Chapter Text
ACT 1
July 7, 1769
Boston, Massachusetts
***
Warm afternoon sunlight shone throw the windowpanes onto the ruby red, stitched carpet of the drawing room, empty, all but for three young women. Two sat on the piano bench together, the oldest demonstrating a few notes for the younger girl, while the smallest sat on a white chaise with her ankles crossed as she stitched a floral pattern into a circlet of cloth, a comically intense expression contorting her delicate features.
The oldest girl brushed a loose piece of brown hair back into place as she gestured for her sister to play back the easy melody she'd just provided. Her bench companion looked apprehensive. The oldest sighed. "Come on, Prudence. You aren't nearly as bad as you believe yourself to be," she said, placing her hand on her younger sister's. Prudence yanked it away in a very unladylike manner, giving her older sister a tired and irritated look.
"If I couldn't figure this out two years ago, how am I supposed to play now?" she questioned with a huff, crossing her arms and leaning backward off the piano bench.
The eldest rolled her eyes, placing a hand on Prudence's back to give her an unspoken reminder to sit up straight. "You know what they say, 'practice makes perfect.'" It was Prudence's turn to roll her eyes.
"Lydia, just as a cat shall never like the water, I shall never be able to play the piano well," Prudence stated decisively, starting to get up when a chirping voice could be heard from the direction of the chaise.
"Madame Archambeau's tabby loves to bathe in the birdbath she keeps on her property," Hester piped, not looking up from her needling, "so I'm sure you will play lovely, sister."
Lydia's shoulders trembled as she laughed, while Prudence scowled at their little sister. However, try as she might, she could not keep the shimmer of amusement out of her eyes. "Okay, okay, you got me. I'll try again— only one more time, though." Lydia pulled a straight face and nodded seriously, only for a grin to crack the faux-mask.
Just as Prudence choppily began to play the tune, their mother's voice drifted from the sleeping quarters, "Lydia, darling, won't you come here for a moment?" Prudence threw up her hands in irritation, light brown hair bouncing along with her abrupt movement.
Lydia giggled and stood, smoothing out the crimson material of her dress. She called back to her mother that she would be only a moment before leaning down and kissing her sister's flustered cheek. "You sound lovely, Prue, just as you always do."
As she walked through the doorframe, Lydia gave a pointed look to Hester that meant only two things: behave and don't give Prudence a reason to slap her. Hester merely shrugged, the 13-year-old giving her a very cheeky wink in return. Lydia simply sighed, rolling her eyes playfully before making her way towards her mother and father's chambers.
***
"What is it you need, Mother?" Lydia asked once she was permitted to enter.
Henrietta Boyce was pregnant with her fourth child, this one a surprise. Having had her three daughters only a few years apart, another baby on the way 13 years since the last was a pleasant gift from God. Lydia knew that her parents wished for a son, but she and her sisters were much more keen on another sister to primp and coo over.
Nevertheless, wether boy or girl, her mother was very pregnant and needed much of the jobs usually taken care of by herself done by either Lydia or one of her other daughters. However, since the sometimes violent, always— in Mrs. Boyce's opinion— frivolous protests over the recent taxes and acts passed by Parliament had begun springing up around Boston and other major colonial cities, Henrietta had been only willing to let her eldest go out to fetch groceries and the like.
Her mother sat up in bed, her pregnant belly impossibly large. "My dear, go to Ackerman's General Store, and pick up an order of French bread and tea," instruced the woman. "Be back before three to help prepare supper. Your father will be home around four."
Lydia nodded, plucking her mother's money purse from the bedside table. "Rest well, Mother. For you and the baby."
***
The square in which many of the local shoppes were located was as perusual bustling with activity when Lydia arrived. It was a hot July in the afternoon, in the height of the heat. In her tight dress and undergarments, she felt like she may either die of heat or from suffocation. Either would have been a relief.
She shoved her way unceremoniously into Ackerman's, finding the baguette and tea blocks as quickly as she could, ready to find a spot where she might rest in the shade. She waited in the short line that had formed until Lydia was up front making her purchases. Mr. Ackerman himself was at the counter, his crinkled blue eyes smiling warmly at her. "Ah, Miss Boyce! Good day to you," he said inspecting her choices. "How is your mother?"
"Good day, Mr. Ackerman. She is well," Lydia answered tightly, wishing she was back at home in her cooler, albeit not much cooler, home.
Mr. Ackerman smiled and placed her items in a bag, handing it to her. "Well that is very good to hear. Perhaps you will have a brother to carry your father's name yet."
Lydia felt herself slightly bristle. Her father, Jonas Boyce, was known to be a little tense on the subject of his legacy. He wanted the name Boyce passed down for as many generations as possible, but this was not possible if all his children were daughters. When they were married, their names would be changed and the name's legacy cut short. It didn't bother Lydia much, but what Mr. Ackerman had just said was a small slight at her father.
She nodded stiffly, taking the offered bag. “Indeed. Good day again, Mr. Ackerman,” she said tersely, turning on her heel and making her way out of the store back out into the blistering sun.
She took a different route home, deciding that while it was longer, it was much shadier. She'd passed by a man standing a street corner preaching about the unjust taxes being passed by the British. Many had stopped to listen, and if Lydia hadn't been expected home, she would have as well. Her parents found all the talk of revolution silly; they thought it was treacherous. She supposed in a way it wastreacherous. But Lydia quietly disagreed with their opinion. She wanted to see something happen to change the way Great Britain treated her colonies, wether it be war or simply compromise, she was not partial to either. If only there was some way to help if a war were to occur.
Lydia pushed the thoughts away as she passed by small shoppes and houses, Lydia began to feel a small tug at her heart. At first, she barely noticed it, but as the brunette walked further and further down the path, it had practically thrown her off her course, pulling her towards something up ahead. Lydia stop moving abruptly, still clutching her purchases from the general store in her right hand, left hand clinging to her mother's money purse. This was new. Strange and very, very new. Deciding to humor whatever force was guiding her, Lydia continued on her way until she reached a small antique shoppe where the lure seemed to be strongest. Monsieur Quincy's Antiques and Second-Hand Shoppe read the painted sign above the door. She took a deep breath and enter the store.
It was a quaint little space that smelled of wood polish and sweet must. Shelves lined almost all available wall space and rows of tables piled with old trinkets filled the floor. Lydia stepped further in the shoppe, eyes scanning the rows. The mysterious pull was much stronger inside than it was outside, but now it was less urgent. The store seemed to be empty, so Lydia let the force practically drag her along until she reached one of the last tables in the second row. Setting down the coin purse, Lydia, with fingers out-stretched, brushed along the edges of a brooch. In an instant, the pull was gone, instead a warm tingle spreading up her arm at the brooch's touch.
It was very pretty, a purple stone of some sort providing the center piece with thinner white stone swooping out in four directions to make a shape similar to a skinny moth or butterfly. Picking it up, she cradled it in the palm of her hand, its weight very comfortable. It was there she decided she had to buy it. Something was screaming at her to do so.
She picked up the money purse in the hand with her groceries and turned to find someone to purchase the accessory from only to find someone had found her already. An older man stood looking down on her, wise grey eyes meeting startled brown ones. "May I help you, Mademoiselle?" he asked, a slight accent lacing his words together.
Lydia gave a small smile holding up her hand to show whom she assumed was Monsieur Quincy the brooch resting on her palm. "Yes, actually. I'd like to buy this, if I may." The man looked surprised to see the brooch, but the look was gone before it had even come. Then he smiled slightly.
"Of course. I'm quite surprised you could even find this treasure in the mess," he commented pulling out a leather bound note book from his coat pocket. How he was even wearing a coat, Lydia couldn't fathom, but she pushed the thought aside. I'm sure he has his reasons, she chastised herself.
"Really, if we are being honest, I felt quite the....connection to it when I first saw it. It's quite lovely." Lydia was hesitant with her word choice. She didn't want to sound too odd to this man.
Monsieur Quincy seemed to be inspecting her, grey eyes finally flickering back to hers. Lydia was slightly unnerved, taking a small step back. Finally, the old man spoke.
"Take it. No charge. Take it, for you have been chosen. Go now, and be wary of those you trust."
Before Lydia could open her mouth the say a word, Monsieur Quincy had ushered her out the door and back out onto the hot street leaving a flabbergasted teen at the door. She recovered from her daze, moving to go back inside and ask what had just happened, but she heard the decisive click of a lock sound on the other side of the door. Blinking, she looked down at the pale brooch in her hand, pondering what the man had meant by "you have been chosen." Still going over the events of the past minute and a half in her mind, she placed the antique in the pocket of her petticoat.
With on last curious look at the shoppe, Lydia made her way back home, dismissing the oddity of the situation as simply a trick of the heat. She began to hurry back, realizing if she didn't hurry, her mother would be livid. Lydia knew her mother was stressed out already, and she didn't want to add to that.
But what she didn't know was just how much that one moment in Monsieur Quincy's Antiques and Second-Hand Shoppe would change the course of American history....forever.