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.

Faith often walked to the end of the old Indian path, which led past the cemetery. She left seashells to decorate Lady Moody’s grave, for she felt this Englishwoman who had made her way in this wilderness to be a kindred spirit. On the shortest night of the year, she left the house after dark when there were only patches of silvery light slipping through the clouds. She brought along a white candle to honor the town’s founder. Never hide who you are inside, she’d always been told, but all that she was had been hidden, even from herself.