Moira's Scythe
The Scribbler
settling colonial North Carolina and the horrors of the system of chattel
slavery through which it was done. How does a modern young woman cope with the
terrible legacy of that time that mysteriously haunts her?
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Jonathan Braithewaite settles in eastern North Carolina in 1727. He
marries a sea captain's daughter and they found Jonathan's Landing, later to be
renamed Wisharton. Half the town evolves into a harsh, Calvinist planter
community represented by the Brandt family; the other half into a more liberal
community descended from the Anglicans and represented y the Braithewaites.
Tension grows between the two families who pass through a series of crises. The
hero's wife dies of untreatable disease, followed by her husband who is killed
in a duel. The slave community evolves from its Yoruban (African) roots
tempered by an infusion of Christianity. The eldest Braithewaite daughter
marries a school teacher and they open an academy. The Brandt son becomes a
religious fanatic who slays who slays his retarded mulatto daughter resisting
his attempt at rape. His older slave mistress mediates between the planter
family and the slaves. She, too, is carrying his child. Brandt's trial in the
death of the girl takes up the middle third of the story. He is found guilty
and sentenced to the pillory and dies there as he is being branded on the
forehead with the mark of the serpent. The Brandt's slaves engage in a
carefully controlled rebellion, and the Braithewaite widow frees hers. The
final third of the story is set in modern times. Graduate student Kareena
Faulkner discovers she is a direct descendant of a sister of the
slave girl murdered 150 years earlier. Moreover, her graduate advisor is a
direct descendant of the mad planter Brandt. Through this lineage she and her
advisor both carry the Brandt genes. Strange events seem to happen that cannot
be real. Flashbacks relating to their common heritage carry the story to a
terrifying and surreal conclusion, bringing the mutual family curse to an end.
E-mail the author at eva...@hargray.com
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