Book Description

Is it a moment of madness? I wondered, as my new young friend flung pages of her writing down the well, even though I could not read them. She must be going mad, I feared, to profess to me the almost nightly visits of the horrifying Old Hag she swears steals into our bedroom in the witching hour to try and steal her soul. Is madness contagious? Adelia Noble, age 6, finds herself at her Aunt and Uncle's farm on the outskirts of rural Peru, New York in the days before the Battle of Plattsburgh, having left Vermont due to the outbreak of consumption that has killed her parents. Lonely and homesick, she is curious to meet the odd and outspoken Lucretia Davidson, also 6 years old and the daughter of family friends, who has come to the farm to escape the impending battle. Lucretia is a precocious and brilliant child and the two girls form a fast friendship, due mostly to Lucretia's insistence that it is to be so. Due to strained family dynamics, Adelia is allowed to return to Plattsburgh with the Davidson family after the battle ends, as an adopted daughter of sorts. She is quick to realize that Lucretia's vivid imagination and thirst for knowledge is a battle in itself as the child bucks the societal constraints of the early 1800s. Although encouraged by her parents to write, they also, by turns, punish Lucretia by forbidding her to do so, setting off rages that frighten everyone in their intensity. Adelia is fascinated by Lucretia's unquenchable thirst for knowledge and her way of looking at the world, but she is also terrified when her new friend confides in her that an old hag comes to visit her in the night, staring into her face and putting all of her weight on her in an attempt to steal her soul. Adelia is thrust into the role of constant companion to Lucretia, and is immediately suspicious of Moss Kent, the congressman who takes an interest in Lucretia when the girls are twelve years old, and fights to become her benefactor. Ignoring Lucretia's poor health, Moss Kent encourages both girls to attend the Troy Female Seminary, chartered by Emma Willard. Her feelings of obligation and love for Lucretia win out, and Adelia accompanies her to Troy in 1824, where she is forced to watch Lucretia deteriorate as her demons and her health wreak havoc with her paralyzing self-doubt, making way for the Old Hag to resume her nightly visits..