Year of Wonders

After the sexton removes George’s body, Mr. Mompellion urges Anna to follow his directive and burn all his belongings. Soon, however, Mr. Viccars’s customers begin arriving to collect their items. The first is Anys Gowdie, for whom Mr. Viccars made a dress. As Anna examines the dress, she guesses that Anys and George had a relationship. She explains to Anys about George’s illness and the need to burn the dress, but Anys forbids it and leaves with the garment. Anna gives all the other customers their garments and only burns George’s clothing and the green dress he made for her.

Anna works at Bradford Hall in the afternoon and stops by the Gowdie cottage to ask Anys about her connection to George. Anys is working in the garden where she is harvesting wolf’s bane, which is used for pain relief but is a potent poison if ingested. Anys knows why she is there and tells Anna that she and George had sex. However, she claims it wasn’t for love and that he intended to marry Anna. Anys says she will not marry because she loves her work and her freedom too much to be tied down to a man, saying, “I am not made to be any man’s chattel” (54). Anna leaves Anys’s cottage confused by her feelings as she tries to reconcile her admiration for Anys’s independent spirit with her Puritanical upbringing. Anna visits with her friend Lib Hancock, who works in the field with her brothers, and tells Anna that her mother had been considering George Viccars as a husband for her sister Nell. Anna confesses her attraction to George and reveals Anys’s affair but swears Lib to secrecy.

Bradford Hall is the home of Colonel Henry Bradford, his wife, and his daughter. Their son drinks heavily and primarily resides in London. Anna dreads her work at Bradford Hall because the Colonel is an angry man who is cruel to his wife and the servants. The Bradfords are hosting a dinner party, and Anna is happy that the Mompellions are there. Elinor asks if she is okay after George’s death, and Colonel Bradford is visibly disdainful at Elinor speaking to the servants.

Talk turns to the outbreak of plague in London and the scores of people fleeing the city. The topic of plague horrifies Anna as she wonders if that is what killed George. A brash young man argues with Mr. Mompellion about the practice of the wealthy fleeing the cities, leaving the impoverished to suffer without care. The young man brags about escaping the scourge, but Mr. Mompellion asserts that running away could spread the disease further. Mr. Mompellion adds that people struck with the plague should consider it a message from God and sequester themselves in their towns. After the dinner party, Anna races home to check on the boys, grateful that neither show signs of fever.

September is hot, but Anna enjoys the beauty of the harvest season as she spends time outside with her sons, who are still grieving the loss of Mr. Viccars. As they walk through the fields, they find a sheep in labor, and the ewe is breech. Jamie helps Anna deliver the lamb.

Mr. Mompellion rides up on his horse. He is affectionate with the children and reads to them from his book by Augustine of Hippo. Anna is intimidated by Mr. Mompellion’s great intellect and says little during the encounter. Anna and the boys walk home, and Jamie gathers roses along the way. When they return to the cottage, he showers her with rose petals. Anna exclaims in joy, “this is my miracle” (71).

Fall is hog-killing season, and Anna helps the Hadfields with the task in return for some meat. Jamie and Edward Hadfield play with dead rats near the wood pile until Mary Hadfield makes them throw the rats into the fire. A change in weather brings rain and an abundance of fleas, and Tom and Jamie are covered in itchy welts. Anna goes to Anys for salve for the bites, but she isn’t home. Mem is leaving to treat Mary’s son, who has a fever, and Anna accompanies her.

When they arrive at the Hadfields’, the barber-surgeon is already bleeding Edward with leeches. Mem leaves since they are dismissive of her knowledge, but Anna stays and questions the barber-surgeon if Edward might have the plague. He calls her an “Ignorant woman!” (75) and says there hasn’t been any plague in the village for decades. Anna tells him about George’s red rash and bubo, and the surgeon leaves abruptly, telling her that no one in the town should call on him again. By the end of the week, Mary’s husband and her other son, Jonathan, are dead.

Tom falls ill quickly, and Anna knows her time with him is short. She sends Jamie away with her babysitter, Jane Martin, while Anna stays with Tom. Aphra visits but only causes Anna more pain as she tells her she was foolish to love a tiny baby since infant mortality is so common. Aphra herself lost three babies. Elinor visits and comforts Anna as she reads to her from the Bible and grieves with her. Anna takes Tom to her bed and holds him until he dies. She falls asleep and, the following day, awakens to find he has bled out in the bed. She runs into the street, wailing with Tom in her arms.

Anna compares the torment of the plague to being whipped repeatedly with a lash until the bone is exposed. Jamie falls ill and suffers for five days as Anna tries many pointless remedies to cure the plague. Anys tenderly massages a balm into Jamie’s skin, temporarily bringing down his fever, but it doesn’t last. Elinor remains a constant support, while her husband prays fervently for God to spare the child. As Jamie passes, many others in the village also die from the illness. Anna walks through the churchyard, viewing all the freshly dug graves, and leans on an ancient runic cross, begging God to take her next.

Three weeks later, Anna is tending her sheep, who have wandered far into the field, and hears loud screaming near the flooded mine. A drunken mob is beating Mem Gowdie and blaming her for the pestilence. Among the crowd are Lib Hancock, Brad Hamilton, and Mary Hadfield, who claim that Mem cursed her house after they dismissed her. Anna intervenes and defends Mem, and Brad knocks Anna to the ground. The rabble decides to “swim her,” or use the water test to determine if Mem is a witch. After tying a rope around her, they throw her into the flooded mine. Mem sinks and Mary cries out that she isn’t a witch. Despite her head injury, Anna jumps into the mine to save Mem. Anys arrives, pulls her from the mine, and jumps in to save her aunt. Mem isn’t breathing, and she performs cardiopulmonary compressions and rescue breathing. When Mem lives, the crowd turns on Anys, claiming she is a witch, having raised Mem from the dead.

The crowd becomes increasingly vicious; Mary runs to get the rector. Lib turns on Anna, reminding her that she told her about Anys sleeping with George, whom they consider the devil for bringing the plague. Anys fights bravely, but the horde overtakes her and prepares a noose. Anys belligerently admits that she has lain with the devil, and so have all the women in the mob, adding that they much prefer the sexual pleasure the Devil gives them than that of their husbands. Anna pleads with Anys to stop, but she laughs as the men tighten the rope and end her life. John Gordon grabs his wife and beats her, demanding she tell him if she had sex with Satan.

Michael Mompellion arrives and demands the crowd explain themselves. They explain that Anys confessed to being a witch, but he denounces them, saying she was mocking their ignorance. He condemns them all as murderers and demands that they fall to their knees in repentance. They cry out loudly in supplication, but Anna notes that was before people stopped believing in the efficacy of prayer.