The Widow Of Pale Harbour. Hester Fox

it was too unbearable to look at the exposed and broken bird a moment longer. Sophronia might have called for Garrett, the groundskeeper, but he was out on the far end of the property, cutting back the grass. Helen was capable and strong, though, and had a way with animals. “You’ll try to save it, won’t you? And if you can’t, you’ll make it...” Her words trailed off, but her meaning was unmistakable. Quick.

      Carefully, Helen positioned her hands under the motionless bird, holding it slightly away from her as she lifted it. She ran a practiced hand along its wings, her dark brows furrowing in a mixture of concern and anger, as if the cruelty of humankind never ceased to surprise her. “Wings are both broken. And there’s something wrong with its foot.” But then she caught Sophronia’s anxious look and softened. “I’ll see what I can do, Sophy.”

      Sophronia gave her a warm smile and watched Helen whisk the raven off to the carriage house, her movements brisk and efficient, her posture as neat as a pin. She had taken Helen on as a servant and companion during her early days as a lonely young bride, but over the years, the older woman had proved herself to be a true friend in every sense. Now it was just the two of them against the world, as Helen was so often wont to remind her.

      The first raindrops were starting to fall when Sophronia finally allowed herself to stop thinking of the crooked bird and what it might mean and return indoors. Before the thump of the raven landing on the path had startled her from her reverie, Sophronia had been watching the storm roll in upstairs. Her late husband had always pompously referred to the large room lined with bay windows as the “upper piazza,” taking the big old house’s name, Castle Carver, to heart. Sophronia liked to watch storms approach from there; it was a sort of entertainment, drawing back the curtains like those in a theater, the harbor and endless gray sky a stage on which the rowdy gulls acted their plays.

      She wandered through the house, unsettled. There were submissions to her late husband’s magazine piling up, submissions for which she was now responsible. Usually she enjoyed curling up in the parlor, tucked under a warm quilt with a cup of tea as she read through the stories and essays, curating which ones she would send along to the board for publication. But the raven had rattled her, and Sophronia was too anxious to read.

      Instead, she continued back upstairs and threw the windows open. The rain was picking up now, the clouds building into something even heavier and more expectant. There was no moment so promising, so exciting, as the moment before a storm broke. Living on the Maine harbor, with naught but a finger of land to separate her home from the gray Atlantic, she had the opportunity to witness many storms, all from the safety of her window. On clear days, she could see the old lighthouse jutting out on the rocky promontory outside of town, winking back at her from its empty windows, an ally in her solitude. In the other direction lay a lonesome expanse of trees, dark and wild. It was a deceptively beautiful landscape, the sheer scale of woods and ocean promising endless possibilities, but in reality, it only swallowed up the hopes and dreams of young brides. At least on stormy days, the mist softened the harsh realities of the world, cloaked its darkness.

      But today’s storm was different; she could feel it reverberating in her bones. Perhaps the raven had been a harbinger of things to come, an omen. Or perhaps it was just as Helen said—children from the town playing their cruel tricks on her, just like they had for years since her husband had died so violently and suddenly.

      Sophronia sighed, drumming her fingers against the windowsill. God, she was so weary of it all. Weary of the solitude, weary of the little town, its people and their narrow minds, weary of the shell she had become. Tonight, she and Helen would eat a small supper in silence—they had few words left to say that weren’t old and stale, used up over the years—and then they would sit in the parlor, play a game of cards, and perhaps Sophronia would read a book or philosophical pamphlet while Helen plucked away at the old pianoforte. Tomorrow the laundry girl, Fanny, would come, and hopefully bring some gossip or news with her. They would chat for a little, and then Fanny would leave, and stillness would settle back over the house. It would be the same as every other day, but monotony was the price of safety. If the grand old house was indeed a castle, then Sophronia was its ghost, forever trapped, restless and roaming the halls.

      She leaned out to close the window, but paused, letting the wind sweep up around her in an invigorating embrace. The building energy of the storm electrified her bones and caused tears to prick her eyes. Yes, there was something different about this storm. Change was sweeping toward Pale Harbor, and God knew, she needed it.

       2

      If Gabriel Stone had known what was inside the dilapidated old church and what it would lead to, he might have turned around, climbed back on the boat and returned to Concord immediately. But the rain was coming down in unforgiving sheets, and after days of travel, the time for reservations had long since passed.

      Wiping the rain from his eyes, he stepped back, craning his neck, and turned his face up into the stormy night, taking in the church that he had trekked halfway up the east coast to reach. It was made of unassuming white clapboard, and its steeple barely peeked above the thrashing trees, as if in humble deference to this wild terrain in which it was an outsider, a latecomer, just like him.

      It had taken him two coaches, a rail and finally a ship to arrive in Pale Harbor, only to find that no one was awaiting him at the dock. When it had become obvious that it was too dark even to locate his new lodgings, Gabriel had decided to go to the only other place he knew of in the town: his new church. He had followed the sight of the steeple, slogging through muddy roads that weren’t much more than old cow paths, lit only with the occasional lamplight from a lonely cottage window. But when he’d finally arrived at the church, the doors were locked. He was a sopping wet, hungry, short-tempered outsider and damn it, churches were supposed to be a refuge. Putting his shoulder against the old wood door, Gabriel gave another push, and cursed when it would not budge.

      The wind howled around him. He shrugged the collar of his coat up in vain, trying to keep the slicing rain from penetrating any farther down his back. He would get in, spend the night, and then, in the light of day, find his lodgings and hopefully the trunks that he had sent ahead.

      A glint of shattered glass in the fleeting moonlight caught his eye. A broken window. Gabriel peeled off his sopping wet overcoat, balled it around his fist and punched out the rest of the glass. With all the grace of a wet cat, he shimmied himself through the opening.

      The musty air hit him like the release of a breath held in for too long, and he landed awkwardly on his ankle. “Goddamn it,” he muttered, and then, remembering where he was, grumbled an apology. It was as cool as a mausoleum inside, the air untouched for who knew how many years. The only light came from the brief flashes of lightning, and the occasional gasp of moonlight through the racing clouds. His wet clothes clung to him, chilling him down to his bones. It was not an auspicious beginning to his new venture.

      “Anyone here?”

      His voice echoed off the empty pews and hollow nave. There was no reason anyone would be in the old church, but one never knew if a lost soul had seen the steeple and wandered inside, looking for shelter or religious succor.

      Gabriel let his gaze wander over the dark, indistinct shapes of the crumbling interior. It was not a large church—he could have reached the altar in less than twenty paces—but the rows of pews gaping with expectation gave it a sense of restless hunger, repelling and beckoning him at the same time.

      So, this was to be his, then. Good God, what business did he have leading a congregation? It had always been Anna’s dream to found a spiritual community, to bring to life the ideals and values about which she so voraciously read and that had surrounded them in Concord. But now she was gone, and the fulfillment of her dreams was left to him. Perhaps he could make her proud in death where he had so often failed in life, but he rather doubted it. He had not been the intellectual, the enlightened thinker that she had so wished of him. This whole plan was madness; he was counterfeiting a version of himself that had never existed, all in the hopes of redeeming himself in the eyes of a woman