The Key to Anchor Lake ✓

37 : The Anchor Lakey

21st February 2018

THE ANCHOR LAKEY: Episode 65

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Intro: A segment of Ludovico Einaudi's "Fly" is played on the piano over a track of rustling trees and whispering.

SUKIE:

Hi, folks, and welcome back to The Anchor Lakey! This might be a short one, because my phone's running low on battery and I can't find my charger. Big news today.

OLIVER:

Huge.

SUKIE:

Drumroll please ... we actually have a direction for this week's episode! Crazy, right?

OLIVER:

Unbelievable.

SUKIE:

Today, we're discussing the question that the very start of the book asks. Why Temperance Key? Mary mentions sixteen other women, sixteen other accused witches. Some of whom have phenomenal names. I mean, come on, Fortune Fitton? That's so cool. And Frideswide Makepiece? I don't know how to pronounce it, but I love it.

OLIVER:

I dare you to call your firstborn Frideswide.

[Sukie laughs]

SUKIE:

Frida for short? I don't know, it's possible. Kinda cute.

OLIVER:

Hmm. I'm not so sure, Sukes. I take it back. Don't want your future child getting bullied. Call it Oliver instead.

SUKIE:

Anyway. God, we're awful. It's taken all of, like, seven seconds to get off topic. Now, after Mary's introduced the timeline, she dedicates an entire chapter to each one, and the chapter about 1619 starts off by naming each of the seventeen women, before she delves into the life of Temperance Key.

What I wanted to know is ... why her? Why not one of the others? What was so special about Temperance?

OLIVER:

Maybe she was the real witch. She had sixteen followers in her coven, and she was an actual witch.

SUKIE:

Witches don't exist, Oli.

OLIVER:

Hey, I thought you wanted me to get involved.

SUKIE:

I do. But within the realms of possibility.

OLIVER:

Okay, well, realistically, I don't think it's that big a deal that she chose Temperance. Maybe it's just because she has a good name, and it gives Mary a cool title.

SUKIE:

I do actually have an answer. I did some digging, and it's weird that Mary never mentions it, but I think I know why she chose her.

OLIVER:

Why?

SUKIE:

There were two big things that happened in 1619 in Anchor Lake. Obviously, we've got the execution of the witches – you know what, I really hate calling them the witches, because they were just innocent women – but before that, we've got the invasion of the English.