Bees were humming all around us. We were ready to step back in time, my mother’s wish and my wish now, too.
What begins one way must end the same way.
I read the first line aloud.
This is a place where I can write my heart.
And so she did. She wrote about my four-times-great-grandfather and his green eyes, and how she thought about him while she worked in her garden planting the same herbs that we now grew: tansy, lavender, mint. Sheplanned the life they would have together, forever after. She and Lowell Fowler had grown up together and everyone in Sidwell knew they were fated to marry someday.
But Agnes’s parents thought she was too young, and besides, war was breaking out, the American Revolution. The year was 1775. The Early family was from England, and they sided with the king. The Fowlers, on the other hand, were American through and through and had joined with George Washington’s rebels to fight the king and his army of Red Coats. Families who had been friends and neighbors became enemies overnight. Aggie and Lowell were no longer allowed to see each other.
And so a secret plan was made.
We will meet by the lake on the last day of July and run away to Boston, where our families cannot find us, so that we can be married.
When Julia read that line out loud Beau began to bark. I had goose bumps up and down my arms. Crickets were calling in the tall grass. It was almost August. I knew Julia and I were both thinking the same thing: Agnes Early was probably sitting in the exact same place where we were now when she wrote down these words.
He did not come.
Agnes had waited with her packed bag. The wedding dress she’d stitched by hand, always sewn in secret whenher parents were asleep, was carefully folded inside. The meeting place was the field beyond Last Lake, which was called Early Lake then, for the other lakes hadn’t yet dried up. Perhaps that was part of the curse as well.
She waited all night long. But Lowell Fowler had disappeared without a sign. Agnes went to his parents, who knew nothing and were beside themselves with worry. His neighbors searched the woods and found no clues. It was as if he had never existed. His horse waited in the barn; his dog paced the meadow.
Agnes Early waited a day, a week, a month, a year.
And then, she disappeared as well. Before she left Sidwell, she made one last entry in her diary. She wrote that she had combined the herbs in the garden with two petals from the rosebush Lowell had given her as a gift, a tiny specimen that had come all the way from England by ship and had bloomed on the day he disappeared. On the night of the first full moon in August, Agnes created the spell that forever after cursed the men of our family.
Let him fly even faster from me if that’s what he desires! Let him have wings!
She never wrote again.
I wandered through the woods to think things through, trying to figure out what could have made Lowell leave Agnes Early without a word. Could it be that he hadn’t meant to hurt her? People often hurt the ones they love most, don’t they? Without ever meaning to, they lash out, walk away, never see one another again. Or maybe it had all been beyond Lowell’s control, like lightning striking him when he least expected it.
That was when I saw someone skulking about in the woods. A boy with a black backpack.
He was tall, with fair hair. He clearly knew these woods, but so did I. I started following him. I managed to stay quiet until there was a crunching sound when I stepped on a pinecone. I quickly ducked behind some bramble bushes. When he turned to glance over his shoulder, I got a good look at his face. My heart hit against my chest. He seemed familiar somehow. I should have gone back, but I guess I wasn’t thinking straight. I followed him through the woods, but all of a sudden, he disappeared. I had the feeling I’d imagined him, and that I’d been tracking a shadow or some fog; then I realized he’d slipped through a black
What begins one way must end the same way.
I read the first line aloud.
This is a place where I can write my heart.
And so she did. She wrote about my four-times-great-grandfather and his green eyes, and how she thought about him while she worked in her garden planting the same herbs that we now grew: tansy, lavender, mint. Sheplanned the life they would have together, forever after. She and Lowell Fowler had grown up together and everyone in Sidwell knew they were fated to marry someday.
But Agnes’s parents thought she was too young, and besides, war was breaking out, the American Revolution. The year was 1775. The Early family was from England, and they sided with the king. The Fowlers, on the other hand, were American through and through and had joined with George Washington’s rebels to fight the king and his army of Red Coats. Families who had been friends and neighbors became enemies overnight. Aggie and Lowell were no longer allowed to see each other.
And so a secret plan was made.
We will meet by the lake on the last day of July and run away to Boston, where our families cannot find us, so that we can be married.
When Julia read that line out loud Beau began to bark. I had goose bumps up and down my arms. Crickets were calling in the tall grass. It was almost August. I knew Julia and I were both thinking the same thing: Agnes Early was probably sitting in the exact same place where we were now when she wrote down these words.
He did not come.
Agnes had waited with her packed bag. The wedding dress she’d stitched by hand, always sewn in secret whenher parents were asleep, was carefully folded inside. The meeting place was the field beyond Last Lake, which was called Early Lake then, for the other lakes hadn’t yet dried up. Perhaps that was part of the curse as well.
She waited all night long. But Lowell Fowler had disappeared without a sign. Agnes went to his parents, who knew nothing and were beside themselves with worry. His neighbors searched the woods and found no clues. It was as if he had never existed. His horse waited in the barn; his dog paced the meadow.
Agnes Early waited a day, a week, a month, a year.
And then, she disappeared as well. Before she left Sidwell, she made one last entry in her diary. She wrote that she had combined the herbs in the garden with two petals from the rosebush Lowell had given her as a gift, a tiny specimen that had come all the way from England by ship and had bloomed on the day he disappeared. On the night of the first full moon in August, Agnes created the spell that forever after cursed the men of our family.
Let him fly even faster from me if that’s what he desires! Let him have wings!
She never wrote again.
I wandered through the woods to think things through, trying to figure out what could have made Lowell leave Agnes Early without a word. Could it be that he hadn’t meant to hurt her? People often hurt the ones they love most, don’t they? Without ever meaning to, they lash out, walk away, never see one another again. Or maybe it had all been beyond Lowell’s control, like lightning striking him when he least expected it.
That was when I saw someone skulking about in the woods. A boy with a black backpack.
He was tall, with fair hair. He clearly knew these woods, but so did I. I started following him. I managed to stay quiet until there was a crunching sound when I stepped on a pinecone. I quickly ducked behind some bramble bushes. When he turned to glance over his shoulder, I got a good look at his face. My heart hit against my chest. He seemed familiar somehow. I should have gone back, but I guess I wasn’t thinking straight. I followed him through the woods, but all of a sudden, he disappeared. I had the feeling I’d imagined him, and that I’d been tracking a shadow or some fog; then I realized he’d slipped through a black
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