Chains
Authors: Laurie Halse Anderson
Laurie Halse Anderson
Abigail Adams once described her husband, John, as
“him whom my Heart esteems above all earthly things.”
I understand that feeling.
That's why this book is dedicated to my
beloved husband, Scot.
Chapter II
Monday, May 27, 1776
Chapter III
Monday, May 27, 1776
Chapter IV
Monday, May 27âWednesday, May 29, 1776
Chapter V
Wednesday, May 29, 1776
Chapter VI
Wednesday, May 29, 1776
Chapter VII
Wednesday, May 29, 1776
Chapter VIII
Wednesday, May 29âThursday, June 6, 1776
Chapter IX
Thursday, June 6, 1776
Chapter X
Thursday, June 6, 1776
Chapter XI
Friday, June 7, 1776
Chapter XII
Friday, June 7, 1776
Chapter XIII
Saturday, June 8âFriday, June 21, 1776
Chapter XIV
Saturday, June 22, 1776
Chapter XV
Saturday, June 22, 1776
Chapter XVI
Sunday, June 23, 1776
Chapter XVII
Sunday, June 23âFriday, June 28, 1776
Chapter XVIII
Friday, June 28, 1776
Chapter XIX
Sunday, June 30âMonday, July 1, 1776
Chapter XX
Tuesday, July 2âTuesday, July 9, 1776
Chapter XXI
Wednesday, July 10, 1776
Chapter XXII
Wednesday, July 10âMonday, July 15, 1776
Chapter XXIII
Monday, July 15, 1776
Chapter XXIV
Monday, July 15âSunday, July 21, 1776
Chapter XXV
Sunday, July 21âTuesday, August 20, 1976
Chapter XXVI
Wednesday, August 21âSunday, August 25, 1776
Chapter XXVII
Monday, August 26âSaturday, September 14, 1776
Chapter XXVIII
Sunday, September 15, 1776
Chapter XXIX
Sunday, September 15, 1776
Chapter XXX
Monday, September 16âSaturday, September 21, 1776
Chapter XXXI
Saturday, September 21âSunday, September 22, 1776
Chapter XXXII
Sunday, September 22âThursday, September 26, 1776
Chapter XXXIII
Friday, September 27âSaturday, November 16, 1776
Chapter XXXIV
Sunday, November 17âSunday, November 24, 1776
Chapter XXXV
Monday, December 2, 1776
Chapter XXXVI
Tuesday, December 3âFriday, December 13, 1776
Chapter XXXVII
Saturday, December 14âMonday, December 23, 1776
Chapter XXXVIII
Tuesday, December 24âWednesday, December 25, 1776
Chapter XXXIX
Thursday, December 26âTuesday, December 31, 1776
Chapter XL
Wednesday, January 1âTuesday, January 7, 1777
Chapter XLI
Tuesday, January 7âWednesday, January 15, 1777
Chapter XLII
Thursday, January 16âSaturday, January 18, 1777
Chapter XLIII
Saturday, January 18, 1777
Chapter XLIV
Saturday, January 18, 1777
Chapter XLV
Saturday, January 18âSunday, January 19, 1777
Chapter I
Monday, May 27, 1776
YOUTH IS THE SEED TIME OF GOOD HABITS, AS WELL IN NATIONS AS IN INDIVIDUALS. âTHOMAS PAINE,
COMMON SENSE
The best time to talk to ghosts is just before the sun comes up. That's when they can hear us true, Momma said. That's when ghosts can answer us.
The eastern sky was peach colored, but a handful of lazy stars still blinked in the west. It was almost time.
“May I run ahead, sir?” I asked.
Pastor Weeks sat at the front of his squeaky wagon with Old Ben next to him, the mules' reins loose in his hands. The pine coffin that held Miss Mary Finchâwearing her best dress, with her hair washed clean and combedâbounced in the back when the wagon wheels hit a rut. My sister, Ruth, sat next to the coffin. Ruth was too big to carry, plus the pastor knew about her peculiar manner of being, so it was the wagon for her and the road for me.
Old Ben looked to the east and gave me a little nod. He knew a few things about ghosts, too.
Pastor Weeks turned around to talk to Mr. Robert Finch, who rode his horse a few lengths behind the wagon.
“The child wants to run ahead,” Pastor explained to him. “She has kin buried there. Do you give leave for a quick visit?”
Mr. Robert's mouth tightened like a rope pulled taut. He had showed up a few weeks earlier to visit Miss Mary Finch, his aunt and only living relation. He looked around her tidy farm, listened to her ragged, wet cough, and moved in. Miss Mary wasn't even cold on her deathbed when he helped himself to the coins in her strongbox. He hurried along her burying, too, most improper. He didn't care that the neighbors would want to come around with cakes and platters of cold meat, and drink ale to the rememory of Miss Mary Finch of Tew, Rhode Island. He had to get on with things, he said.
I stole a look backward. Mr. Robert Finch was filled up with trouble from his dirty boots to the brim of his scraggly hat.
“Please, sir,” I said.
“Go then,” he said. “But don't tarry. I've much business today.”
I ran as fast as I could.
I hurried past the stone fence that surrounded the white graveyard, to the split-rail fence that marked our ground, and stopped outside the gate to pick a handful of chilly violets, wet with dew. The morning mist twisted and hung low over the field. No ghosts yet, just ash trees and maples lined up in a mournful row.
I entered.
Momma was buried in the back, her feet to the east, her head to the west. Someday I would pay the stone carver for
a proper marker with her name on it:
Dinah, wife of Cuffe, mother of Isabel and Ruth.
For now, there was a wooden cross and a gray rock the size of a dinner plate lying flat on the ground in front of it.
We had buried her the year before, when the first roses bloomed.
“Smallpox is tricky,” Miss Mary Finch said to me when Momma died. “There's no telling who it'll take.” The pox had left Ruth and me with scars like tiny stars scattered on our skin. It took Momma home to Our Maker.
I looked back at the road. Old Ben had slowed the mules to give me time. I knelt down and set the violets on the grave. “It's here, Momma,” I whispered. “The day you promised. But I need your help. Can you please cross back over for just a little bit?”
I stared without blinking at the mist, looking for the curve of her back or the silhouette of her head wrapped in a pretty kerchief. A small flock of robins swooped out of the maple trees.
“I don't have much time,” I told the grass-covered grave. “Where do you want us to go? What should we do?”
The mist swirled between the tall grass and the low-hanging branches. Two black butterflies danced through a cloud of bugs and disappeared. Chickadees and barn swallows called overhead.
“Whoa.” Old Ben stopped the wagon next to the open hole near the iron fence, then climbed down and walked to where Nehemiah the gravedigger was waiting. The two men reached for the coffin.
“Please, Momma,” I whispered urgently. “I need your help.” I squinted into the ash grove, where the mist was heaviest.
No ghosts. Nothing.
I'd been making like this for near a year. No matter what I said, or where the sun and the moon and the stars hung, Momma never answered. Maybe she was angry because I'd buried her wrong. I'd heard stories of old country burials with singers and dancers, but I wasn't sure what to do, so we just dug a hole and said a passel of prayers. Maybe Momma's ghost was lost and wandering because I didn't send her home the right way.
The men set Miss Mary's coffin on the ground. Mr. Robert got off his horse and said something I couldn't hear. Ruth stayed in the wagon, her bare feet curled up under her skirt and her thumb in her mouth.
I reached in the pocket under my apron and took out the oatcake. It was in two pieces, with honey smeared between them. The smell made my stomach rumble, but I didn't dare nibble. I picked up the flat rock in front of the cross and set the offering in the hollow under it. Then I put the rock back and sat still, my eyes closed tight to keep the tears inside my head where they belonged.
I could smell the honey that had dripped on my hands, the damp ground under me, and the salt of the ocean. I could hear cows mooing in a far pasture and bees buzzing in a nearby clover patch.
If she would just say my name, just once â¦
“Girl!” Mr. Robert shouted. “You there, girl!”
I sniffed, opened my eyes, and wiped my face on my sleeve. The sun had popped up in the east like a cork and was burning through the morning mist. The ghosts had all gone to ground. I wouldn't see her today, either.
He grabbed my arm and pulled me roughly to my feet. “I told you to move,” Mr. Robert snarled at me.
“Apologies, sir,” I said, wincing with pain.
He released me with a shove and pointed to the cemetery where they buried white people. “Go pray for her that owned you, girl.”
Monday, May 27, 1776
I, YOUNG IN LIFE, BY SEEMING CRUEL FATE WAS SNATCH'D FROM AFRIC'S FANCYIED HAPPY SEAT: ⦠⦠THAT FROM A FATHER SEIZ'D HIS BABE HIS BABE BELOVE'D: SUCH, SUCH MY CASE. AND CAN I THEN BUT PRAY OTHERS MAY NEVER FEEL TYRANNIC SWAY? âPHILLIS WHEATLEY, “TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM, EARL OF DARTMOUTH”
“Amen,” we said together.
Pastor Weeks closed his Bible, and the funeral was over.
Nehemiah drove his shovel into the mound of dirt and pitched some into the open grave. The earth rattled and bounced on the coffin lid. Old Ben put on his hat and walked toward the mule team. Mr. Robert reached for coins to pay the pastor. Ruth drew a line in the dust with her toe.
My belly flipped with worry. I was breathing hard as if I'd run all the way to the village and back. This was the moment we'd been waiting for, the one that Momma promised would come. It was up to me to take care of things, to find a place for us. I had to be bold.
I stood up proper, the way I had been taughtâchin up, eyes downâtook Ruth by the hand, and walked over to the men.
“Pardon me, Pastor Weeks, sir,” I said. “May I ask you something?”
He set his hat on his head. “Certainly, Isabel.”
I held Ruth's hand tighter. “Where do you think we should go?”
“What do you mean, child?”
“I know I'll find work, but I can't figure where to sleep, me and Ruth. I thought you might know a place.”
Pastor Weeks frowned. “I don't understand what you're saying, Isabel. You're to return with Mr. Robert here. You and your sister belong to him now.”
I spoke slowly, saying the words I had practiced in my head since Miss Mary Finch took her last breath, the words that would change everything. “Ruth and me are free, Pastor. Miss Finch freed us in her will. Momma, too, if she had lived. It was done up legal, on paper with wax seals.”
Mr. Robert snorted. “That's enough out of you, girl. Time for us to be on the road to Newport.”
“Was there a will?” Pastor Weeks asked him.
“She didn't need one,” Mr. Robert replied. “I was Aunt Mary's only relative.”
I planted my feet firmly in the dirt and fought to keep my voice polite and proper. “I saw the will, sir. After the lawyer wrote it, Miss Mary had me read it out loud on account of her eyes being bad.”
