The Uncharted Beginnings Series Box Set

by Keely Brooke Keith

  Hannah rubbed her fingertips along the spines of the books she held as she stood on her tiptoes to scan the crowd for Olivia. Gabe spoke with a group on the other side of the chapel steps. As Hannah wove through the crowd, she spotted Olivia beside him and waved.

  Olivia rushed to meet her with eyes growing wide as they landed on the books Hannah held. “Is this it? May I see it?”

  Hannah’s hope of surprising Olivia deflated. “How did you…?” She looked past Olivia at Gabe. “Henry told your husband, didn’t he?” She handed Olivia one book.

  As soon as Olivia took it, she hugged Hannah then beamed as she opened the front cover. “It’s beautiful! Between Two Moons by Hannah Vestal. Can you believe your name is on a book—an actual book? If it were mine, I’d stare at it all the time, getting nothing else done.”

  “I’ve read it twice from cover to cover since Henry brought it to me last week. He printed four copies—one for me, one for my father, and two that I get to choose what to do with. I want you to have this copy.”

  Olivia looked up from the book. Astonishment filled her voice. “You want me to have it?”

  “Yes. I couldn’t have accomplished this—wouldn’t have—without you. From that dark night seven years ago when you sat with me in my parent’s kitchen and read my first pitiful pages—”

  “They weren’t pitiful—”

  “They weren’t printable.”

  “Now you sound like Henry.”

  Hannah laughed. “I’ve learned a lot from him too.” She lowered her voice. “We are courting now.”

  Olivia flashed a knowing grin. “So I heard.”

  “From Gabe?”

  “Of course.”

  It was a good thing she considered Olivia a dear friend, seeing as how there weren’t many secrets between Henry and Gabe. It was even better that she knew whatever Olivia learned from her husband would be kept between them.

  Olivia pressed the book to her chest. “Thank you. I will cherish it always.”

  “Thank you for all of your help and guidance and editing. You put almost as much work into this story as I did.”

  Olivia chuckled. “Oh, I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “It meant a great deal to me. I depended on you in a lot of ways after my mother died, but you never minded.”

  “Not only did I not mind, I enjoyed our times together. I hope you write more stories and keep bringing your pages to me.”

  She nodded, grateful to have Olivia’s continued support. “I will.”

  Olivia tilted her head and looked at the other copy, which Hannah was still holding. “What will you do with the fourth book?”

  Hannah glanced across the road at the stone building next to the print shop. The library’s arched door stood open. “Well, since you enjoyed the story so much and Henry called it absolutely inspired and Father finished it last night with tears in his eyes… I think I should donate this copy to the village library.”

  “That’s wonderful news!” Olivia lightly squeezed her arm. “I know it will bless many readers over the years.”

  “That’s the only reason I’m making my story public.” She motioned toward the crowd. “For them. For my village.”

  Olivia nodded. “I would like to teach from the story for the upper grades next year. And maybe someday you could help to create new school readers for the lower grades.”

  “Maybe.” Hannah turned toward the library. “But I have to start with this small step first.”

  “You can do it,” Olivia encouraged.

  Hannah nodded and walked away from the crowded lawn to cross the road. Dr. and Mrs. Ashton stepped out of the library as she approached. Dr. Ashton tipped his hat to her as he passed. “What a skilled young man Henry is,” he was saying to his wife.

  Henry stood inside the library with his back to the door, whistling. His fingers turned the page of a book on a lectern in the center of the room. Hannah’s heels clicked on the stone floor as she entered.

  Henry turned around. He smiled and opened his arms. “Hannah,” he breathed as he kissed the top of her head.

  She pulled back, wishing she wasn’t holding a book. She imagined jumping into his arms and kissing him wildly. Her cheeks instantly warmed.

  Henry cocked his head. “What is that look?”

  “Nothing.” She giggled once then composed herself and pointed at the lectern. “What’s this?”

  He stepped back and gestured toward the book. “This is an error-free copy of the New Testament, printed by yours truly.”

  She stepped forward and studied the open book. Its regal lettering proclaimed the Good News. “You finished it. You met the elders’ challenge. So is it official then? Will the press be supported by the village?”

  Henry rubbed the palm of his scarred hand with the thumb of the other. “I’ve been granted the living, but I’ve refused it.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because I don’t need to be taken care of. I can take care of myself. I can print enough books to trade with everyone in the village to get the things I need. I don’t want to be a special case. Yes, I believe we should honor the reverend and schoolteachers and physicians with our abundance, to ensure that they can always continue their work. We should all do our part for the village. I will print the books we need because that is the work I’ve been called to do. Gabe and his father have offered to help me build living rooms onto the shop, and Mr. Foster will help me plant a vegetable patch next spring.”

  Hannah’s heart filled with pride in Henry and with happy anticipation for the possibilities in their future. She glanced at all the empty shelves in the library. “So you are going to spend your life filling these shelves with books?”

  He stepped to the shelves and his excited expression grew. “And not just any books. I realized how easily our skills and crafts and processes could be lost from one generation to the next. We can’t allow that. So, I want to start a new tradition. At the next elders’ meeting, I will propose a system of documenting everyone’s life knowledge.”

  “I think the elders will approve.”

  “I hope so.” He walked back to where she stood and looked at the book in her hands. “You didn’t come only to see me, did you?”

  She smiled at him and shook her head. “In honor of this festive occasion and in honor of the printer who inspired me more than he will ever know, I’d like to make a donation to this library.”

  Henry’s admiring gaze shifted from her eyes to the book she held out and back to her eyes. “Are you certain you want your story to be read by anyone and everyone?”

  “Yes. And I plan to write many more stories, if the village printer is willing to work with me… when the stories are ready to be printed, of course.”

  “I am more than willing.” He accepted the book then leaned down and kissed her.

  She absorbed his warmth and closed her eyes, blissfully aware of the new life unfolding before her. There was one person she wished she could tell, and she would visit the grave later, much later. For now, she would let Henry kiss her and love her and postulate his logical arguments and urge her to greater ambitions while she dreamed up her next story.

  Epilogue

  The village of Good Springs

  Late summer, 2025

  On a quiet evening, Lydia Colburn sat on the parlor rug, reading aloud to her great aunt, Isabella. While the elderly blind woman knitted, Lydia turned the final page of her favorite novel.

  “There is much to be done for these people, for this kingdom, and I will not sit idly in a castle, fussing over jewels and ball gowns,’ Adeline said. She draped a threadbare blanket over a wounded solider then rounded the patient cot. Her kind gaze met Prince Aric’s. ‘But if you are most willing to bring peace to your kingdom,’ she touched his lapel, ‘then yes, my love, I will marry you.’

  Adeline’s heart brimmed with hope—not in the man before her, nor for the work around her, but in the God who had set eternity in their hearts and would one day make all th
ings beautiful.”

  Lydia closed Between Two Moons and sighed. “I adore Adeline. Don’t you?”

  Aunt Isabella’s knitting needles clicked rhythmically, her old voice gravelly. “I do. As did your mother.”

  “She did?”

  “That’s why she named your eldest sister after the character.”

  “I never realized that.” Lydia considered the story for a moment, its feel and breadth still fresh in her mind. “Do you think when the author wrote it, she knew over a century later people would still get lost in her story?”

  Isabella’s lips twitched before she spoke, her unseeing gaze roamed the room. “I don’t suppose most people know how their work will be received, or if it will be remembered at all.”

  Lydia touched the embossed letters on the book’s cover. “This is the only one of the author’s books that says Hannah Vestal. All the rest have her married name, Hannah Roberts.” She thought of her late mother’s given name. “Was Mother named after the author?”

  “That I could not say. There have been many women named Hannah in the generations since the eighteen sixties. I’m sure some of them were named after the author. And I suspect there will be a great number of girls named after you, Dr. Lydia Colburn, the first female physician in the Land.”

  “I’m not a doctor yet. The elders haven’t awarded me the title.”

  Isabella smiled. “Soon enough, child. Soon enough.”

  Men’s voices rumbled in the kitchen, commanding Lydia’s attention. Her father, Reverend John Colburn, spoke to some frantic person at the kitchen door. As Lydia stood from the floor, John stepped into the parlor. “Lydia, Mr. McIntosh needs you. His son fell from the roof of their barn and has broken his leg. He is bleeding profusely.”

  “Where is the boy?”

  “Still at home.”

  Lydia set the book on the doily-covered table beside Isabella and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Good night, Aunt Isabella.”

  “Be careful, child.”

  “I will be,” she assured her great aunt then dashed out of the room. Two lanterns burned brightly on the kitchen table. She held up a finger as she passed Mr. McIntosh by the door. “I’ll just grab my bag from the medical cottage and be on my way.”

  Mr. McIntosh followed her, wringing his hat in his hands. “You’ll find my boy in the back bedroom. Rebecca was making him gray leaf tea when I left. He’s bleeding very badly. Please, hurry.”

  Lydia dashed out the back door of her family’s home to her cottage and grabbed her medical bag, which she always kept right inside the office door. “Father will saddle my horse for you,” she said to Mr. McIntosh, who was standing beside his chestnut mare between the house and cottage. “I’ll take your horse.” After buckling her medical bag to Mr. McIntosh’s saddle, she jumped onto the mare’s back. “Don’t worry, Mr. McIntosh. I will do everything in my power to save your son.”

  ###

  If this is your first visit to the Land, continue reading for a preview of The Land Uncharted…

  Chapter One

  Lydia Colburn refused to allow a child to bleed to death. Pulling a sprig from a gray leaf tree out of her wind-whipped hair, she rushed inside the farmhouse and found the injured boy sprawled across the bed exactly as Mr. McIntosh had said she would. She dropped her medical bag on the floor beside Mrs. McIntosh, who was holding a blood-soaked rag against young Matthew’s lower leg.

  The globe of an oil lamp provided the only light in the dim bedroom. Matthew’s breath came in rapid spurts. Lydia touched his clammy skin. “He’s still losing blood. Get the pillows out from under his head.” She slid her hands beneath his fractured limb and gently lifted it away from the mattress. “Put them here under his leg.”

  Mrs. McIntosh’s thin hands shook as she moved the pillows. “I gave him tea from the gray leaf tree as soon as his father brought him in the house.” Her voice cracked. “I know he isn’t in pain now, but it hurts me just to look at all this blood.”

  “You did the right thing.” Lydia opened her medical bag and selected several instruments. She peeled back the bloody rag, revealing the fractured bone. Its crisp, white edges protruded through his torn skin. “You will be all right, Matthew. Do you feel any pain?”

  “No, but it feels weird.” His chin quivered as he stared at his mother with swollen eyes. “Am I going to die?”

  Mrs. McIntosh drew her lips into her mouth and stroked his head. “You’ll be fine. Miss Colburn will fix it.”

  When Lydia touched his leg, he recoiled and screamed. It wasn’t from pain since he’d taken the gray leaf medicine, but even the most miraculous medicine couldn’t stop terror.

  With his fractured leg tucked close to his body, he buried his face into the pleats of his mother’s dress. Instead of mustering her courage and making her son cooperate, Mrs. McIntosh coddled him.

  Lydia couldn’t reach his wound with him curled up on his mother. Though every physician appreciated a nurturing parent, this was no time to help a child hide. She had to separate them. “Matthew, your mother is right. You will be just fine.” She reached for his leg again. “You don’t have to look at me, but you must put your leg on the pillow. Matthew? Let me straighten your leg.”

  Mrs. McIntosh glared at the bloody wound and began to weep. “Oh, Matt, I’m so sorry. My baby!”

  “Mrs. McIntosh?” Lydia raised her voice over the woman’s sobs. “Rebecca! I know it’s hard, but please be strong for your son’s sake. I need you to help me. Can you do that?”

  Mrs. McIntosh sniffled and squared her shoulders. “I’ll try.”

  It was a start. Lydia lowered her volume. “Good. Thank you. First, I need more light. Do you have another lamp in the house?”

  “Yes, of course.” She wiped her nose on her sleeve and scurried out of the room.

  Relieved that Mrs. McIntosh was gone, Lydia caught the boy’s eye. She touched his foot with both hands. “Matthew, you must lie still while I treat your injury. You won’t feel any pain since you were a good boy and drank the gray leaf tea your mother made, but now you have to be brave for me. All right?” She was prepared to hold him down while she worked but loathed the thought.

  He allowed her to move his broken leg back onto the pillow. She worked quickly and methodically until the bleeding was under control, the instruction of her mentor, Dr. Ashton, playing audibly in her mind. If only she’d known how to treat traumatic injuries a decade ago, maybe then she could have saved her mother.

  Mrs. McIntosh’s footsteps clicked down the hallway. Lydia wasn’t ready for the anxious woman’s return, so she called out, “Please, bring cold water and a few clean rags first. I need them more than I need the extra light.”

  The footsteps receded.

  She cleansed the torn flesh with gray leaf oil then looked into the open wound and aligned the bone, trying to complete the job before Mrs. McIntosh returned. Matthew’s eyes were squeezed shut. Her heart ached for the pallid and broken boy. “I heard you had a birthday recently, Matthew. How old are you now? Fifteen? Sixteen?”

  He opened his eyes but stared at the ceiling. “I’m seven,” he slurred through missing teeth. His respiration had settled; the gray leaf’s healing power was taking effect.

  “Ah, I see you’ve lost another baby tooth.” She cut a piece of silk thread for suture and kept the needle out of his sight while she threaded it. “Soon you will have handsome new adult teeth.”

  He closed his eyes again and lay still.

  Mrs. McIntosh walked back into the room with a pitcher of water in her hands and a wad of kitchen towels tucked under her elbow. She set the water jug on the floor beside Lydia’s feet and bundled the rags on the bed. “Is that enough?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “I’ll be right back with the lamp,” she said as she vanished from the room again.

  Lydia covered the stitches with a thick layer of gray leaf salve. While she wrapped his leg loosely with clean muslin, the front door slammed and a man’s worr
ied voice drifted through the hallway.

  Mrs. McIntosh spoke to her husband in a hushed tone and then returned to the bedroom holding a lamp. She sighed. “Oh, thank heavens you’re done.” She lit the lamp and placed it on a cluttered table by the bed. As she sat on the edge of the mattress beside Matthew, she whispered, “He’s asleep.”

  Lydia slathered her hands with the disinfecting gray leaf oil and wiped them on a clean rag. A mud stain from the hasty ride here had spotted the hem of her favorite day dress. It would come out if she washed it as soon as she got home. At least it was dark enough out that if she passed someone in the village, they wouldn’t notice the imperfection.

  As she gathered her medical instruments, Mr. McIntosh stepped into the bedroom, holding his wide-brimmed hat in his hands. “Is there anything I can do?”

  She stretched her tense neck muscles. “I need two thin pieces of wood to splint his leg.”

  Mr. McIntosh nodded and left. While he was gone, Lydia cleaned and packed her instruments, arranging them neatly just as Dr. Ashton had taught her. Surely her work here tonight would convince the village elders to award her the title of Doctor.

  Soon, the boy’s father returned with two flat wooden shingles. She used them to splint the boy’s leg, then gave the McIntoshes instructions for bandaging and cleaning their son’s wound. She offered Mrs. McIntosh a jar of gray leaf salve—her own special blend that was more potent than what Dr. Ashton used when he could still work. “Use this twice a day on the wound. With rest and proper care, your son should heal completely in a few days.”