The Jessa Hopkins Chronicles

The sea had been treacherous as Jessa and her family had journeyed, by way of the ship called the sparrow, to the shores of America. It had docked briefly in the Boston Harbor, before sailing off again for New York. It had meant only to gather supplies in Massachusetts, but the Hopkins', at her mother's pleas, had disembarked at the habor. Her mother later revealed to Jessa that she had discovered not long into their journey that she was again with child and could not bare the thought of those swaying decks for another moment. The baby came nearly eight months later in June, delivered swiftly by a woman who lived next door to them in the boarding house. He was small, a tiny boy her mother named Edward Christopher after Jessa's father. Jessa marveled at his little hands, the right one curving awkwardly inward, lifeless. But his bright eyes were lively and blue, the color of the ocean they had sailed upon many months before. A fever had begun to spread in town, they heard from the...