Page 47 of Harnessed in Gold

He nods.

“Go on, then.”

“Do you know anything about Browne’s Hill?”

“Not many folks left who do.”

Both Leo and I sit straighter. Jean’s heard of it; she knows it exists.

She continues, “Browne wasn’t the founder of the college, you know.” When we nod, she explains, “It was another fella, an Edward Stone, a Presbyterian minister.”

Leo tells her, “I’ve read Stone’s journals.”

“So then you know why he started his seminary here?”

I interrupt, “Wait, Brownhill used to be a seminary?” Weird, considering the den of iniquity it is now—well, at least Fraternity Row.

“Not for very long,” Leo says. “Only about fifty years.” Back on the familiar ground of scholarly research, he relaxes. He rests an elbow on his knee, yet still keeps a firm hold of my hand. “But if I remember correctly, he chose Alderford because it was an ungodly place.”

Jean begins to slowly, knowingly nod.

Leo adds, “I assumed, with him being a white man of Europeandescent, he was referring to the unchurched Indigenous people. And maybe the wild landscape, but?—”

“Literallyungodly,” I realize aloud. I look over at Jean. “Because of the crossroads.”

I don’t think Leo knows what I’m talking about, but Jean certainly does. She nods. “There’ve been tales of the crossroads in Alderford since the first Christian settlers arrived.”

Leo asks, “And when was that, exactly?”

Jean looks amused. “The professors didn’t tell you that?”

He smiles. “Their sources are limited.”

She relaxes back in her chair with a silent laugh. “In 1743, they’ll tell you. That’s as far back as the evidence goes.”

“Yeah, some sixteenth-century British coins and buttons have been found,” Leo says. “But they’ve been dismissed as family heirlooms.”

“And you don’t think they are?”

“No, because the Cherokee date this area’s first European settlement to the 1590s.”

“Indeed they do.”

I cut in, “Were they talking about a Spanish settlement?”

They both shake their heads. “The Spanish built their forts in the 1560s,” Leo reminds me. “The Roanoke Colony was 1587.” It’s excitement now, not shock, that has him squeezing my hand. He’s gotten the confirmation he’s wanted. Englishmen settled here in Alderford, on the banks of the Zillacoah, one hundred and fifty years earlier than the records say.

I try to bring this conversation back around. “But what about the crossroads?”

Jean shrugs. “No one has ever been able to find them on a map.”

“So they don’t exist?”

“No, I don’t believe so, but the demonic activity did, and the crossroads is the folks’ best way to explain it.”

The demonic activity Reverend Stone wanted to snuff out.

She adds, “Some say that at the crossroads was a bloomery forge, with a fire that burned for forty years.”