The fifth fathom. Malcolm.

The sixth. André.

I swore I’d always keep them both inside my heart.

Then I reached it—the seventh—and the water released me. I relaxed my body and let myself float. West End appeared, its white beach stretching out before me. The water clearer than glass. And there, in the distance, a young man walked the shore in a patient, uneven stride.

Mama, I whispered. Mama, I have done it.

I’ve lived for something more, and it’s you, and it’s love, and liberty, and friendship, and hope—and all the other mores that can ever be.

And it’s me, Mama.

Frannie.

I broke the surface and treaded water as I caught my breath.

The Jersey was well away, but the boats that had been launched to chase me down were much closer. Lanterns swung this way and that as men searched the river.

I laughed. They’d never catch me.

My calf was bleeding. I was wheezing. Dying. But I still had a few breaths left.

There was no point deciding which direction to swim—all was darkness and rain and choppy waves—so I just followed the current.

With every kick, I felt a gathering within me. I had forgotten—Frannie was strong. Strong enough to swim around the world.

I lost myself in the strokes, entering a clearness of mind. A peacefulness I felt down to my soul. Then a voice filtered in.

I stopped and kicked in place, listening. Staring into the rainy night.

“Frannie!”

I turned to the sound and smiled. Then I put my head down and swam.

“355” was real.

I learned about her when—hoping to fill some of the gaps in my education—I dove into the internet in search of “women I should know.” There she was—an eighteenth-century spy. A woman who had found a way to insert herself into a pivotal moment in American history.

What do we know of 355 that’s provable in the historical record? Not a whole lot. She was an active participant in the Culper spy network, which operated in New York City during the American Revolution. In the Culper code book, “355” corresponds to the word “lady,” which suggests that she was of elevated social status. And we know that, at least in one instance, the Culper spies relied on 355 to “outwit them all.”

Little as that is, when I learned these things, I was hooked.

In the eighteenth century, spying was dishonorable and unseemly—far from the stylishly appealing job portrayed in modern film and television. I began to wonder…what sort of lady would have risked her reputation to spy? And she didn’t just defy king and country. At that time, politics was overwhelmingly the domain of wealthy white men—and yet 355 defied the norms of her sex to engage in this landscape in a bold, though secretive, way.

I couldn’t resist the urge to know her better. Thus Francisca Tasker was born—over four years of research and writing.