The Haunted Traveler Vol 1 Issue 2

8
daughter wouldn’t come across the bodies. She
stashed them by a woodpile and shoved the top rows
of wood onto them. A hand and boot stuck out from
the split logs. Sarah cinched up her dress with a piece
of torn cloth. Then she filled a pail of water from the
brook and returned to the kitchen.
Sarah grabbed a sponge and kneeled down,
carefully washing the floorboards. She thought about
the harsh life that they had lived in the New World.
It was supposed to have been a new start, but bleak
winters and continuous warring made the decision to
leave easy. Her husband with his troubled past was
dead over a year and their daughter needed the safety
of family back in England.
Crimson water trickled through the gaps in
the floor boards. Sarah had done this more than a few
times since settling in the little valley. When they first
came over from England, she had thought the native
people as savages. But with time she grew to appreciate
the customs of the Algonquians. After a few years
of countless strife, she slowly began to adopt some
of their customs. The owl feathers hanging from the
beams above the kitchen table gave her comfort.
The ship would depart from Boston in a couple
of weeks. Sarah planned to abandon the house and
sell the last cow. They would spend the remaining
few nights in the city before boarding the ship. As she
scrubbed, the pools of spilt blood became less discernible,
and what could not be cleansed away she knew
would soon blend with claret stains of past intruders.
***
Sarah went for another bucket of water and