Excerpt: from Chapter Two

     A measurer stepped forward with a poke of freshly picked hops. The farmer reached into the rough bag and pulled out a handful of springy, papery cones, some the size of small pears, others the size of peas. They were still green but fading, just starting to brown around the edges, and sticky to the touch.

    “Taking them heavy, are you?” asked the farmer.

    “Just as you requested, sir,” replied the measurer.

    “Good man! What say you, Mr. Havisham?”

    “They look healthy enough, but the proof is in the taste,” Charles Havisham said, winking at the farmer. “Julia, come here and tell me what you think.”

    He held out one of the smallest blossoms to his daughter. She eyed him suspiciously.

    “Go on, child, try it,” he coaxed.

    While the men watched, she accepted it gingerly, sniffed its spicy aroma, placed the flower in her mouth, and began to chew. An overwhelming bitterness washed over her tongue, making her gag. She coughed and spit the hop onto the ground. The men roared with laughter. She should have climbed back into the carriage, or gone to find Robert, or done any number of harmless things, but instead she did the unthinkable.

    “You tricked me!” she choked, her mouth dry and sour.

    “You ought to have known better!” he said with a teasing chuckle, an attempt to defuse her anger that served only to fuel it.

    She clenched her fists, stamped her foot, and glared at him in defiance.

    “Compose yourself, child!” reprimanded her father, looking about him.

    “No!” She started to cry, unable to contain all that had been pressing on her. Her grievances came pouring out in a torrent.

    “You stay away from home on purpose! You won’t tell me about my mother!”

    The men grew silent, exchanging uncomfortable glances. Everyone within earshot had ceased what they were doing and turned to watch the spectacle.

    “You won’t take me to see her grave!”

    “Mind your tongue this instant!” he roared.

    “And you never told me about my sister!”

    With that, they both stopped, stunned.

    “I am ashamed of you,” Charles Havisham said, stepping forward, pointing his walking stick at her, and twisting his mouth in an expression of distaste his daughter had never before witnessed. “Your behavior is inexcusable. It is unforgivable. You are no daughter of mine!”

    His words hung in the air, their sting as sharp as if he had slapped her.

    She turned and ran.

She raced down row after row, another and another, as fast as she could. Whenever she heard footsteps pounding behind her or voices bellowing her name, she clambered over a mound, thrashing her way between the poles and lush vines, zigzagging deeper and deeper into the hop garden, farther and farther away from her father and the other men. Thorns tore at her skin and clothing. Her bonnet hung by its ribbons down her back, beating a tattoo, urging her on, and then disappeared. Her blue sash trailed behind her like the tattered flag of a defeated regiment. She fell and gashed her knee on a rock, but got up and kept running. Her dress became streaked with dust, splattered with black hop juice, and dotted with blood. Eventually, the only thing she heard was the lonely, jagged march of her own breathing.

    When she finally stopped, winded and exhausted with a stitch in her side, Julia found herself in a spot with no visible landmarks. She was completely walled in by tall, staked bines, heavy with cones. She yanked down a bine, laid herself flat against its mound, burrowed in, and covered herself with the sharp, sticky foliage. She buried her face in her hands and closed her eyes. Her mind continued to race along the rows, her head throbbing, her muscles aching, her flesh itching and pulsing with pain.

    She wished to dissolve into the earth, never to be seen again.