Other than the changes in the weather, each day was the same as the one before and the one to come. People in town waited for the peddler, who appeared on the last Friday of the month, and all were excited to see an outsider. They went to him for bolts of fabric or nails or pots and pans and would have to go without until he appeared, for no storekeeper had found the courage to open shop in this remote location.

Faith Owens could spy the sea from her room in the attic, where the previous tenant had died of the fevers, for in this low-lying land there were clouds of mosquitoes drifting by on summer nights. One out of every three children born out here would be dead before a first birthday was celebrated, and several of the women in town wore mourning black no matter the year or the season. As the years passed, Faith had more questions all the time, but because she dared not ask, they went unanswered. If Maria was alive, why hadn’t she come after her? Where was her loyal wolf-dog who would never leave her side of his own volition? Why must Faith not show the true color of her hair? Ever since that day when the constables came to call in Essex County, her life had been torn in two. There was the before, when she’d lived with her mother, and the after, the time that had accrued ever since Martha had taken her aboard the ship bound for New York, leading to these years in Brooklyn.