Blackbird House
“Larkin Howard is ready to sell his soul to buy the farm, but meets a woman who hears the whales cry on the beach; while in another century the young Farrell boy sees more than he should on a snowy night... and the pond at the back is still dark and unforgiving beneath its deceptively golden lilies.By the 1950s, the farmhouse is part of a community of steady men and wayward boys, and women who make jam but still feel the ghostly breath of Cora Hadley, with her green fingers. As a second century... draws to a close and summer visitors from the cities take over the countryside, the house can barely hold all its ghosts, but the tragedies are not over.Gripping and poignant, a dazzling fictional achievement from a favourite novelist, this is the irresistible story of a house, its inhabitants, its history, and the ghosts that haunt a spit of land.12.99BY THE SAME AUTHORThe Probable FutureBlue Diary The River KingLocal GirlsHere on EarthPractical MagicSecond NatureTurtle MoonSeventh HeavenAt RiskIllumination NightFortune’s DaughterWhite HorsesAngel LandingThe Drowning SeasonProperty OfFOR CHILDREN Green AngelIndigoAquamarineHorseflyFirefliesAlice HoffmanBLACKBIRD HOUSEChatto & WindusLONDONPublished by Chatto & Windus 2004 First published in the United Statesof America in 2004 by Doubleday2468 10 97531 Copyright 2004 by Alice HoffmanAlice Hoffmann has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs andPatents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this workThis book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way oftrade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulatedwithout the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or coverother than that in which it is published and without a similarcondition including this condition being imposed on the subsequentpurchaserExcerpts from this work first appeared in the Boston Globe Magazine,Boulevard FivePoints, Harvard Review, HungerMountain, The Kenyon Review, TheMissouri Review, PrairieSchooner and Southwest ReviewFirst published in Great Britain in 2004 byChatto & WindusRandom House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SWlV 2SARandom House Australia (Pty) Limited20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, Sydney,New South Wales 2061, AustraliaRandom House New Zealand Limited 18 Poland Road, Glenfield, Auckland10, New ZealandRandom House (Pty) Limited Endulini, 5A Jubilee Road, park town 2193,South AfricaThe Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009 www. randomhouse.co.ukA CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the BritishLibrary ISBN o 7011 7513 3Papers used by Random House are natural,recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests;the manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations ofthe country of originPrinted and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham plc, Chatham,KentCONTENTSACKNOWLEDGMENTS ixTHE EDGE OF THE WORLD 1THE WITCH OF TRURO 23THE TOKEN 39INSULTING THE ANGELS 51BLACK IS THE COLOR OF MY TRUE LOVE’S HAIR 73LION HEART 93THE CONJURER’S HANDBOOK 109 THE WEDDING OF SNOW AND ICE 131INDIA 151THE PEAR TREE 173THE SUMMER KITCHEN 187WISH YOU WERE HERE 205ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe author wishes to thank the editors of the magazines in which some of these stories first appeared: the Boston Globe Magazine, Boulevard, Five Points, Harvard Review, HungerMountain, The Kenyon Review, The Missouri Review, Prairie Schooner, Southwest Review. Special gratitude to Richard Bausch for his kindness and generosity.Thank you to the women willing to run off to sea: Perri Klass, Alexandra Marshall, and especially Jill McCorkle. Thanks to my first readers: Maggie Stern Terris, Elizabeth Hodges, Carol De Knight Sue Standing, and Tom Martin. Gratitude to Elaine Markson and to Gary Johnson. To my sons, thank you for helping me to understand. And many thanks to Q, who showed me what courage looked like.BLACKBIRD HOUSETHE EDGE OF THE WORLDI.IT WAS SAID THAT BOYS SHOULD GO ONtheir first sea voyage at the age of ten, but surely this notion was never put forth by anyone’s mother. If the bay were to be raised one degree in temperature for every woman who had lost the man or child she loved at sea, the water would have boiled, throwing off steam even in the dead of winter, poaching the bluefish and herrings as they swam. Every May, the women in town gathered at the wharf. No matter how beautiful the day, scented with new grass or spring onions, they found themselves wishing for snow and ice, for gray November, for December’s gales and land-locked harbors, for fleets that returned, safe and sound, all hands accounted for, all boys grown into men. Women who had never left Massachusetts dreamed of the Middle Banks and the Great Banks the way some men dreamed of hell: The place that could give you everything you might need and desire. The place that could take it all away.This year the fear of what might be was worse than ever, never mind gales and storms and starvation and accidents, never mind rum and arguments and empty nets. This year the British had placed an embargo on the ships of the Cape.MoreLess
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