There was no looting this year. No plunder. No drunken revelry. The memory of The Increase shipwreck some nineteen years previous had cast a long shadow. Many locals still carried the scars from that night and they were in no hurry to repeat such events this Christmas evening.

So much of Rebekha’s story is clearly written in the parish records of St. Madoc’s church. The testament of Francis Warlow also provides clear evidence of events that occurred in Nolton Haven during Rebekha’s life. However, on so many occasions I’ve had to read between the lines to gain a better understanding of Rebekha and those lines are oh so very far apart. Sadly, I’ve learned nothing of Rebekha’s life following her second marriage and birth of her son John. However, I’ll keep searching.

Maybe one day, I’ll find more of Rebekha’s story, maybe I’ll even find the family silver. In the meantime the ripples that Rebekha caused in the world have not died away. Her clock is still ticking. Her wine has yet to finish its ferment and I’ll tend her crop, still standing tall, in a field above Nolton Haven.

April 2021

And I thought that I'd written all that I knew of Rebekha but then made a strange, startling, disturbing discovery.