Page 99 of Woods of the Raven

“Are you wondering if I actually own Corvus?”

“No. Not at all. I know you do, because even if your family hadn’t before 1691, in 1823, I can see the deed filed with the town clerk in Westfield.”

“What’s your question, then?” Lorne asked her.

“I just wonder why, with all the land available, the Coreys only took twenty-two acres. That makes no sense to me. And why so far out of town, next to what would become a preserve.”

It was like someone knew that a preserve was coming. How crazy was that? “What is it you’re wanting to know?” I pressed her.

She huffed out a breath. “It just doesn’t make any sense. The Coreys could have been rich. The entire town could have been yours, but instead, you just took a tiny area. And it’s not a farm or an apiary. I just don’t get your ancestors at all. Land was the first great wealth—still is, for heaven’s sake—and yet your family took only so much.”

“No idea, but it worked out well for the rest of the town.”

“It certainly did,” she agreed. “Perhaps when I finally find this Morgan in the archives, the one who marked off the land, we’ll have an answer about the why.”

“Maybe. In the meantime, call me, and we’ll set a time for you to go through the journals.”

“Thank you so much, Xan. You know, I’ve been working with Dom Aoki on my thesis, and he’s been a huge help.”

“I heard, yes.”

Once Lorne and I were on the road, driving toward Parker’s Ferry, he cleared his throat.

“Yes, Chief MacBain? Do you have a question?”

“Only about a million. Tell me everything right now.”

“Everything?” I teased him. “Won’t that take longer than we have?”

“Now,” he insisted.

Taking a deep breath, I explained how my family was originally Norse, descended from one of the Vikings who’d remained behind in the New World instead of heading back home.

“Your ancestor was a deserter?”

“I think of him more as running toward his destiny and away from a life he didn’t believe in—all the raiding and the enslavement of others.”

“Okay, I get that. So you’re saying he got here with all the other guys, looked around, and said, Yep, I’m staying, then abandoned his ship and didn’t go back.”

“Correct.”

“And that’s documented?”

“How do you mean, documented? It’s a story passed down in my family, pieces of ancestral lore I’m sure you have in yours as well. We all know stories about someone in our family we never met that have been exaggerated over the years.”

“That’s true. Yours is just so much more interesting.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I mused. “When I was in college, whenever I was invited to a friend’s house and their grandparents were there, I loved sitting and listening to them. Stories of when and how their parents met or about where they immigrated from. That was my favorite way to spend an afternoon.”

He grunted. “You’re going to love meeting my mom and my grandmother, then.”

“I have no doubt.” I smiled at him.

We drove in silence, and he knew where to turn until we took a left that led us onto a road that had a sign up saying it was not maintained by the city of Osprey.

“This is a private road?”

“Yeah, this is Willow Brook Road, and then you’ll see a trail on the left, and that’s where we want to be.”