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Where Hearts Are Free

By Golden Keyes Parsons

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PROLOGUE

A plantation on the outskirts of Philadelphia, 1681

The familiar trembling slid its slippery fingers through Bridget’s stomach and into her throat. Philippe galloped ahead into the meadow beyond the cornfield.

She struggled to catch her breath. “D-don’t go into the meadow. It is not part of Whisper Wood. It’s dangerous!”

Ignoring her warning, Philippe urged the black gelding over the low wooden fence and plunged ahead. “The sow is probably down in the hollow by the river.
Follow me.”

Twelve-year-old Bridget halted her horse, and the mare reared as the girl slipped off. Her heart churned, and the heaving threatened to surface once again. “No, Philippe. Come back! It’s . . . it’s sc-scary down there.” She bent over and waited for the sensation to stop.

She could hear him thrashing through the brush on the riverbank as he searched for the sow and her piglets. Then he emerged from the oak trees that lined the Schuylkill River, a wide grin spreading over his face.

“I was right. The sow has found a place for her piglets down on the riverbank and is burrowed in. I’ll need to get the wagon and bring it back to—” He reined his horse in beside her. “What’s wrong, mistress? Are you ill?” He dismounted and held the reins in his hands, staring at her.

“I don’t like this place.”

Philippe looked around. “I see nothing to cause you this kind of extreme alarm.”

Tears formed in Bridget’s eyes, and she brushed them away with the back of her gloved hand.

The boy dug into his tunic and pulled out a handkerchief. He handed it to her. “You never have a handkerchief when you need one.”
She wiped her eyes. “I know. But you always do. After all, ‘Clavell men are gentlemen.’ ” She mimicked his French accent.

“One can hardly call an indentured servant a ‘gentleman.’ ”

“I don’t think of you as a servant. I consider you my friend. Before you came, I had no one to ride with or talk to . . . no one close to my age anyway.”
He chuckled. “I’m much older than you. You’re still a child.”

“Three years doesn’t make you so much older. I’m almost thirteen.” She sniffled and wiped her nose. “You’ve been with us almost a year now.”

“Yes. And a long year it has been.”

“Have you not been happy here?” She handed him his handkerchief.
Philippe fidgeted with the reins. “Your father has been more than fair and kind. I know I have fared well—better than most. But I’d rather be with my family.”

“I understand. I would too.” Bridget stroked the neck of her horse, then mounted. “I would like to show you a place that is special to me. Would you like to see it?”

“We should get back to the house. Your father . . .” Philippe stuck the handkerchief into his tunic and mounted as well.

“My father trusts you to watch over me whenever we ride. He will not be worried.”

“Are you certain you feel up to riding even farther away from the house?”
Bridget flicked her hand in the air. “I’m fine now.” She spurred her horse back the way they came. “This way.” She urged the Naragansett into an easy canter and rode through the nascent cornfields. Before long the stalks would be taller than the horses’ heads and bursting with sweet kernels. She led the way through the field until she could turn her horse across their own property toward the edge of the forest. Riding into the woods, she maneuvered her horse through the thick trees and then down the steep embankment to the river, downstream from where they found the sow and her brood. The spring rains had swollen the usually quiet stream into a bubbling, gurgling surge of whitecapped cold water.
She found the fallen logs that formed the perimeter of her cathedral in the forest. A gentle rocky descent afforded an unencumbered view of the bend in the river.

“This is my special place.” She dismounted and placed her small foot, encased in a brown leather boot, on a fallen log. “Look. My favorite log rotted, but Father leveled this stump and smoothed it over to make a stool for me.”
Half of an oak tree reflected the effect of a lightning strike; the other half remained healthy. Low-hanging branches formed a dome over the clearing.
Bridget pulled her riding skirt around her and sat on the stump, leaning against the standing half of the tree and using the log for a footstool. “I come here to be alone and think.” She paused. “Listen.”

“I don’t hear anything.” Philippe remained atop the large Percheron.

“Not at first you won’t. But if you remain very still . . .”

The quiet of the woods enfolded them, and she closed her eyes. “I try to count how many animal sounds I can hear in the stillness—sometimes I hear the trills of cardinals and the fussing of blue jays, or the rustling of a rabbit or a squirrel. I’ve seen white-tailed deer and turkey in the autumn months.” Her eyes popped open. “One time a black bear even walked by in the distance, but didn’t see me.”

She ran her hand over the ground. Trout lilies and purple violets poked their heads up through the carpet of leaves. She plucked a violet and brought it to her nose.

Philippe got off his horse. “And you are not frightened here by yourself?”

“No, not here. I was at first, because . . .”

Philippe waited.

Bridget’s horse nickered and pulled at her bridle. She wanted to graze. Bridget stood and led her down the embankment to the river for a drink. Philippe followed.

“Kimi.” She patted the mare. “Her name means secret. Did you know that?”

Philippe tightened the girth on his horse and turned to check Kimi’s as well. “I . . . I guess I never really thought about it. Does she have a secret?” He chuckled.

“She’s kept it well.” Bridget ignored his joke. “I had named her Lady, but . . . I changed it to Kimi. It’s Algonquin.” The horse nuzzled her hand. “Something terrible happened, Philippe. I made a vow to myself never to tell anyone, but now . . . now I want to tell you. I feel I can trust you.” She pulled Kimi’s head up, and they led the horses back to the log. “I can trust you, Philippe, can I not?”

“You can trust me, mistress.”

Bridget sat on the stump, and Philippe sat on the mossy ground with his arms around his knees. The moistness of the early spring ground sent its musty odor into the air. Heads of mushrooms were beginning to peek through the ground cover of leaves by the log.

“This log was huge the first time I came across the tree, large enough to hide behind when”—Bridget paused, and took a deep breath—“when that bad man was looking for me. I was only nine years old. I can still hear him crashing through the trees, shouting and swearing. I hid here for hours until the forest grew quiet again.”

“What man?”

Bridget sighed. “I don’t know. I didn’t know who he was. And now I don’t remember his face or what he looked like. All I can remember is his hair. It was light brown. His hat had blown off, and his hair was long, to his shoulders.” She touched her shoulder and looked up the embankment. “I can remember the wind blowing his hair around his face. . . .” Her voice trailed away.

“And Kimi—?”

“She returned to the house. That’s how Father found me—she led him to me—here.” Bridget smiled crookedly. “Isn’t she a smart horse? Do you see why I love her so?”

Philippe nodded. “Why was the man looking for you?”

Bridget avoided his eyes. “I was riding in the cornfield, just as we did today. Father always cautioned me to stay close to the house, but I rode farther out than I intended, all the way to the edge of our property. Suddenly I came to a fence. And then I heard the explosion of a musket. A man was running toward me. His arms were stretched toward me and his eyes—his eyes were wild.” She closed her eyes. “There was a second blast, and he fell. He fell right in front of me, and his back . . . his back just . . . it just exploded.” She buried her face in her hands. “It was horrid. Blood splattered everywhere. As he fell he looked at me. His eyes weren’t closed, they . . . were . . . st-stayed open. He r-reached his hand toward me as if pleading for help. But . . .”

A long moment of silence passed between them. Bridget could see the scene—as vivid as it was the day it happened—the helplessness she felt, the sheer terror and the smell of the blood. She could still smell the blood.

“Then what happened?” Philippe asked gently.

“A man holding a musket ran into the meadow from the riverbank, but when he saw me he stopped. He began to curse and ran to his horse. He was young. I remember that. Kimi reared, and I thought I was going to fall off, but I managed to stay in the saddle, and . . . and she took off for the forest.” Bridget paused to catch her breath, her eyes reddening with unshed tears. She could feel her heart beat faster. “I could hear the man behind me and feared he was going to catch me, but suddenly Kimi stumbled down this embankment, and I fell off. I thought he would catch me for sure then, but he never saw where I was hiding. He rode right by me—so close I saw his face. Kimi ran away toward Whisper Wood, and he followed her. He never came down the embankment.”

“Why did he kill that man? Did you see anything else?”

Bridget shook her head. “There was a small barge on the river at a dock. Men were unloading boxes.”

“Yes, I saw that dock down there. What is it for? It’s rather hidden.”

Bridget shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. All I know is what I saw that day. I was terrified that the man with the gun would find me. He knew I saw him.” She wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back and forth. The tears brimmed over her eyelids and began to flow down her cheeks. “Oh, Philippe, that poor man. I didn’t help him. He needed help, and I ran because I was afraid.” She covered her face, and sobs convulsed through her body. “I . . . I didn’t . . . h-help him.”

Philippe leaned toward her. “There was nothing you could have done. You were a little girl. You have nothing to feel guilty about.”

She shook her head back and forth as if trying to erase the memory. “You don’t know what it’s like to see a man die—murdered right in front of your very eyes. It was awful.”

“I do know what it’s like. I understand exactly.”

Bridget took her hands from her face and stared at Philippe. “Wha-what do you mean? When did you—?”

“In France.” Philippe stood and took a deep breath. He cleared his throat, and his newly deepening voice faltered. “I was only twelve, about your age, when the dragoons, French soldiers of the king, invaded our estate. Charles and my Uncle Jean and I had to hide for several weeks in a cave my parents had stocked in anticipation of just such a possibility. My mother pleaded with the king to call off the soldiers, but he refused, and we escaped to Switzerland. On the way we happened upon a family in the forest who were being terrorized by . . . by another brigade of dragoons.” He halted. A heavy hush hung in the afternoon air. “It was much like these woods—thick with underbrush, big trees—trees big enough to . . .” Philippe shuffled his feet.

“Go on . . . big enough to what?”

The boy reached up and touched a large overhanging branch. “Big enough to hang a person. The dragoons were going to hang the family because they were Huguenots—a man, a woman, and their son.” Philippe looked at Bridget, and his eyes reflected the pain of the experience. He frowned. “The king ordered the conversion of all the Protestants, and if they wouldn’t convert, they were shot, hanged, kidnapped, thrown in prison, or sent to the galleys, like my father.” He turned away from her. “It was a terrible time. That’s why we came here . . . to this country.”

Bridget looked down. “What happened to the family?”

Philippe looked down at his hands. “We—my uncle, one of our servants, and I—we ambushed them and killed the soldiers. I killed one of them my-myself.”
“O-ohh.” Bridget let out a long breath. Empathy for him flooded through her.
“I had nightmares about it for a long time afterward. I still do sometimes.”

Her voice rose barely above a whisper. “As do I—about what I saw. How did you . . . did you ever forgive yourself?”

“I don’t know that I have completely, but it’s better than it used to be. Maman and Uncle Jean helped me see that sometimes difficult decisions have to be made to save another life and for freedom. And that God’s grace and forgiveness extends even to the most horrible of deeds that we commit.”

“I . . . I don’t think I can ever forgive myself. I did nothing. I never wanted anybody else to know.”

Philippe handed his handkerchief back to her and sat down on the log next to her. “You did nothing to be ashamed of, mistress. You could not have helped the man. You did the right thing by escaping.”

“Do you think so?” Bridget felt a glimmer of hope of relief from the burden of her guilt.

Philippe nodded. “I am certain of it. So it has been your secret all these years?”

“Yes. I didn’t come back to the log for a long time, but one morning, I finally gathered the courage to return. I was afraid it would bring back the terror, but it was just the opposite. It had offered safety and a hiding place before, so I began to come here often. After a few months my father fixed the stump for me.” She hugged herself and rubbed her arms.

“Are you cold?” Philippe stood and offered his jacket.

“No, I’m not cold. Keep your jacket.”

“Can you remember anything else?”

Bridget closed her eyes, playing the scene over again in her mind as she had time after time through the years, waking and sleeping. She shook her head. “I’ve tried, but I can’t remember anything else.”

“How many men? What kind of cargo?”

“I saw only three men, counting the one they killed.”

“But you didn’t see what they were loading or unloading?”

“No.”

“And you never told your parents what you saw?”

Panic grabbed her. She gulped and stood. “No! And you mustn’t tell anyone either. I’m frightened that man will come after me if I do. Please, you won’t tell anyone, will you? You won’t share my secret?” She began to tremble again.

Philippe removed his cap, twirling it in his hands. His dark, straight hair fell across his forehead. “No, no, I won’t. Your secret is safe with me. I told you that you could trust me.”

Reliving the memory of that horrid day had overwhelmed Bridget, and she began to cry.

Philippe shook his head. “Don’t cry.”

She stepped toward him and laid her head on his chest, sucking in broken breaths. He hugged her around her shoulders in an awkward sixteen-year-old gesture of compassion, then gently but firmly took her by the shoulders and pushed her away. “Come, Mistress Barrington. I need to return you to the house.”
She nodded and moved to her horse. “Thank you, Philippe, for listening—and for understanding. You are indeed a gentleman.”

The young Frenchman chuckled and helped her mount her beloved Kimi. He gave the mare an extra stroke. “You shall get special care from me now.”

The couple rode out of the forest, across the meadow, avoiding the cornfield, and back to Whisper Wood, their dreadful secrets like a spider’s web, binding them to one another with invisible sticky threads.

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