Page 4 of Pretty Savage: Defy

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The next day they gather their few belongings and leave the dead behind. At the palisade wall they halt.

“We shall leave our mark here,” Carr tells the women. “So those who come after us will know which of us still draws breath.”

He draws the long, curved dagger from his belt. The one he sharpened last night, while the women slept under his watchful eye. He knows, better than them, that the way forward will be full of bloodshed. He sets the tip to the wood and pauses. “I have never been good with the letters, but I will do my best. Tell me how you want them written. Your names.”

“I’ll begin with my own.” Carr carves two initials into the wood. “Carr Ashford.”

C A

He faces the women. “Who is next?”

“Tabitha Odell,” she says.

TO

Carr shifts the dagger lower.

Ann steps closer. “Ann Norwood.”

AN

Carr stops, staring at the letters. “There’s no more room at the end.”

“It’s okay,” Ruth says. “You can fit my name in there.” She points at a gap between his initials.

“That will fit,” Carr agrees. “Ruth Osborne.”

RO

Together they retreat and stand shoulder to shoulder, staring at the letters carved deep into the wood.

CROATOAN

After a long silence, Ann sighs. “It will do,” she says. She places her hand on Ruth’s shoulder and slowly guides her away. Tabitha follows, trailing behind the pair.

Carr is the last to leave, after a final glance toward the graveyard.

The winter rains will wash away the bodies, but he doesn’t know that. Nor does he know that the next living human won’t walk into this place for another two years, and by then, the meaning of the letters left behind will be lost to time.

He does not know that explorers will search for them, desperate for answers to the mystery of their disappearance. Scholars will write books. Generations will wonder what became of them.

But the truth is simple.

The colony had not vanished.

It followed Carr Ashford into the wilderness.

Through him. Through the women who believed in him.

Through the children born from that belief.

It would survive.

And it would spread.

Chapter one