The Fallen Fruit, page 1
Dedication
This book would’ve never existed without the inspiration from the late Walter “Toby” Madison Jr. Thank you, Uncle Toby, for introducing me to my family’s rich history. I can only hope someday to match your passion to discover our ancestors’ untold stories.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Family Tree
Part One: Amelia Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Part Two: Sabrina and Luke Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Part Three: Rebecca Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Part Four: Cecily Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Part Five: Emily Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
Book Club Questions
Emily’s Nutmeg Maple Cookies
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Family Tree
Part One
Amelia
Cecily Bridge-Davis
May 1964
My family tree has poisoned roots. Secrets from generations ago sank far into the earth where truth and lies tangled in a polluted snarl. Over time, those deep roots—the ones that couldn’t stay buried forever—writhed to the surface like new saplings and contaminated the earth around them.
I discovered one of those saplings when my aunt Hilda—who’d raised me like a daughter right outside Charlottesville—died. Her will stated I had an inheritance: sixty-five acres of Bridge family land. Since I hadn’t heard a word from my father or his kin, I didn’t know what I’d find. With my luck, the apple trees would be termite infested and any haphazard shacks would be unfit for human occupancy.
I should’ve sold the place, sight unseen, but the hunger to learn more about my father’s side of the family propelled me from the home I’d made for myself in Nashville to return to the Virginia woods. Five miles north of downtown Charlottesville, a heavy downpour left me lost in the countryside. I had no choice but to stop my car on a rutted dirt road and approach an old bungalow where an elderly Black woman sat in a rocking chair on the porch. The moment I showed up, her middle-aged son emerged with a stiff nod.
“Stay away from that godforsaken place,” the woman said, waving away a mosquito from her cloud of white hair. “You’ll find nothing but trouble. A long time ago, one of them Bridges killed a bunch of people before he kidnapped an innocent child.”
“Are they still around here?” I asked.
“Who knows,” the woman replied. “They come and go.”
“Those Bridges kept to themselves,” the man said. “Sell that land and wash your hands of it. That’s what I’d do.”
My granddaddy told me I never knew when to back down from a challenge.
“I still need to see it,” I said. “Please tell me the way.”
Reluctantly, they gave me directions. From years of teaching history to college students, I knew too well how folks always wanted to share these sorts of tall tales. Vendettas among the countryfolk passed from one generation to another, sowing animosity over amity between neighbors. But all stories and legends had their roots in the truth.
After leaving the bungalow and taking two wrong turns, I finally came upon a hidden opening to my right. Back when I was small, my grandfather sometimes stopped here on our way to church. I would sit in the idling car, playing with the hem of my Sunday dress, until he came back. Grandpa never went farther than the entrance itself. Neither did I, until the day I steered my car down the winding path, which ended at a house next to overgrown apple trees. Wildflowers and tall grass filled the pasture while a stubborn oak stump jutted out in the middle. Rotted fence posts leaned away from the single-story house, perhaps to escape from the clinging neglect. Decades ago, this long-forgotten place had been someone’s home, their sanctuary from summer’s heat and winter’s bitter chill. Now only daddy longlegs, mice, and cobwebs lived here.
After shutting off the car, I hurried through the rain and sidestepped the missing floorboards on the porch. I pushed open the door with ease, at once slipping into the past. I pulled the collar of my blouse over my nose to dampen the odors of mildew and musk of wild animals and left the door open to bring in some fresh air. It was a damn shame no one had thought to take care of this place.
Carefully, I walked through the empty living room with only the storm’s pitter-patter and my breath to keep me company. From the living room, I made my way to the summer kitchen, then the two bedrooms off a narrow hallway. Broken-down and dusty furniture filled both rooms. I sighed, imagining the scrubbing and hauling someone would have to do. I was better off tearing down the whole house. There was nothing for me here. Anything that might’ve been interesting or useful had long rotted away, and I resigned myself to return to my car when a glint from something on a shelf across the living room drew my eye.
I had to at least take a peek. Tucked away on the ledge, I discovered a cerulean tin box. With trembling hands and a hope that this would be my reward for coming all this way, I picked up the tin and wiped away the dirt and grease on the lid to reveal the bouquet hidden beneath. My pulse thrummed as I unhooked the rusty latch, loosening the lid’s stiff hinge to lift the top, and revealed a spool crafted from maple and a Bible carefully protected by the lambskin wrapped around it. Turning the spool between my fingers, I could tell it was old—very old. I exchanged it for the Bible. The pages were yellowed and nearly transparent in their thinness, but the tin had preserved the Bible from worse decay. The flyleaf held a wealth of information—someone had consigned the names and birth dates of every Bridge born on this farm, beginning in the late 1760s and ending in the 1920s. A set of initials denoted the first family scribe as “R. B.”
“Who’s that? Hmm.” I stroked the handwritten letters.
I had a lot to look through, but I could do it at another time. As I began to close the Bible, I spotted two pieces of paper. One was tucked securely between the Bible’s pages, but the other fluttered to the floor, and on it, someone had drawn a map of the property. There were X’s marked here and there. Were those more houses? Though I’d planned to book a motel room to rest, the marks on the map implied more Bridge secrets. Would any of them tell me more about my father? I had to know.
Using the cabin as a starting point, I searched the pasture adjacent to the family’s orchard and followed the map until I came to an aged elm. Circling the tree, I compared it to the map. This was the X-marked spot closest to the house, but why? I ran my hand down the trunk in search of an answer, then I noticed the cavity hollowed in the base. I dropped to my knees to clear the dead leaves and brush until my fingers grazed something within that I desperately tugged free: an old mail carrier’s tote from the Civil War. Time had stiffened and cleaved deep creases into the leather while the elements had tarnished the brass hardware. With a brush of my hand across the grungy front flap, I traced the stitched words: united states. Below that was a name: wilfred bridge.
This man had been my relative. Many years ago, he’d slung this bag over his shoulder and trudged from town to town to deliver news of births, marriages, and losses. I caressed the leather bag and shivered as our hands connected through time.
Inside the tote, someone—perhaps Wilfred—had left the necessities for survival: a flint-and-steel kit, a compass, hole-filled mittens, a folded knife, and the crumbled remnants of old hardtack. When I reached the bottom, my hands scraped against a sheepskin pocket. The soft material still held its shape, having uncannily protected the faded piece of paper within. The paper held words penned with a shaky hand.
“Bridge Family Rules,” the first line read.
The next line added, “Never interfere with past events.”
I scanned faster.
More rules followed. And none of them made sense. Not a single Bridge family member had spoken to me since my birth, and yet this single piece of paper resembled an urgent warning from generations past.
But what did these rules mean? Why had this bag been hidden and marked on a map? Who was meant to find it?
A tendril of the Bridge family tree wrapped around me and tugged, and I eagerly followed it down to the rotted roots.
* * *
The next morning arrived and decisions needed to be made. I would have to put the farm up for sale, but I couldn’t resist learning more about my daddy. If I could find one thing about him before I returned home, just one thing, this whole trip would be worth it.
Within a couple of weeks, I should have an ad posted in The Daily Progress and an offer in hand. Sounded easy, if you asked me. But first things first, like Aunt Hilda used to say, I’d have to put in the work to part the grass to find the weeds hidden underneath.
The Carver Inn on Preston Avenue proved the best place for my new home away from home. I imagined most travelers would forgo the hotel because of the overgrown shrubbery and chipped white paint. Time had not been kind to the Carver, even though the receptionist boasted of lodgers as renowned as Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. Either way, I’d slept in less appealing accommodations during the bus station protests in ’61. The Freedom Riders had blazed a trail across the South, and my husband and I had joined them after we heard about the horrific attacks against the civil rights activists at the bus station in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Back then I’d rested on couches or slept on stiff-backed seats. A run-down hotel with a lumpy bed and four walls suited me just fine.
Not even a day into settling in, I called my husband to reveal plans had changed.
“How long you gonna be gone?” Winston asked. The sounds of my family’s early morning routine seeped through the crackly phone line.
“Shouldn’t take longer than a week or two,” I replied. Or four, I couldn’t resist thinking.
I pressed my hand over my other ear to hear my eldest child, six-year-old Jason, complaining about how his younger brother had yanked a button off his shirt. Winston always got them up on time—me, not so much.
“Lloyd . . .” he warned.
A mumbled “Sorry” from the four-year-old filtered through. Most likely after he got a deathly glare from his daddy. Winston Davis didn’t play games in the morning.
“Go apologize to your brother.” My husband switched gears with ease. “You don’t talk about the Bridges much, Ceci, but I know you’ve always wanted answers.”
“And I’ll get them today.” I blew out a short breath. “I’m heading to the library later.”
The call ended with I-love-yous and a brief chat with my boys before Winston gave me one last warning not to let my search get me too far into my head. I had a family in the past, sure, but I needed to remember my family in the present too. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to try to find out something. Maybe I’d learn that my daddy’s orchard had been a profitable business before the farm’s fall to ruin. Perhaps there’d be a photo or two in The Daily Progress from my father’s youth in the 1920s. The possibilities pushed me out of my room and down the steps. I hurried through the parlor, grinning far too widely as I passed the boarders reading papers and eating breakfast. One gentleman glanced up with disapproval, only to quickly return to his meal. Smiling never hurt anyone, I say.
The rain had retreated, but a fog clung to the city streets, leaving low visibility. The drive down to McIntire Library didn’t take long—I had walked these streets for years as a child and knew the way. With each turn, my excitement grew, until that elderly woman from yesterday came to mind.
A long time ago, one of them Bridges killed a bunch of people before he kidnapped an innocent child.
Those murders could’ve happened before my father had lived there. Maybe they weren’t even true. Didn’t people spread other folks’ private business all the time? For all I knew, that old lady and her son in that shack probably couldn’t stand the Bridges.
Yet my rational thoughts didn’t stop the peculiar tingle along the back of my neck. The sensation traveled to my stomach and formed knots. My grip on the steering wheel tightened until I passed the white-columned brick building deeper into downtown. I kept going until I pulled up in front of the Albemarle County office building.
I sat in the car for ten minutes until I gave up and went inside. Tomorrow was another day. Another opportunity. I’d walk right into The Daily Progress and the library to handle business, but for now, I clutched the family Bible to my chest. I had names to research. The Bridge family had a story to tell.
Winston’s parting words this morning followed me inside. “Be careful what you hunt in the dark,” he’d said. “You might not like what’s waiting.”
Chapter 1
Amelia Bridge
February 1919
Wintertime in central Virginia tricked the senses—especially along the low-lying Southwest Mountains. On bleak days, the gusts wrestled the powdery snow from the evergreens and blinded foolhardy travelers. At the highest point on nearby Wolfpit Mountain, one could see for miles unless a blizzard gripped the countryside. It was in these whiteouts that the line between reality and purgatory blurred. Those lost to the haze wandered, seeking out familiar landmarks but finding none.
During such a time, Amelia Bridge’s kin rarely traversed the one hundred acres of the Bridge family farm, or “Free State,” as the locals called it. She feared for any souls who meandered through places like these. They’d find a desolate landscape with a cutting wind that bit bare flesh.
Millie and her older brother, Isaiah, always waited until the late February snow melted before they bundled up, drew their packs over their shoulders, and ventured out of their home. At the ages of sixteen and twenty-three, the pair had more than daily chores to do.
They were never alone. Isaiah’s foxhound, a one-eared dog who rarely barked, accompanied them. Felix trotted close to his master and alerted them to any danger.
The mud-speckled path from their cabin weaved through the pasture to the Bridge family orchard. At this time of year, the pippin apple trees had shed their green coats and now their naked limbs extended to heaven. Millie marveled at them—every one of these trees bore branches grafted from the original saplings her ancestors had planted over one hundred fifty years before. Over a century of land ownership was a rarity for Negro families in the area. Before the American Revolution, her free forefathers had settled here and created a community, a haven for other free colored folks.
But such a wondrous place held dangers too. The apple trees’ spindly branches were a reminder that something once alive and vibrant appeared dead—just like the deceased colored man Millie and Isaiah came upon not long after leaving the orchard. The poor man was curled up on his side under a cluster of evergreens. His skin was mottled, and frost added bulk to his six-foot frame. The cut of the man’s dark-green coat was unfamiliar, as well as its shiny, smooth-to-the-touch material. She sighed. He wore nothing more than a coat, paper-thin trousers, and footwear better suited to the city than the countryside. This wasn’t unusual for those who succumbed to the family curse.
Felix sniffed around the evergreens and avoided the body. Her brother’s dog had a keen nose for hunting, but today perhaps the animal detected the otherness of the man they’d discovered. The dog never liked to help them search for fallen Bridges.
“I was hoping we wouldn’t find anyone again,” she said as her brother stooped to examine the man.
“You say the same thing every year.” Her brother fished through the man’s pockets for identification. Millie preferred not to bury and pray over a stranger—especially if they were kin.
Usually they didn’t find anything, but this time Isaiah discovered a folded piece of paper hidden in a coat pocket. His thick brows drew together as he read. “These are his freedom papers. Says his name is Crawford Bridge—or that’s the name he’d planned to go by.”
“At least he remembered to carry them.” Every Bridge child was advised to carry fabricated documents stating they were freemen. Falling into the past—the Bridge family curse—held too many perils, including the possibility of enslavement.
Isaiah retrieved a tarp from his pack. The soil was still frozen around this time of the year, so the Bridges did what they could. With reverence, they extended the tarp over the snow. Once they were done, Millie stood over Crawford, pondering how such a fate could snatch away dreams. The man appeared to be between twenty and thirty years old. Had Crawford left behind a wife and child? Perhaps he owned a cabin on this land—far off in the future. His fields would remain fallow, never to be tended again. His cattle would go hungry. The travelers weren’t the only ones affected by time travel.
