Child of the Cross

The Past

Hours passed before Catherine believed she was safe. The girl sat alone on a bar stool breathing hard: she had made an easy escape back to her mother's tavern. The shock was all could she feel pumping through her veins.

Her mother's death was still fresh in her mind.

Hiccups and sniffles escaped Catherine's lips as she wiped her tears. Eventually, the tears stop and the girl fell quiet. She felt like an empty shell of her former self. She had never felt such grief in her lives. She was still expecting to see Rose come running downstairs to pester her to go change or tell her to fix her hair. People always say that grief would go away with time, but the loss of her mother was so overwhelming that her heart could just break. This pain would not go away with time.

What was she going do with the pub? A 14-year-old couldn't possibly run it by herself. Her mother was just teaching her how to run the books, and how to handle the money. Worst of all, the British were still out looking for her, the city had gone crazy since the protest a few hours earlier. All she hoped was that they didn't figure out her name, or where the girl lived.

All these thoughts crowded her mind, but one was perfectly clear. Her mother was murder. A man with wild blue eyes and cruel thin lips under an ugly mustache had fired a single shot into the air. The troops had fired upon the crowd with their muskets and gunpowder with Rose standing on the front lines of the protest.

Someone had to pay for this.

Catherine remembered that Rose had mentioned there were letters among her family's possessions in the cellar.

In the cellar, there is a chest, filled with your father belongings...I can't tell you what to do, but I can let you decide what you do.

What decision did she mean?

Who was Achilles Davenport?

Spotting the chest in no time, she saw that the old chest was neatly stacked in a corner next to a bookshelf filled with glass bottles. She felt a type grip on her throat like she couldn't breathe, what if she didn't like what was inside? The only way she was going to find out is if she opens the chest. Her small fingers scraped across the dusty, but smooth surface of the chest. She traced her fingers across the lining, but soon she met latch. With one swift click of the latch and threw it opens to relived the contents inside. The long chest was organized with letters tuck neatly in a small box in the corner along with a map that looked like the frontier, outside the neck of Boston. She would return to that later after sorting through everything.

If she had time, she wouldn't know if she was racing against the clock of the British troops finding her.

The first thing that caught her eye was a long sword in leaned against the lining of the chest. She took out the sheath and drawn out the straight edge sword with a single-handed grip. Catherine saw the sword was nicely decorated with an engraving on it looked like a set of tweezers that were pulled back and curved at the end. It looked like an 'A', but she wonders what that could possibly mean, Maybe the family emblem since most of their family hails from Ireland. She unsheathed the sword to see her reflection in it. The blade was still sharp to the touch, to her much placed it down back into its sheath and continue to dig until her fingers scraped over a rough fabric. She wonders if it was a type of tarp, but in fact, the trap was a coat. She pulled it up out of the trunk and held it into the dim light, it was covered in dust but was conserved nicely in the trunk. She gave it one shake and dust exploded in the air causing her to sneeze from sucking in the dust.

"Jesus," She muttered.

The Irish girl studies the piece of clothing for a few moments, before trying the coat on. It was a bit baggy but it wasn't like she was trying on her father's coat. The coat seems to be more robe-like to her. The fabric was a light charcoal color, but it featured a white hood attached to the collar of the with flaps and buttons on the front. Most traditional coats end right at the knees, but the coat hit the back of her ankles. The cuffed sleeves were baggy as well - Nothing that couldn't be fixed with a needle and thread if she wished to wear it. Was this her fathers? Giving it one sniff, smelling the sea salt and the musky scent that brought a remembrance of the last time she saw her father. He was squeezing the little girl in his cuddle as she begged him not to leave her with strangers.