ONE OF US BURIED JOHANNA CRAVEN Copyright ©2021 Johanna Craven All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in line with copyright law. www.johannacraven.com BY THE SAME AUTHOR NOVELS Bridles Lane (West Country Trilogy #1) Hills of Silver (West Country Trilogy #2) Wild Light (West Country Trilogy #3) Forgotten Places The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea SHORT STORIES Moonshine (West Country Trilogy Prequel) Goldfields: A Ghost Story The Dutchman Afterlife CONTENTS PART ONE CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHAPTER FIFTEEN CHAPTER SIXTEEN PART TWO CHAPTER SEVENTEEN CHAPTER EIGHTEEN CHAPTER NINETEEN CHAPTER TWENTY PART THREE CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE CHAPTER THIRTY CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE PART FOUR CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX HISTORICAL NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR PART ONE I imagine I can still see the blood on my hands. Perhaps my fingers are forever stained. I hide my hands in the folds of my skirts. Focus on the rhythmic clack of footsteps against stone. I am surrounded by men, as I was the day I arrived in this place. And just like that day, there are soldiers in red coats, convicts, settlers. Englishmen, Irishmen and me, the lone woman. We all step into the courtroom together, though we are anything but equals. My mind is on the distant sigh of the sea, on the pearly afternoon light, on the wall of birdsong that comes before evening. These things have been part of my world for the past two years, but only now, with my end approaching, am I coming to see their beauty. They sent me to this place; this sun-bleached colony at the end of the world, to pay for my crimes; to weave cloth, to populate this land with my descendants. But there will be no descendants. No more cloth, no more birdsong, no more light. For there can be only one verdict. My bloodstained hands will see me to the gallows. How can I pretend to be surprised? I knew from the start I would never leave this place alive. CHAPTER ONE Penal Colony of New South Wales 1806 The land was a shadow breaking the horizon. An illusion, surely. I’d begun to believe the sea was without end. Creaks and groans and rattles of the ship. I felt the shoulders of the other convict women bump up against mine. The water came at me before I’d readied myself. Seamen upended buckets over our heads, to a grizzled chorus of cursing. I wrapped my arms around my chest as the water turned my thin shift transparent. “That’s it,” laughed one of the sailors, as we tried to clean our grime-caked bodies with grime-caked hands. “Make yourselves presentable.” And then more laughter, as though he, like the rest of us, knew any chance we had of making ourselves presentable was long gone. I shivered. Here, on the outskirts of our new life, the wind was cold, though the air held a lingering warmth. The scratches Hannah Clapton had made on the bulkheads told us it was mid-April; autumn, apparently, here at the bottom of the earth. I looked out across the sun-streaked water, watching the edges of that land sharpen. My lips parted and I tasted salt on my tongue. Dire as conditions were on the Norfolk, they had become familiar. The fortnightly wash was not unexpected, nor was the speed with which we’d be shunted back into the convicts’ quarters, or the beads of hot, black pitch that seeped through the deck and dotted our bunks like remnants of plague. But the land awaiting us was utterly unknown. Back down below, the stench swung at me; a soupy haze of bodies, and filth, and inescapable damp. The few minutes on deck had given me a chance to breathe. The iron grille slammed behind us, padlock closed tight. We elbowed and shoved our way to the pile of trunks against the bulkheads, hunting for our belongings amidst the dark roll of the sea. This was our chance, we knew, to escape the mythical factory for women and serve our time as housemaids, or cooks. Perhaps a settler’s wife. We’d been permitted to bring one small trunk on the voyage. And while many of the women had brought nothing but the clothes on their backs, I’d carted along my best worsted gown, along with woollen stockings and a pair of gloves I’d lost just days out of England. On the ship we’d been given clothing for our new life: two sets of shifts and petticoats, a linen cap and apron each, matching gowns – one blue striped, the other the colour of milky tea. I pulled my trunk out from the bottom of the pile. There was my apron, my striped dress, a shift that had become sweat-stained and worn. My worsted gown was gone. I stared blankly into the trunk, as though I might will it to reappear. “All right, Nell?” Hannah Clapton asked from behind me. I nodded stiffly, though I felt anything but all right. The ship was lurching violently, and the world was lurching with it. The unknown land was approaching and I couldn’t find my gown. I’d convinced myself it would be my ticket out of the factory. My way of making myself presentable. I felt a wave of deep panic. Hannah gave me a wry smile. “We’ll be off this cursed ship soon at least.” She tucked lank, grey-streaked hair beneath her cap and tried to bash the
