Kronos (2 page)

Wheelwright’s sister-in-law, Anne Hutchinson, and the colony’s governor, Harry Vane, clashed with local conservatives on the topic of grace versus works. Those in the grace camp, along with Vane, believed it was through God’s grace and mercy that we are saved from sin and no number of good deeds can help. Those who believed that works mattered, the conservatives, felt just the opposite—good deeds earned salvation. To prove the other camp wrong was to condemn them to hell. The debate raged, and when Governor Vane lost his bid for reelection, he also lost support for his cause. Vane returned to England, leaving Hutchinson, and by familial association, Wheelwright, to handle the fallout. The conservative leadership acted swiftly and, while nonviolent, were savage in their efficiency.

Everyone associated with Vane or Hutchinson was banished from all of Massachusetts. Every friend, business associate, and, of course, the brother-in-law pastor who, without directly supporting the cause, supported the free speech that made the argument possible, were to take their leave via ocean voyage before the sun set.

This very night.

Wheelwright’s muscles burned as he put the oars of the small rowboat to the water, pushing through the placid seas toward the waiting galleon anchored in the bay. After boarding the sixty-odd exiles in Boston, the ship was to head north along the coast, picking up wares and other passengers before returning to England. He looked back to the shore and saw a few lamps burning. He had pictured himself making a permanent home there. It had become his dream, but it had been taken from him. Yet having no acquaintances in the New World outside of Massachusetts, he was forced to England. There was nothing he could do but pack up his belongings and leave with his second wife, Mary, their five children, and Mary’s mother in tow. They had become vagabonds in a single day, their future uncertain, and he, a man of God, humiliated.

In a burst of frustration, Wheelwright drove the oar down hard. It connected with the water at an odd angle and broke free from his grasp. He lurched out for the oar, nearly capsizing the boat before catching his thighs on the gunwale and falling back inside as the oar slipped into the darkness.

His temper mounted as he lay on his back and fought the temptation to curse God. He held his tongue, but he could not silence his thoughts:

Where art thou, God, in this, my darkest hour? Why hast thou forsaken me? Was it not thee who planted the seed of desire in my heart to come to Boston? I have always been faithful, obeyed every command, attended every whisper of guidance. But this, this is a cruel thing thou doest! I pray thee, speak Lord, even a whisper; thy servant heareth.

At that moment he longed for God to do more than whisper. The beliefs for which he had been exiled were not his own. He had surely been misjudged and mistreated by man, but would his God abandon him while on a divine errand?

Staring up at the dazzling display of stars in the night sky, his thoughts turned to prayer. But he had no more words for his Creator.

Bile and disbelief rose within Wheelwright’s breast. He sat up, leaned over the side of the boat and retched into the ocean losing his supper and easing his emotions. He gagged three more times and wiped his mouth.

“Lord,” Wheelwright spoke, his voice soft and wet, “hast thou no mercy to spare thy servant?”

The boat bobbed as small waves cascaded toward shore.

“Hast thou forgotten me?”

The waves grew in size. Wheelwright held on to the side, but gave the rising waters no heed.

“No more whispers, Lord. Before I turn from thee in earnest, speak thy will to me.”

The waves receded, and the sea flattened. Wheelwright sat in the boat, still clutching the side, listening…and hearing nothing.

In that moment, his mind became like stone. “Then my mind is made up. England it is and the New World be damned,” he cried in false heartiness. He’d always been in good favor with the people there. His reputation was established, and any number of churches would welcome him. Wheelwright’s stomach soured. Did he even want to preach again? If God could so easily desert a loyal follower, was God really worth following?

A light
clunk
sounded from the side of the boat. Wheelwright thought it might be the oar. Perhaps it was God’s response? Take the oar, return to England? He peered over the side and into the water.

No oar.

But there was something there…a reflection of something above? There were two objects, like two halves of a circle separated by several feet. A reflection of the moon? But when Wheelwright scanned the heavens, he found the full moon hung near the horizon.

Not the moon.

Nervous claws tore at Wheelwright’s innards. The hair on his arms rose. His instincts screamed of a danger that his mind could not comprehend.

Then it struck him. The half circles where not reflections from above; they were physical objects from below. He looked down into the black and saw the two orbs for what they really were. Eyes. Each the size of a man’s head, they looked straight up at him. “Good Lord!” His reason fought for control while his emotions swirled.

Not eyes
, thought Wheelwright. Something else. Some object loosed from a sunken vessel. Buoys perhaps?
Yes, buoys.

Then the buoys blinked.

Wheelwright rose to his feet and filled his lungs, prepared to let loose a scream he hoped would attract the galleon’s attention. But his voice never escaped his open mouth. Darkness enshrouded him and closed above him. Tepid, rank air greeted him as he realized that God, angry at his disrespect had sent the devil himself to eat him alive.

A quick jolt from beneath knocked him from the boat, and he landed on a firm, yet soft surface. The beast suddenly lifted its head and drew Wheelwright deeper into its throat. Flesh wrapped around him, and he felt himself being pushed down…down toward the creature’s gullet, where a slow and torturous death awaited.

Two days later, Wheelwright woke to a blinding light. Heaven or hell? As his senses returned, he became aware of a burning sensation beneath him and sweltering hot humid air stinging his skin. Hell, he thought. But the smell was not one would expect of hell, it was more like lilacs and ocean air.

He sat up and found himself on a beach. He was still dressed in his black doublet and breeches, though the cloth looked more like rags than proper attire. His skin was sickly pale and wrinkled, but otherwise he felt fine. He didn’t recognize the shoreline, but it was most definitely the New World. The maple trees lining the beach told him that much.

Looking down, Wheelwright saw a single word etched in the sand.

Exeter.

A flash of thoughts and memories came to him. His entire ordeal, the last two days and nights, crowded his mind. Had it really happened? Another look at his puffy white flesh confirmed it. But no one must know what he’d endured. It was safer that way. And he had a mission to complete. God had revealed that much to him. He had no concept of the ends, but his savings gave him the means.

Positive he was once again in God’s good graces, he took a deep breath and sighed, allowing the smell of salty sand, lilac and leaf laden earth to calm his frantic mind. He smiled as the scent of his new home filled him with hope. Though he longed to see God’s plans laid out before him, he felt confident that his acts, conceived of and willed by God, would have positive results for all men. God’s dramatic action over the past two days could only mean that the end result would be beyond the most vivid imaginings of Wheelwright’s feeble mind.

Agreement of the Settlers at Exeter,

New Hampshire, 1639

Whereas it hath pleased the Lord to move the Heart of our dread Sovereign Charles, by the Grace of God King &c., to grant Licence and Libertye to sundry of his subjects to plant themselves in the Westerlle parts of America, we his loyal Subjects, Brethren of the Church in Exeter, situate and lying upon the River Pascataqua with other Inhabitants there, considering with ourselves the holy Will of God and our own Necessity that we should not live without wholesomne Lawes and Civil Government among us, of which we are altogether destitute, do in the name of Christ and in the sight of God combine ourselves together to erect and set up among us such Government as shall be to our best discerning agreeable to the Will of God, professing ourselves Subjects to our Sovereign Lord King Charles according to the Libertyes of our English Colony of Massachusetts, and binding of ourselves solemnly by the Grace and Help of Christ and in His Name and fear to submit ourselves to such Godly and Christian Lawes as are established in the realm of England to our best Knowledge, and to all other such Lawes which shall upon good grounds be made and enacted among us according to God that we may live quietly and peaceably together in all godliness and honesty. Mo. 8. D. 4. 1639 as attests our Hands.

Signed—John Wheelwright

DESCENT

2

Rye, New Hampshire, 2008

The sea can do many things. It is the womb of all life on the planet. Weather patterns and natural disasters are at the mercy of the mighty blue’s ebb and flow. A food chain that supplies sustenance for most life-forms on the planet begins and ends in the deep. But what Atticus Young had learned in the last two years was that the ocean, for all its might and wonder, could not heal a broken man.

Atticus stood barefoot on a barnacle-encrusted rock, one of many that formed a barrier between ocean and sand. Beyond the sand lay a man-made hump of sand and grass that guarded Route 1A and a row of homes built on the other side of the road, all facing the ocean, from storm waters. Atticus had often wondered if the homes had been erected prior to the high water-blocking sand piles—the ocean view was blocked for all but the tallest homes. But the misfortune of those few Rye residents living with obscured views was not enough to ease his distress.

The barnacles that cut into his rough feet failed to gain his attention.

A flock of frenzied seagulls pecking and squawking over the remnants of a dead skate washed in with the tide couldn’t pull Atticus from his thoughts.

Even the deep blue ocean, which sparkled like the most eloquently carved sapphire, failed to pull his mind from past to present.

“She’s dead,” the doctor said. “I’m sorry, but there was nothing we could do. The cancer was too much…too far…but you knew that already.”

Atticus nodded and looked out the Portsmouth Regional Hospital window, glimpsing the ocean on the horizon. “Are there any papers I need to sign?” His voice was as clinical as the doctor’s.

“No…no, of course not.”

“I can leave then?”

“Well…yes, but…Yes, of course.”

Atticus nodded and left his Maria’s bedside. A single thought echoed in his mind as he walked to the staircase, mindlessly descended two flights of stairs, and entered the main lobby.

My wife is dead.

My wife is dead.

Maria is…

Atticus burst into the men’s room, closed and locked the door behind him, and fell to the floor. His sobs could be heard beyond the reception desk, down the hall, and clear into the cafeteria. Even people in the rooms on the floor above could hear his anguish. That day, seventy-five people heard what it felt like to have a portion of one’s soul extinguished. Few of them could stop their own tears.

As the tears subsided, replaced by a blinding headache, Atticus’s awareness of his surroundings returned. The linoleum floor, pale white and sparkling clean, was cold on his palms. The air freshener, working hard to penetrate his running nose, smelled strongly of apple. The fluorescent light above buzzed gently, casting the room in dull blue. The sterility of it all helped calm his nerves and focus his mind.

Atticus stood on shaky legs, rinsed his face, and blew his nose. He knew that no amount of cold water could erase the redness and swelling his crying had brought to the flesh around his eyes, but it helped clear his mind. As Atticus left the bathroom and avoided the sympathetic eyes of the group gathered in the reception area, he put all his efforts into staying calm and reaching home safely. He couldn’t lose control again, because the hardest aftershock from Maria’s death was yet to come, and it would be his shoulders that carried the burden.

That was two years ago, and ever since, every morning when he woke up alone in bed, it was like being right back in that bathroom, cold and alone.

A sudden roar and a stab of frigidity on his feet finally returned him to the here and now. Atticus looked at his feet and found them covered to the ankles in water. The tide was coming in. As Atticus moved higher onto the rocky shore, he paused by a tide pool. His shadow fell over the ten-inch-deep puddle, shading it from the sun’s glare and allowing him to see scads of tiny creatures—crabs, shrimp, and snails—retreat to the shadows. The empty, glassy surface of the water only left one thing to look at, and it was by far the motliest sight in the tide pool.

Atticus examined the reflection of his face. Crow’s-feet had been carved into the skin around his eyes over the past ten years, but more severely in the last two. His hair, cut short, was simultaneously beginning to turn gray and recede. At only forty-one, he was beginning to look more like his father. His skin was still tanned dark brown, almost the same hue as his eyes, but the most distracting feature on his face was a long, scraggly beard that made him look more like a craggy sea captain than an oceanographer. He shook his beard and removed the few crumbs that had managed to cling since breakfast. They fell into the pool. A small, tan crab crawled out to inspect the sinking debris, snagged it, and retreated once more to the dark.

“Well,” Atticus said, “
Hemigrapsus sanguineus,
fancy meeting you here.”

Atticus thrust his hand into the pool like a diving osprey and snagged the little crab. He pulled his lightly clenched fist out of the water, dripping and containing the small arthropod. Cupping his hands together, Atticus inspected the little creature to confirm its identity—the Asian shore crab—an invasive species that had made landfall in New Jersey in 1988. Now, almost twenty years later, it inhabited the coast from Maine to the Carolinas. It competed with local crab species but also threatened the famous North American lobster. Just one of many invasions most people are unaware of that threaten the ocean’s ecosystem. True, the Asian shore crab might successfully replace the North American lobster in the food chain, substituting one animal for the other…but no one eats shore crab.