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 IF YOU ONLY KNEW

CHELSII KLEIN
 CONTENTS

Author’s Note

1. Gabriella
2. Ashton
3. Gabriella
4. Ashton
5. Gabriella
6. Ashton
7. Gabriella
8. Ashton
9. Gabriella
10. Ashton

About the Author

 Chelsii Klein

If You Only Knew

Copyright © by Chelsii Klein 2021

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by

any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods,
without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright
law. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and
incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Created with Vellum

 AUTHOR’S NOTE

Trigger Warning:

This story contains subjects of abusive relationship, mental illness,

suicidal tendencies, and loss of a child. It's intended for an adult
audience of eighteen years or older, only.
 1
GABRIELLA

"I don't understand why you just can't make it stop or go to a

fucking doctor, Gabby! I mean, shit, you go to your regular monthly
ones. Just tell him what's up, so you can get on something. This shit
is affecting my sleep!"
I don't have the strength, mentally or physically, to say anything
back to him. My lack of reaction causes him to huff before the
slamming of the door vibrates the pictures on the wall. He's late for
work, again. My fault. Like always. I had another one of my episodes
last night.
At least since I've started to show, he's stepped back from
hitting me. Not all the way, but enough to ensure he has a viable
incubator. I'm sure I would have been smacked down hard for how
mad he was this morning. I saw his hand ball up into a fist on more
than one occasion since the start of the day. It was his tell for when
he was about to punish me. According to him, I tore out all the bath
towels and blankets from the hall closet, and no matter how many
times he stopped me and put me to bed, I just went right back to it.
Of course, I only remember glimpses of it. Grab. Pull. Grab. Pull.
Repeat. I don't remember him stopping me or getting in or out of
bed. I just know that I woke up from what felt like a ten-second nap
with my heart thundering so hard I could feel it in my throat. I felt
disoriented for a couple seconds, but his screaming and clothes
being thrown around the bedroom brought me back to reality fast
enough and I immediately knew what the problem was.
This is normal for me now. No sleep, and when I can sleep, I
sleepwalk. So really I feel like I’ve gotten no sleep because whatever
I end up doing, is enough to make me feel exhausted the next day.
It's better for me when I stay up for days at a time instead of
sleeping. Then I don't sleepwalk, and he doesn't get mad.
A large thud over a carpeted area sounds from behind me,
followed by a scream and I’m snapped from my zombie-like stance. I
look away from the door he slammed and shake my head to help my
tired eyes focus, before grabbing my coffee on the way through the
kitchen to Sam’s room.
My sweet little boy sits on the floor, holding his head in a silent
cry in front of his dresser. It’s clear that he was trying to climb it by
the drawers half open. He went from walking to immediately trying
to climb up on everything in his path.
"Shhh. Shhh. Oh baby, come here." I coddle as I set down my
cup on the offending dresser and pick him up just as he finds his cry.
I guide his head to my shoulder and rock him for a bit. When the
screams die down, I lift his head up to inspect the damage. Yup,
he'd have a goose egg. There was already an angry purple bruise
forming. My nerves and adrenaline finally wake up from the hellish
night I had, if just for a second, as I head to the kitchen.
"Owey. Owe. Ouchy," Sam whines as I get a frog-shaped baby
ice pack from the freezer.
"I know, baby. I know."
I glance at the oven clock on the way out of the kitchen. Ten
minutes past eight a.m. I let out a miserable sigh. It's still four hours
until nap time for him and me. I need it. I'm bone tired. So much so
that I, too, am on the verge of crying right alongside him. My chest
hurts and the coffee only serves to churn my stomach. Of course my
doctor would shit if he knew about the caffeine, but really, he'd
probably shit if he knew I wasn't sleeping either.
It was just another day in Hell.
But also another day with my sweet baby. Well, babies. So,
despite how much I hate my life, I love them and they are really the
only things that keep me going.
I get Sam settled with a program on, his blanket and sippy cup
of juice and look down to my belly. Another boy. Much to my
husband's delight. The gender reveal appointment was the only one
with this pregnancy he’s bothered to come to, and the only time I’ve
seen him genuinely smile since he started hating me. Of course I
would be happy with either gender, but I would have loved to have a
little girl around. A tiny flutter graces my lower belly and I sigh as I
rub the spot. Normally, I love the feeling of my baby boy wiggling
around but now it just exhausts me further. My lower lip trembles as
I head to the rocking chair near the corner of the room to look out
the window. Sam’s all-day baby shows occupy the TV and we have
little internet service on my phone so there isn’t much to do. I’ve
taken up bird watching and reading. My former friends would have
snorted and laughed about how lame I’ve gotten in these years.
When did this become my life?
I think back to the fairy-tale start of all this.
Isaac and I were high school sweethearts and have been
together since we were freshmen. He was the quarterback and I was
the captain on the cheerleading team. So cliche. So unoriginal. But
when you grow up in a small town, there isn’t much else to anyone’s
story really. Most of our classmates hooked up with each other and
got married as well. On our graduation day, he proposed at my
party, much to my parents' disdain. They hated him. They still do.
Maybe I should have taken the hint?
I, on the other hand, was ecstatic by the proposal. I thought I
was in love. We had a fairy-tale wedding with pretty much the whole
town in attendance. We got married under the dripping willow trees
as the sun set, and then he whisked me off to a week-long
honeymoon in a little beach cabin. Living in Alabama had its
benefits. It was the week we returned from the honeymoon that we
learned I was pregnant. Everything was perfect. He was the love of
my life. And for the first little bit of our marriage, he was a devoted
father coming to all my prenatal appointments and super supportive
when we found out I had a rare condition that required bedrest. He
loved me. He did everything and anything for me. Surprise birthday
parties. Presents and more, even outside of a holiday or birthday. It
was all I could have ever dreamt of.
But isn’t that what they all say?
Now I just play the part of a lonely, depressed, and abused
housewife. No friends. Family fucked off after the wedding in silent
disagreement with our marriage. No neighbors. Just me and Sam,
and our goldfish, Elmo, all day…every day. Until my husband comes
home drunk or almost drunk and starts his shit. Which is usually, the
house isn't clean enough or I didn't cook the chicken quite right.
Beratements and sneers are his usual go-to about how much of a
shitty wife I am and if he could find someone better in this town, he
would have already left me.
I pray every day he will. Find someone. Leave me. Or just not
come home. Maybe a car crash? Maybe a work accident. Sometimes
I daydream he will just leave without a word and only send a pile of
cash each month to support us. I don't dare wish for a knight in
shining armor to come save me. I had one of those and look how
that turned out.
I can't even remember when it turned into this.
Was it when I started asking him permission to go out with my
friends or go out in general? I had done that out of courtesy. Honey,
can I go out with Ashley? It was always yes but then it turned into
why? Or no. Then it turned into, I don't like you hanging out with
her, and then after that, I don't like you hanging out with them. I
slowly lost my friends one by one, because I was so in love with him
I would have done anything he asked.
Or was it when he said I started to slack in my house chores
due to being on bed rest and eight months pregnant? When he
pointed it out, I slapped him. And that was the first time he raised
his hand back. I got slapped in return. Hard. He knocked me
unconscious when my head slammed into the oven. Was that it?
Was that the gateway to him hitting me? Because since then, it has
only increased and never fully stopped.
Sam was born, and bills increased. I still couldn’t work because
of the heart condition I developed with my pregnancy, and Isaac
started drinking excessively because of money problems. We fought
more and more and our sex life died. I could tell he resented me for
not working. It got to the point that I just wanted a job and to get
out of the house just to be away from him. I applied but when the
condition was disclosed, I was almost immediately fired or not even
considered. It pissed him off. It pissed me off. It even pissed me off
when he tried to touch me or show affection. I hated his touch. His
face. And then it turned into me wanting a break, so I called my
mother and told her the truth. She didn't feel sorry for me and after
a lot of, I told you so’s, she asked me to come home. Sitting in the
car before leaving, I decided to send him a goodbye text. And that’s
when he pulled in. Was that when I gave up and accepted my fate?
The sound of tires squealing into the driveway moved my eyes
to the rear-view mirror where I watched him pull in, fast. He had
damn near put his truck on two wheels. Rain pattered the rooftop
and windows of my Jeep Wrangler as I watched him slam his truck
into park and the headlights go out. Before he even got out, I knew
he was drunk and I was shaking, trying to grip the steering wheel.
Why hadn’t I hurried more? Why hadn't I just left when I had the
chance and sent the text later?
I looked back at my sweet six-month-old baby boy bundled up
in his car seat, fast asleep and ready to go. Maybe I could just have
taken off? It would have been our only chance. My heart sped up as
I put a shaky hand on the gear shift. He hadn't gotten out yet. I had
time to put it in reverse and leave. But what if he followed in his
truck? I couldn’t put Sam at risk. Maybe I should have called the
cops?
The truck door slammed me out of my debate.
He was out.
"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck," I whispered. My only chance was to lie. I
dried my tears and acted like I was fine.
Two fast raps on the window and then the door popped open.
"Gabby, where the hell are you going?" The smell of whiskey flowed
into the car and I held my breath. It smelled like he drank the whole
bar. His blonde hair was disheveled and sticking up in random
places, and his eyes were half shut as he swayed in his spot. The
smell of a woman's perfume, his open zipper, and the makeup
smudge on the shoulder of his white shirt...wasn't lost on me either.
There was a time this would have destroyed me but it only
cemented the fact that I needed to leave.
"I, uh..." I swallowed down my clogged throat and tears, and
smiled the best I could before clearing my throat. "I'm off to the
store for a bit. I wanted to make some cookies and cakes for church
Sunday. Bit of a random time but thought it would also do Sam good
with the drive. He's gassy." The lie had come easily.
He squinted, not believing me. I tried to talk but he interrupted
me. "No. Come on. I need dinner warmed up and he shouldn't be
out this late."
I clenched my jaw. "It's 6 p.m., Isaac. It's hardly late. Dinner is
in the microwave." I reached for the door but he immediately
stopped it.
"Gabby," he warned, before reaching in to grab my wrist but I
pulled it back.
"No." That simple word was so hard to say because I never said
no to him, but I had to stand up for myself.
"What did you say?" he snarled, sobering a bit. He looked to the
backseat as my heart hammered out of control. Shit, the bags.
There was no turning back at that point. "No. We are going out,
we'll be back."
"The fuck you are, Gabby! Now get out or I'll make you."
Fuck him, I thought. My fear turned to rage. I had to stop this
even if he did get a few swings in. I'd had enough. He went to reach
for the backdoor handle where Sam was and I quickly locked the
door before turning and kicking out to get him away from the car,
but he was fast for being drunk and caught my ankle.
"Gabby, fucking stop this and get your ass out now!" He
squeezed my ankle tight and I screamed as he started to pull me
from the car. The sound was loud enough that Sam awoke and
started to cry. I held onto the steering wheel and tried to fight him
but it only managed to piss him off more and before I knew it I was
halfway out the car.
"LET ME GO!" I cried out. We had no neighbors within miles or I
would have screamed. Tears came and spilled down my cheeks as I
screamed over and over while kicking out but it was no use. With
one final pull he wretched me from the car. On the way out, the
back of my head slammed down hard, first on the foot rail and then
the cement.
 It caused the world to sway for a second, only to have come
into focus with him over me as he screamed in my face, "YOU WERE
FUCKING LEAVING ME! WITH MY CHILD?" He straddled me before I
could get up, and shoved my lit phone screen into my face. I
couldn’t hold in my tears now at my own stupidity. I had left the text
message up on the screen that I had been writing when he pulled
up.
"Isaac, I'm so sorry it has to be this way." He started to read my
text out loud. I tried to buck him off with my hips. But he was too
heavy and it only made him growl before putting more weight on me
causing my already pounding head to feel fuzzy. I looked at the tire
on the car and tried to keep focus on it, instead of his stupid face as
the rain dropped down on top of us. "Look at me." When I refused
he grabbed my chin hard and forced me to look at him while he
read. "I think it's better for us to have a break. Maybe things can go
back to the way they were before it turned bad. I loved you at one
point but now, I'm not so sure. Please give us some time. I'll be in
contact."
I only saw the flash of lightning behind him for a split second
before the force of his fist knocked my eyes closed. It hurt. Bad.
"You thought you could just take my son away from me and I
would be okay with it."
Another hit, which was a slap instead, and I could feel my left
eye starting to swell. It wasn’t enough for him so he kept hitting me
repeatedly. At some point he placed his other hand on my throat and
squeezed, leaving me barely conscious. "Fuck you." I barely got the
insult out when he finally stood before stumbling back from me,
breathing like a bull.
"Fuck me? I’ll show you fuck me!" The rain had long died and if
he had been drunk before, at this point he was stone-cold sober as
he unbuttoned his pants. I snapped out of my dazed state and
started to sit up.
"Isaac, don't," I whimpered and then leaned to the side to spit
the building blood out of my mouth. It felt like he knocked a tooth
loose.
 "Don't what, Gabby? It's a little too fucking late. You won't ever
leave me and I'll fucking make sure of it."
I scooted back as he took his hard cock from his pants.
Everything in me ached and was in pain. Sam had stopped
screaming, but I still was worried without having eyes on him. I
needed to go. I got on my knees and tried to climb into the car but
suddenly he grabbed me by my hair and white-hot pain raced
against my scalp. I screamed as he pulled me to a standing position.
Slamming me up against Sam's door, I got a quick glimpse of him
being awake, sucking his thumb from where my face was pressed up
against the window. I closed my eyes as Isaac ripped down my
pants and underwear. "This will hurt. A lot."
It was the only warning I got before he raped me over and over
again. That night when he was finally finished, I collapsed and
passed out on the concrete. He left me there for the night, and I
awoke the next morning to Sam screaming in the car. I never tried
to leave again. That night resulted in me being pregnant along with
having to go to the ER the next day for anal bleeding and vaginal
tearing. He tore me in both spots, it was the first time I’d ever had
anal sex, so maybe that was normal, but the vaginal tearing was
worse than when I had Sam.
Now, I don’t fight anymore. Instead I put a numb smile on my
face and go through the motions. Another pregnancy. Another
bedrest diagnosis. Another day comes and goes where I’m trapped
seeing his face.
Maybe it was all of it combined, the abuse, depression,
loneliness. Or maybe it was brought on from the pregnancy? But I
couldn't sleep with him. He forced me to physically lay in his bed but
I couldn't allow myself to sleep safely around him. So I didn't. I
would go days at a time with no sleep and then hit such a deep
sleep at times, not meaning to. I would wake up in the kitchen
pouring milk all over the floor, or with Isaac beating the shit out of
me until I would come to my senses. Sleepwalking. It was my new
thing he thought he could punish out of me.
I had a feeling it was brought on by my bouts of insomnia. But I
was too far gone to sleep now, even if I wanted to, and it was no
longer because I feared him. I was only numb to him. To everything.
It was like my emotions just left me and I didn't have any more left.
Sam would do something that before would elate me but now only
produced a smile on my face. Big events didn't excite me or pull
anything from me, emotions-wise. Weddings or funerals. And I used
to cry at both. I was just here living in Hell and acting fine on the
outside.
I don't know why I can't sleep now, or why I won't stop
sleepwalking when I do.
The doorbell ringing snaps me out of my thoughts and I leave
Sam on the couch to answer it. The peephole reveals a handsome
guy, who's either a murderer or an alien, because there was nobody
in this shit hole town that looked as good as him. It was almost
enough to make my heart stutter, like it had long ago. Almost.
Murderer or not, I answer the door, my common sense gone
along with my emotions. The man, who looks in his mid-twenties
and is insanely tall, looks shocked for a second but recovers fast.
"Excuse me, Miss or Mrs.?" He corrects in a British accent when
he glances at the ring on my finger. His accent does boost my heart
for a second. "I was looking for an Alaric Michael." He lifts an
eyebrow and looks me up and down. I'm so shocked by how sexy he
is, I can only stare.
"Miss?"
"Oh, umm. Nope. Just me. Well, me and my husband's family. I
mean our family." Aaand I was bumbling like an idiot. How long had
it been since someone had gotten me this flustered?
A real concern draws his eyebrows together and he tilts his
head in a way that highlights his strong jawline. "Are you okay?" His
voice is genuine. Great. I’m about to go from a bumbling idiot to an
almost crying idiot.
I clear my throat and put on a small smile. "I'm fine. Sorry, but
there isn't an Alaric here and the last homeowners have passed
away. About five miles down the road to the south is the Weston
household. They might be able to help?" My heart slams at the
thought of sending this handsome stranger away but I know even in
my sleep-deprived mind that this isn't a fantasy or a fairytale. He
isn't here to sweep me off my feet, no matter how much I want to
kiss him and see how it feels to be swept up in romance again.
Where the heck were these thoughts coming from?
He gives a polite smile. "Well then, I will head that way. Thank
you...Mrs.?"
I gulp and smile back. "Just Gabriella is fine."
He tests the name on his foreign tongue, making my heart
palpitate and butterflies come out of hiding from within my stomach.
"Gabriella," he repeats again before lifting a corner of his mouth into
a sexy smile. He winks and then turns away. That's when I notice
the Cadillac Escalade with blacked out windows. It looks brand new
and his clothes look fancier than anything anyone wears here. I look
down at my own three-day wardrobe of leggings and an oversize
shirt. Sigh. My hair probably looks like a bird’s nest as well.
He gives me one last look before getting into his SUV and
backing out of the driveway. I sigh again in defeat of what could
have been if I hadn't been so blinded by love at the age of
sixteen. My headstone would say: Here lies Gabby, that didn’t end
up with a prince but a villain as her soul slowly decayed into a never
ending darkness. I shut and lock the door and head back to my
rocking chair. The life of Gabby was a mess for sure.
 2
ASHTON

2010. The year I became a Bitten; almost ten years ago. I was
twenty-five.
Vampire, as pop culture would call me.
At the time I was in a small, no-name town, somewhere just
north of the Alabama coastline. Some buddies and I went for a
holiday to America. When you’re in line for the crown, you have
endless time and money so popping off randomly to wherever isn't a
big deal. Thought it would be a good time, and my best mate had an
internet friend here that said the parties were lit and the girls fine.
The internet buddy's name was Alaric Michael. And the parties and
the girls were lit, but only for the first two hours.
Alaric Michael and his friends had us down at the beach, sitting
around the bonfire and immediately pushed bottles of whiskey into
our hands. Soon there was a happy buzz among us enough to ignore
some loud yank playing what they thought was a popular country
song. The American girls were fine. Tanned up and drunk. Partiers
through and through, and exactly what we came for. I’d been eyeing
a brown, curly-haired girl with short shorts when a scream pierced
through the night.
Derrick. It came from the tree lines. I bolted up along with my
friend, and we made our way through the woods towards the sound.
I found it weird how no one else flinched at the scream. No one
looked around or reacted to it. But Mike and I both heard it, and
took no time dropping our bottles and checking the sound out. The
light of the moon was the only thing that lit our path as the light
from the bonfire faded behind us. Mike was the first one to push
through the tree line.
 A figure blurred in front of me, tackling Mike and taking him
with it.
I was drunk. Had to be. What kind of…
Suddenly the figure was in front of me. A man. Alaric Michael.
Blood covered his mouth and teeth as he smiled a wicked smile, and
I stumbled back only noticing then that Mike and Derrick laid at his
feet. Dead.
“THE FUCK!” I yelled, before stumbling back and landing on my
ass in the sand.
“We need you. You’re the strongest of them.”
“For what?” I stuttered. Never mind, I didn’t want to know.
Before he could answer, I turned and bolted. Fuck this place.
I realized too late that I left my friends. Maybe someone slipped
me some drugs. This couldn’t be happening. The little town was only
right through these trees. I’d have made it.
Right as I rounded a tree, I heard someone laugh that almost
sounded like they were right beside me but that can’t be right.
“Leave him. I like the chase.” A girl's voice, it sounded like the girl I
was about to hit up. I glanced back as my foot finally found road
pavement. A horn rang and I saw a white light. Then nothing.
It’s been ten years since I’ve been back here. Ten years since
Alaric turned me into a Bitten after I was hit by a truck on a random
Alabama highway. But this life was too hard to live, and I wanted
out. I needed my humanity back. Day after day, I could feel my life
slip into madness. Immortal is what they said I was. How could I
survive this torment every day, craving the blood of those around
me? After I killed most of my loved ones upon returning to London, I
then tried to kill myself plenty and nothing sticks. I’m still here. So, I
need him. I need him to tell me how to die.
I go back to where Alaric once lived. The place he took us
before driving to the beach that night. But I immediately know
something is off when I pull in. I can hear an annoying cartoon show
playing as I pull up, even before I get out of my vehicle. Super
hearing was a bitch sometimes. I can hear a rhythmic creaking. It
sounds like a… rocking chair? The smell is off. Too human and that
bastard's white beat-up car is not in the drive. I ring the doorbell
and while I wait listening to the light footsteps to step towards the
doors, I notice the flowers planted everywhere outside the house.
Odd. Definitely not Alaric’s handiwork.
The scent of jasmine hits me right as the door opens and it’s
enough to almost knock me down. Or is it this creature's luscious,
pouty lips? I ignore the faded bruise I see above her eye or the bags
under her eyelids, and force myself to speak. When was the last
time I smelled something other than blood when looking at a
beautiful woman? And that’s what she was. Beautiful. She also
looked destroyed. But by the way her heartbeat reacts to my voice, I
know that she isn’t totally lost. At least not to me anyway. Was
someone hitting her? A second heartbeat, tiny, faint, graces my
hearing and I know she’s pregnant. And married. My undead heart
seems to sink at this but the determination in her eyes as I leave
and her skipping heart tells me, married wife or not…she’s just as
interested in me as I was in her.
I pull down the road but I don’t go to where I’m supposed to.
Instead I back my SUV into the trees away from any prying eyes to
catch that may see me and wait until dark. I was too intrigued with
her to leave. The asshole, Alaric, could wait. For now.

I STAY HIDDEN and stalk Gabriella for a whole month until I make my
move.
I’m not entirely sure why I stayed. But now I’m too far gone
watching her, to leave.
I know her husband abuses her and it doesn’t take long for me
to learn of her multiple mental illnesses, which I’m sure are caused
by that abusive prick. Does she know that she only sleepwalks and
destroys the stuff in the house that he’s previously yelled at her
about? I watch now from behind my sunglasses in my parked SUV
as she makes her way with her son, Sam, into the doctor's office.
He’s a very well-behaved boy. For a child, it surprises me. I’ve never
been able to stand children but a part of me is glad that he is
behaved so the husband doesn’t turn his rage towards him. Today
she is wearing normal clothes and makeup. Her hair is down and
curled, and she looks like she has a bit of life in her. It’s probably
from getting out of that depressing house. She looks gorgeous. Why
hasn’t she left the prick yet?
I write down the time and date she does anything new because
normally she is lifeless, sitting in that rocking chair. Well, unless it’s
to take care of her son. Even her own needs are ignored until her
husband demands her to shower. She hardly eats. Her pregnancy
worries me, as it should her husband. She never sleeps until her
body forces her and then she is still using up energy to act out in
her sleep. Little Sam trips, his knee scraping the concrete and within
a second the smell hits me. Usually it would be enough to bowl me
over with hunger but now I’m only concerned about him and her.
“Uh oh. Come here.” She comforts and picks him up as he cries.
Right as she tries to coddle her son, the door opens and hits her
back. It’s a man escorting his own pregnant wife from the doctor.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
She gives a polite smile and I watch as he holds the door open
for them to go through. It makes me antsy. I wish I could hold the
door for her.
Fuck. When did my thoughts go from intrigued with her life, to
wanting to be in her life?
Then again, I am stalking her.
Gabriella.
I say it out loud, loving the way it feels on my tongue. Loving
the memory it produces of how much she loved it when I said her
name.
Maybe I could find a way to help us both?
Kill her husband. Easy. Simple.
Commit myself to her, her children as well, when I came here to
kill myself?
Not so simple.
I needed to learn more. Watch. Obsess.
Because she wasn’t something I could walk away from now.
 3
GABRIELLA

I didn’t have to tell Dr. Martin that something was wrong when I
went in for my six-month appointment. He took one look at me and
immediately demanded I tell him why I looked so sickly. It all came
flooding out. All of it. I decided it was time to come clean to him
when I started to see things. Well, not things exactly but people and
not really people, but just one person in particular. The sexy man
that knocked on my door a while back ago. Ever since then, I swear
I see him everywhere. In a reflection of my water glass at the dinner
table. In the corner of the room watching me as I “sleep.” On and
on, I think I see him everywhere. Outside. Inside. Doesn’t matter,
he’s always there. Always watching and always sexy as hell. He
obviously had some big impact on my sleep-deprived brain but
either way that wasn’t good. I needed help. Sleepwalking was one
thing, hallucinations was a whole other ballfield.
So, I came clean. And after that, I spent the next twenty
minutes convincing him I didn’t need the women’s shelter for the
beaten and abused. A lot of concerned looks later, he finally dropped
it and moved on to a solution. He put me on a medication that
would help both me and the baby to cure me of sleepwalking. I
doubted it. And although it was the help that I most likely needed, I
wasn’t one for taking medication. But I would try. At least for the
baby. Especially after he outlined all the dangers I was posing to my
child by just denying my body the sleep it needed. He did assure me
that hallucinations were a danger in a sleep deprived body and
mind. It sucked to know that I didn’t have a sexy stalker and that I
was now at the concerning level of my mental health. He also
explained how dangerous the sleepwalking could be if not contained.
I could wander outside and get hit by a car, although we are in the
county, but I knew what he meant; fall down the stairs, or try to eat
and choke. He kept rambling on but in my heart, I knew he was
taking the extra time with me in my appointment to get it through
my head that this was serious and needed to be taken care of.
I set Sam down in the grass and follow behind him as he teeters
along, exploring the yard with wide eyes. The sun’s warm rays cast
down on us through the trees, and the spring weather has a nice
breeze blowing around us. One big inhale of this weather almost
makes me feel normal, if just for a second. I watch as he rips up
some blades of grass and throws them in the air with pure delight,
and giggles. It’s adorable and I can’t help but smile as well. “Sam,
you silly baby. The grass stays in the dirt.” He squeals and attempts
to run away.
“Oh, that’s it, you handsome man, you're gonna get it!” I
pretend to chase him, making him squeal louder.
The sound of a car pulling up into our driveway has me looking
back to see the black Cadillac Escalade from a few weeks ago. My
heart picks up. Him again? Either he really was a murderer or
someone had big jokes to flaunt this beautiful man in front of me.
I’ve been on my medicine so this wasn’t a hallucination, although I
still wasn’t sleeping. I hoped it was real. “Car!” Sam points, and I
kiss his cheek. Okay, so it’s real. I scoop him up, adjust him around
my growing belly, and head to the car as the man gets out. It’s like
the sun knew where he would walk because the light reflects off his
sunglasses as he takes them off in a way that turns him into a GQ
model. His posh clothes and fancy car scream money. What was he
doing here again?
“Gabriella.” He greets, putting his hands in his pockets.
“I’m sorry, I never got your name the other day.” I lift Sam,
trying to contain his wiggling. He wants down and as hot as this
man is, he’s still a stranger and could be dangerous to us.
He smiles and the sun gleams off his teeth in a way that almost
makes them seem longer for a second. I don’t dwell on it because
the damn butterflies are back. “Ashton Rush.”
 I’d roll my eyes about how perfect his name is if he weren’t
right in front of me. Of course, everything about him is perfect.
Damn Brits with their gorgeous voices, looks and names. I shove my
thoughts aside. “Ashton.” I can’t help but smile as my stupid crush
expands. His name sounds familiar but I ignore the weird déjà vu.
“What can we do for you? Did you find your friend you were looking
for the other day?”
“Ah, yeah. Apparently he moved away but that’s not why I’m
here.”
I’m taken aback, but I take the bait as I tilt my head in
confusion. “Why are you here then?”
He steps forward, and suddenly he is super close. The scent of
Acqua di Gio cologne by Giorgio Armani hits me with a fresh,
irresistible scent that has my hormones instantly reeling. He’s so
close Sam reaches out and tugs on his shirt, babbling as he tries to
put the fabric of his white shirt in his mouth. I immediately apologize
but he just laughs it off. Lifting his hand, he gently caresses my
cheek. I’m not entirely sure why I let him because I flinch when
anyone touches me, doctors included, but his touch feels…safe. His
touch gives me delightful shivers all through my body and the baby
kicks in my stomach. “I won’t beat around the bush about this. I
want you.”
“Excus—” I’m in shock as I step back, away from his velvety
touch. Warning bells are going off but something is keeping me from
not running in panic.
“I don’t give two shits about your abusive husband, how you
have a son and are pregnant.” I don’t mean to gasp out loud but I
do solely, because my heart is racing, and I don’t know if this is real
or some made-up fantasy. I mentally count how many pills I’ve
taken so far. He slides his hand down my arm until he reaches my
hand and grasps it as his brown eyes darken. Here stands any
woman’s wet dream and he wants me? But why? This isn’t right.
I take my hand back and put distance between us as I adjust
Sam. “No!” I scoff. “This is crazy. This doesn’t make sense. I don’t
know you. You don’t know me!” He’s hot but what guy in their right
mind would admit to wanting a married woman with baggage. And
how did he know that I was being abused? I shake my head as I
continue to step back toward the safety of my house. Well, kind of
safe but at least Isaac hasn’t killed me, yet. This guy was obviously
a psychopath and could very well be a killer for all I knew. “I’m
sorry, this is crazy and you need to leave before my husband gets
back.” I know he catches the shake of my voice when his lips tilt up
in an evil smirk.
Never turn your back on a predator but I ignore that saying and
turn to head into the house, fast. He doesn’t have to stop me
physically because I’m grounded to a halt when he calls my name. “I
know that asshole doesn’t get home until he at least has a good
buzz going and that’s well past 5 p.m. I also know you like it when I
say your name. Your heartbeat picks up and I can smell the heat
that starts within you. I know you can’t stand to look in the mirror
for more than necessary because that asshole has made you believe
you are ugly, when in reality you are anything but. You are the most
beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. You love watching Sam’s show that
has the duck and the elephant but pretend not to watch, even when
it’s just you and him in the house. You hate butter on your toast and
will only eat it with raspberry jam at least an inch thick. You fear the
dark but sleepwalk every night and when you do, you only get into
things your husband has previously yelled at you about. And when
no one is around and Sam is asleep, you like to sing, softly, to
yourself in comfort, for the child you carry in your belly.”
I turn around as goosebumps coat my arms but I’m not cold. He
moves to me at an inhuman speed that makes my jaw drop. One
second he’s by the car, and the next he’s right in front of me. He had
been a good six feet away. I’m in shock but before I can ask what
the Hell that was, he continues on, “I know you. I’ve been watching
you ever since I first came here. Call me a stalker. Creep. Or
whatever you want. I finally found the one thing that makes this
shitty life worth living for, and it’s you. And if there’s one thing you
should know about me, it’s that I have all the time in the world and I
always, always, get what I want.”
Sam is now falling asleep with his tiny head on my shoulder and
my arms are way past being numb from holding him. Ashton just
told me he’d been stalking me. That he wants me. Were my
hallucinations actually real? This whole time I thought I was crazy,
had he really been in and out of my house? How did he move so fast
and why would he just assume it would be so easy for me to leave
Isaac or that I would want to? I tried once before and it didn’t end
well. Unless Ashton planned to kill him, I would never get away.
Ever. And then how would we survive without a place or money if
this crazy fantasy with a stranger didn’t work out?
“Why would you think that any sane woman would be okay with
what you just said. This is insane. I need to put Sam in bed.” This
time when I turn around I make it into the house, locking it behind
me before I rush to put Sam to bed. My nerves are lit and I’m
shaking as I grab my phone, prepared to call the police but
something is stopping me. I peek out of the window to find him still
here. Now leaned up against his car. Shades back on his handsome
face, and it seems like he is looking right at me. I close my eyes and
swallow hard. What the hell do I do?
What the hell do I want? Should I call the cops or should I take
this as a miracle, take him up on his offer and get out of this
nightmare with Sam while I have the chance? I have been taking my
medicines for a week but maybe I should have started it sooner. Was
he actually here? If he was, I obviously hallucinated seeing him
move that fast. For my children, I needed to get my head right and
get healthier for any chance at escaping. A knock on the door breaks
me out of my dilemma. “Gabriella, open the door, sweetheart. I’m
not a figment of your imagination.” My heart pounds harder. How did
he know what I was thinking?
I walk up to the door and despite my self-preservation, I open
it. He runs a hand through his black hair. “I can help you, Gabriella.”
“How?” I ask bravely, but it feels like my heart is about to pound
out of my chest.
I watch as he takes his sunglasses off and his eyes bleed from
their normal color to a dark red. When I start to back away out of
fear, he reaches out and grabs my hand holding me in place. This
couldn’t be possible. People’s eyes didn’t just turn colors and
certainly not red.
 “This is how I can help.”
I shake my head as I pull my hand away. “Whatever this is, it
won’t help.”
“Just listen.” The tone of his voice holds me in a weird trance
and I can’t look away from the crimson color of his stare.
Somehow I break through the sudden fogginess of my brain.
“How?”
The sky darkens as he once again reclaims my hands and all at
once pulls me toward him. I’m back in the trance of his eyes that I
can’t look away from and that makes my body feel like I’m floating
on air.
“Because I’m a vampire.”

I PASSED OUT.
He apparently caught me because I don’t feel anything hurt or
broken. And I woke up feeling a cold washcloth on my head where I
lay on the couch. “Ashton? Oh my God, Sam!”
I try to sit up but he stops me as I look around. “Gabriella, Sam
is fine. I haven’t heard him stir once. You need rest.” His concern is
palpable since I did just pass out but then again I swore he just
claimed to be a vampire. And why did I trust him about Sam? How
long was I out for?
“I need to see him.” He nods and helps me off the couch. He
guides me to Sam’s room, and I can’t help but feel a little weird
about this. He is a stranger. Sam lays sound asleep in his crib and
after I confirm he is breathing, I make my way back to the couch
where he follows. Dizziness strikes and I lay back down.
“Are you—” I reach out with a shaky hand and touch his arm.
He’s real. Or my imagination is highly creative.
“I’m real. And what I told you is a fact.”
I laugh.
And I keep laughing until tears spring into my eyes.
“Gabriella.” His irritated voice sobers my laugh.
 I clear my throat and he helps me as I sit up. “Right. Sorry. It’s
just that you offered your help, right? I mean…” Shaking my head I
try to gather my thoughts. “And you’ve been stalking me?” I don’t
give him a chance to answer. “And then you say you’re a vampire.
Which if you have been stalking me, you’d know how messed up I
already am. I don’t know how someone who is just as crazy, if not
crazier, could help me in any way? Do you realize how absurd this
whole situation is? You are in my house right now, and if you are a
vampire, why haven’t you killed us yet? And you aren’t from around
here. Were you ever really here for a friend? So much just doesn’t
add up. I don’t understand. Prove something to me that makes
sense.”
“I don’t think you're ill, Gabriella. I think your husband terrifies
you so much, you don’t want to close your eyes when he forces you
to sleep next to him at night. That causes your sleep problems. If
you were happier, you’d be fine.”
I scoff. “I already know that. You aren’t proving your case to
me.”
“My vampire case?” he asks, and two long sharp fangs slide
down as he does.
I jolt back, more in disbelief than panic. I start to raise my
hand. “I need to…”
“Touch them?” he asks in a deep voice that further excites me.
“Go ahead, Gabriella.” He lightly takes my hand in his and starts to
raise it, making me realize it's no longer shaking.
“This is insane,” I whisper as he guides my finger to slide down
one of his fangs. I shiver at the same time he does.
“Do you need more proof?” He sets down my hand gently back
on my lap. He moves from his spot on the coffee table to sit beside
me. I can’t ignore how close we are or how much his warm leg
pressing up against my own leg is affecting me. Should I push down
my dress that got hiked up? I look into his eyes that have
significantly darkened since I’ve touched him, and bite my lip. He
leans closer to me and looks down at where my hand is toying with
the edge of my dress with a smirk. It makes me realize his fangs are
no longer there. I’ve never seen such full, attractive lips on a man. I
continue to stare at them while I feel like I’m lost in a trance. I
swallow hard.
“Feel that, Gabriella?” he whispers.
“Feel what?” My voice is breathless.
“It’s called compulsion.” I’d seen enough vampire movies to
know what that was and honestly wasn’t the least bit angry that he
was using it on me. Call it stupid and dangerous but this dark,
otherworldly and beautiful creature in front of me was everything I’d
ever wanted.
“Close your eyes.” They flutter shut like they obey him and only
him. “Now...” He gently lays his warm, strong hand on my upper
thigh. I gasp softly. “Kiss me.”
Before I can open my eyes, his lips slam onto mine. I suck in a
shocked breath but the taste of mint along with his silk tongue
assaults my senses, and I can’t fight him even if I wanted to. I’m so
lost in him and it should be concerning because I kiss him back
instead of acting like the married woman I am. I’ve never been
kissed like this and especially not by my husband, not even in our
good days. I’ve never felt someone’s tongue skillfully play over mine
like his does. Conquering, breathtaking, while at the same time
sexually compassionate. All this from his mouth, I can’t imagine
what the rest of him can do. He squeezes my thigh gently making
me whimper into his mouth from the pleasure ramping through me.
He growls at the sound and nips at my lip. My hands fly up on their
own accord into his hair because somehow this thing is turning from
a windstorm to a tornado. We are out of control. Was his compulsion
making me act like this or was this just the heat we generated from
our rampant attraction? Just as fast as it starts, he suddenly pulls
away from me, and I’m panting hard, trying to catch my breath.
Did that really happen?
I touch my lip as I look up at his smoldering stare.
“Does that feel real enough for you, sweetheart?”
HE KISSED ME.
Ashton kissed me.
Goosebumps coat my arms and my nipples tighten under my
bra as I think back to his strong hands squeezing my thigh. After he
kissed me, he left. No further explanation to his ‘I need you’ speech,
he shows up with a mind-blowing kiss and then leaves. His words
replay over and over in my mind. Does that feel real enough for you,
sweetheart?
It’s been a month since that kiss, his seduction, and his words.
Since then he has come by every day while Isaac is gone. He spends
the day with both me and Sam. He doesn’t try to kiss me again. We
talk about nonsense really but it’s amazing. Not only is he extremely
pleasing to the eyes, but he hasn’t tried to rush his statement that
he wants me. I told him I felt guilty about the time we spent
together. Whether this is just a friendship or something more, I
couldn’t stop looking over my shoulder, worried that Isaac could
come any second. He assured me not to worry because we were
technically not doing anything wrong. I wasn’t sure my husband
would see it as that.
But we had done something wrong. We kissed. We shared looks
only lovers did. And Ashton was all I can think about so even
mentally it was wrong. On top of it all I wanted him to kiss me again
so bad, I physically ache when I think about him. He knows it too. I
can see it in the way he accidently brushes up against me when
moving by or how he stares at me like I have hung the stars. My
butterflies and silly giggles haven’t calmed either but have got
worse. Now I actually get up every day and do my hair and makeup.
If Isaac has noticed, he hasn’t said anything. I’ve started to smile
again as well and my sleepwalking is non-existent. It might be my
medication but I swear it’s him. It’s like he brought me back to life
and even though I’m still stuck in this abusive, loveless marriage,
he’s starting to thaw my decision to run away with him. I just feel
like I really don’t know him well enough for that, to risk Sam’s
wellbeing. Not yet.
“GABBY! What the fuck is wrong with you!” I spaced out again.
I shake myself out of it as Isaac snatches the spatula out of my
hand. A small wisp of smoke rises up from the pork chops and a
burned smell fills the air. I rub my belly to calm the baby who’s doing
backflips, and step back.
“Sorry,” I mumble, waiting for him to take his anger out on me.
But other than an angry glare, he doesn’t move to strike me.
“Anyways.” He grabs his beer off the counter and takes a swig
before going back to cooking, which was what I was doing. He
seems to be in a crazy good mood for some reason, excited even.
He never wants to talk to me. Just yell and now all of a sudden, he’s
blabbing about work? I’m confused and a little frightened by this so I
stay quiet. “I told that motherfucker, I was the site manager and if
he had a problem with how I ran things, he could get the fuck out.
Then thought better of it and fired his dumbass after lunch. I hate
the idiot kids in this town. All the kids these idiots are raising around
here are worthless. Just fucking worthless. I can tell you something
though.” He looks at me and points the cooking utensil my way. I
flinch, not meaning to, but he ignores it or doesn’t notice because he
continues, “Neither of my sons are going to act like that, I’ll make
damn sure of it. And so will you.”
I just nod. I want to scream at him but instead I stay calm. I
want to tell him he won’t have anything to do with raising our sons
and influencing them to be the jackass he is. I wish I could stand up
to him. The hate I feel for him grows and grows. When he doesn’t
get a rise or reaction out of me, he scoffs before throwing down the
spatula on the counter. “Finish cooking this the right way and bring
me another beer.” Then he walks out of the kitchen and I let go of
the breath I didn’t know I was holding.
Dinner finishes without incident but I can’t get Ashton off my
mind even to the point I’m catching myself looking out the window,
wondering if he is there watching me like he claimed to have done. I
try to ignore the thoughts of him and head to bed. I’m not sure if it’s
the new meds or the growing baby but I pass out with no delay.
Isaac will leave for work and I will get to see Ashton. It’s the thing I
let my mind wrap around on repeat as I drift off to sleep. So far the
thoughts of him have kept the manic sleepwalking at bay.
Another random document with
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 Vast Deal of pleasure is Being intensely happy with a Dear
and Tender Mother-in-Law and frequent oppertunities of
hearing of your Health and Welfair which I pray God may long
Continue. What I have more to add is to acquaint you that I
have already made a Considerable Progress in Learning. I
have already gone through some Rules of Arithmetic, and in a
little Time shall be able of giving you a Better acct of my
Learning, and in mean time I am Duty Bound to subscribe
myself
Your most obedient and
Duty full Granddaughter
Pegga Treadwell.
In the Lloyd Collections is a charming little letter from another
Long Island miss, ten years of age. The penmanship is elegant and
finished, as was that of her elders at that date.
We have, however, scant sources from which to learn of the life of
children in colonial New York. No diarist of Pepysian minuteness tells
of the children of New Netherland as does the faithful Samuel Sewall
of those of New England; no collections of letters such as the
Winthrop Papers and others recount the various items of domestic
life. There are none of the pious and garrulous writings of ministers
such as Cotton Mather, who in diary and various literary
compositions give another side of their life. We have no such
messages from the colonial Dutch. In whatever depended on the use
of “a flourit pen,” posterity is neither richer nor wiser for the Dutch
settlers having lived. Nor were their English successors much fonder
of literary composition. Nothing but formal records of churches, of
courts, of business life, offer to us any pages for study and drawing
of inference. And from these records the next hint of the life of these
colonial children, sad to relate, is to their discredit. The pragmatic
magistrates kept up a steady prying and bullying over them. In New
Orange, in 1673, “if any children be caught on the street playing,
racing, and shouting previous to the termination of the last
preaching, the officers of justice may take their hat or upper garment,
which shall not be restored to the parents until they have paid a fine
of two guilders,” which, we may be sure, would insure the miserable
infants summary punishment on arriving home.
Matters were no better in New Amsterdam. One amusing
complaint was brought up against “ye wretched boys” of that
settlement, and by one high in authority, Schout De Sille. One of his
duties was to patrol the town of New Amsterdam at night to see that
all was peaceful as befitted a town which was the daughter of the
Dutch government. But the poor schout did not find his evening stroll
altogether a happy one. He complained that the dogs set upon him,
and that tantalizing boys shouted out “The Indians!” at him from
behind trees and fences,—which must have startled him sorely, and
have been most unpleasantly suggestive in those days of Indian
horrors; and his chief complaint was that there was “much cutting of
hoekies” by the boys,—which means, I fancy, playing of tricks, of
jokes, of hoaxes, such as were played on Hock-day in England, or
perhaps “playing hookey,” as American boys of to-day have been
known to do.
As years passed on, I fear some of these young Dutch-Americans
were sad rogues. They sore roused the wrath of Albany legislators,
as is hereby proven:—
“Whereas ye children of ye sd city do very unorderly to ye
shame and scandall of their parents ryde down ye hills in ye
streets of the sd city with small and great slees on the lord day
and in the week by which many accidents may come, now for
pventing ye same it is hereby publishd and declard yt it shall
and may be lawful for any Constable in this City or any other
person or persons to take any slee or slees from all and every
such boys and girls rydeing or offering to ryde down any hill
within ye sd city and breake any slee or slees in pieces. Given
under our hands and seals in Albany ye 22th of December in
12th year of Her Maj’s reign Anno Domini 1713.”
In 1728 Albany boys and girls still were hectored, still were fined
by the bullying Albany constable for sliding down the alluringly steep
Albany streets on “sleds, small boards, or otherwise.”
 Mrs. Grant, writing of about the year 1765, speaks of the custom
of coasting, but not of the legislation against it, and gives a really
delightful picture of coasting-joys, which apparently were then
partaken of only by boys. The schepens and their successors the
constables, joy-destroying Sivas, had evidently succeeded in
wresting this pleasure from the girls.
“In town all the boys were extravagantly fond of a diversion
that to us would appear a very odd and childish one. The
great street of the town sloped down from the hill on which the
fort stood, towards the river; between the buildings was an
unpaved carriage-road, the foot-path beside the houses being
the only part of the street which was paved. In winter the
sloping descent, continued for more than a quarter of a mile,
acquired firmness from the frost, and became very slippery.
Then the amusement commenced. Every boy and youth in
town, from eight to eighteen, had a little low sledge, made
with a rope like a bridle to the front, by which it could be
dragged after one by the hand. On this one or two at most
could sit, and this sloping descent being made as smooth as
a looking-glass, by sliders’ sledges, etc., perhaps a hundred
at once set out from the top of this street, each seated in his
little sledge with the rope in his hand, which, drawn to the
right or left, served to guide him. He pushed it off with a little
stick, as one would launch a boat; and then, with the most
astonishing velocity, precipitated by the weight of the owner,
the little machine glided past, and was at the lower end of the
street in an instant. What could be so delightful in this rapid
and smooth descent I could never discover; though in a more
retired place, and on a smaller scale, I have tried the
amusement; but to a young Albanian, sleighing, as he called
it, was one of the first joys of life, though attended by the
drawback of walking to the top of the declivity, dragging his
sledge every time he renewed his flight, for such it might well
be called. In the managing this little machine some dexterity
was necessary: an unskilful Phaeton was sure to fall. The
conveyance was so low that a fall was attended with little
danger, yet with much disgrace, for an universal laugh from all
 sides assailed the fallen charioteer. This laugh was from a
very full chorus, for the constant and rapid succession of this
procession, where every one had a brother, lover, or kinsman,
brought all the young people in town to the porticos, where
they used to sit wrapt in furs till ten or eleven at night,
engrossed by this delectable spectacle. I have known an
Albanian, after residing some years in Britain, and becoming
a polished fine gentleman, join the sport and slide down with
the rest.”
Mrs. Grant tells of another interesting and unusual custom of the
children of Albany:
“The children of the town were divided into companies, as
they called them, from five to six years of age, until they
became marriageable. How those companies first originated,
or what were their exact regulations, I cannot say; though I,
belonging to none, occasionally mixed with several, yet
always as a stranger, notwithstanding that I spoke their
current language fluently. Every company contained as many
boys as girls. But I do not know that there was any limited
number; only this I recollect, that a boy and girl of each
company, who were older, cleverer, or had some other pre-
eminence among the rest were called heads of the company,
and as such were obeyed by the others.... Children of
different ages in the same family belonged to different
companies. Each company at a certain time of the year went
in a body to gather a particular kind of berries to the hill. It
was a sort of annual festival attended with religious
punctuality. Every company had a uniform for this purpose;
that is to say, very pretty light baskets made by the Indians,
with lids and handles, which hung over one arm, and were
adorned with various colors. Every child was permitted to
entertain the whole company on its birthday, and once
besides, during winter and spring. The master and mistress of
the family always were bound to go from home on these
occasions, while some old domestic was left to attend and
watch over them, with an ample provision of tea, chocolate,
 preserved and dried fruits, nuts and cakes of various kinds, to
which was added cider or a syllabub; for these young friends
met at four and amused themselves with the utmost gayety
and freedom in any way their fancy dictated.”
From all the hints and facts which I have obtained, through letters,
diaries, church and court records, of child-life in any of the colonies
or provinces among English, German, Swedish, or Dutch settlers, I
am sure these Albany young folk were the most favored of their time.
I find no signs of such freedom in any other town.
It has been asserted that in every town in New York which was
settled under the Dutch, a school was established which was taught
by a competent teacher who received a small salary from the
government, in addition to his other emoluments; and that after the
reign of the English, begun in 1664, this public salary ceased, and
many of the towns were schoolless.
This statement is not confirmed by a letter of Domine
Megapolensis written from Albany in 1657. He says plainly that only
Manhattan, Beverwyck, and Fort Casimir had schoolmasters, and he
predicts, as a result, “ignorance, a ruined youth, and bewilderment of
men’s minds.” Other authorities, such as Mr. Teunis G. Bergen, state
that this liberality where it existed should be accredited to the Dutch
church, not the Dutch state, or Dutch West India Company. In truth, it
was all one matter. The church was an essential power in the
government of New Netherland, as it was in Holland; hence the West
India Company and the Classis of Amsterdam conjoined in sending
domines with the supply of burgomasters, and likewise furnished
school-teachers.
When Wouter van Twiller arrived in 1633 with the first military
garrison for New Amsterdam, he brought also envoys of religion and
learning,—Domine Everardus Bogardus and the first pedagogue,
Adam Roelandsen. Master Roelandsen had a schoolroom assigned
to him, and he taught the youthful New Amsterdamites for six years,
when he resigned his position, and was banished from the town and
went up the river to Renssellaerwyck. I fear he was not a very
reputable fellow, “people did not speak well of him;” and he in turn
was sued for slander; and some really sad scandals were told about
him, both in and out of court. And some folk have also made very
merry over the fact that he took in washing, which was really one of
the best things we know about him, for it was not at all a disreputable
nor unmanly calling in those times. It doubtless proved a very
satisfactory source of augmentation of the wavering school-salary, in
those days of vast quarterly or semi-annual washings and great
bleeckeryen, or laundries,—which his probably was, since his bills
were paid by the year.
A carpenter, Jan Cornelissen, tired of his tools and trade, left
Renssellaerwyck upon hearing of the vacant teacher’s chair in New
Amsterdam, went down the river to Manhattan, and in turn taught the
school for ten years. Jan was scarcely more reputable than Adam.
He lay drunk for a month at a time, and was incorrigibly lazy,—so
aggravated Albanians wrote of him. But any one was good enough to
teach school. Neither Jan nor Adam was, however, a convicted and
banished felon, as were many Virginian schoolmasters.
This drunken schoolmaster was only the first of many. Until this
century, the bane of pedagogy in New York was rum. A chorus of
colonial schoolmasters could sing, in the words of Goldsmith,—

“Let schoolmasters puzzle their brains

With grammar and nonsense and learning;
Good liquor I stoutly maintain
Gives genius a better discerning.”

Occasionally a certain schoolmaster would be specified in a

school-circular as a sober man; proving by the mentioning the
infrequency of the qualification.
As the colony grew, other teachers were needed. Governor
Stuyvesant sent to the Classis of Amsterdam for “a pious, well-
qualified, and diligent schoolmaster.” William Vestens crossed the
ocean in answer to this appeal, and taught for five years in one room
in New York; while Jan de la Montagne, with an annual salary of two
hundred florins, taught at the Harberg—later the Stadt-Huys—and
occupied the position of the first public-school teacher.
For years a project of building a schoolhouse was afloat. A spot
had been fixed upon, and some money subscribed. In 1649 the
Commonalty represented to the West India Company that “the plate
was a long time passed around for a common school which has
been built with words, for as yet the first stone is not laid.” In
response to this appeal, a schoolhouse was at last erected. Still
another school was opened by Master Hoboocken, who taught in the
Governors’ bowery, where Dutch-American children were already
beginning to throng the green lanes and by-ways. He was
succeeded by Evert Pietersen, who was engaged as “Consoler of
the Sick, Chorister and Schoolmaster;” and all persons without
distinction were ordered not to molest, disturb, or ridicule him in
either of these offices, but to “deliver him from every painful
sensation.” Many of the other schoolmasters had filled similar offices
in the church and community.
This public school, maintained with such difficulty and so many
rebuffs through these early days, was successfully continued by the
Collegiate Dutch Church after the English possession of New York;
and it still exists and flourishes, as does the church. This should be a
matter of civic pride to every New Yorker. The history of that school
has been carefully written, and is most interesting to read.
Many other teachers were licensed to give private lessons, but
these public and private schools did not satisfy ambitious New
Yorkers. A strong longing was felt in New Amsterdam for a Latin
School. A characteristic petition was sent by the burgomasters and
schepens to the West India Company:
“It is represented that the youth of this place and the
neighborhood are increasing in number gradually, and that
most of them can read and write, but that some of the citizens
and inhabitants would like to send their children to a school
the principal of which understands Latin, but are not able to
do so without sending them to New England; furthermore,
they have not the means to hire a Latin schoolmaster
 expressly for themselves from New England, and therefore
they ask that the West India Company will send out a fit
person as Latin schoolmaster, not doubting that the number of
persons who will send their children to such a teacher will
from year to year increase until an academy shall be formed
whereby this place to great splendour will have attained, for
which, next to God, the Honorable Company which shall have
sent such teacher here shall have laud and praises. For our
own part we shall endeavor to find a fit place in which the
schoolmaster shall hold his school.”
The desired “gerund-grinder”—to use Tristram Shandy’s word—
was soon despatched. The fit place was found,—a good house with
a garden. He was promised an annual salary of five hundred
guilders. Each scholar also was to pay six guilders per quarter. But
Dr. Curtius’s lines fell in difficult places; he could keep no order
among his Latin-school pupils, those bad young New
Amsterdamites, who “beat each other and tore the clothes from each
other’s backs,” and he complained he was restrained by the orders
of parents from properly punishing them. (I may say here that I have
not found that New York schoolmasters were ever as cruel as were
those of New England.) A graver matter to honest colonists was his
charging a whole beaver-skin too much per quarter to some
scholars, and soon he was packed back to Holland. His successor, a
young man of twenty-two, who had been tutor to Stuyvesant’s sons,
had better luck, better control, and a better academy; and New
Amsterdam to “great splendour was attained,” having pupils from
other towns and colonies, even from so far away as Virginia.
The relations between church, school, and state were equally
close throughout all New Netherland. Thus, in 1661, Governor
Stuyvesant recommended Charles De Bevoise as schoolmaster for
Brooklyn; and when Domine Henricus Selyns left the Brooklyn
church, Schoolmaster De Bevoise was ordered to read prayers and
sermons, “to read a postille” every Sabbath until another minister
was obtained. He was also a krankebesoecker, or comforter of the
sick. Even after the establishment of English rule in the colony, the
connection of Dutch church and school was equally close. When
Johannis Van Eckellen was engaged by the Consistory of the Dutch
church in Flatbush in October, 1682, as a schoolmaster for the town,
it was under this extremely interesting and minute contract, which,
translated, reads thus:—
Articles of Agreement made with Johannis Van
Eckellen, schoolmaster and clerk of the church at Flatbush.
1st. The school shall begin at eight o’clock in the morning,
and go out at eleven o’clock. It shall begin again at one
o’clock and end at four o’clock. The bell shall be rung before
the school begins.
2nd. When the school opens, one of the children shall read
the morning prayer, as it stands in the catechism, and close
with the prayer before dinner. In the afternoon it shall begin
with the prayer after dinner, and close with the evening
prayer. The evening school shall begin with the Lord’s Prayer,
and close by singing a Psalm.
3rd. He shall instruct the children in the common prayers
and the questions and answers of the catechism, on
Wednesdays and Saturdays, to enable them to say their
catechism on Sunday afternoons in the church before the
afternoon service, otherwise on the Monday following, at
which the schoolmaster shall be present. He shall demean
himself patient and friendly towards the children in their
instruction, and be active and attentive to their improvement.
4th. He shall be bound to keep his school nine months in
succession, from September to June, one year with another,
or the like period of time for a year, according to the
agreement with his predecessor, he shall, however, keep the
school nine months, and always be present himself.

CHURCH SERVICE.
Art. 1st. He shall be chorister of the church, ring the bell
three times before service, and read a chapter of the Bible in
the church, between the second and third ringing of the bell;
after the third ringing he shall read the ten commandments
and the twelve articles of Faith, and then set the Psalm. In the
afternoon, after the third ringing of the bell, he shall read a
short chapter, or one of the Psalms of David, as the
congregation are assembling. Afterwards he shall again set
the Psalm.
Art. 2nd. When the minister shall preach at Brooklyn or
New Utrecht, he shall be bound to read twice before the
congregation a sermon from the book used for the purpose.
The afternoon sermon will be on the catechism of Dr. Vander
Hagen, and thus he shall follow the turns of the minister. He
shall hear the children recite the questions and answers of the
catechism, on that Sunday, and he shall instruct them. When
the minister preaches at Flatlands, he shall perform the like
service.
Art. 3rd. He shall provide a basin of water for the baptisms,
for which he shall receive twelve stuyvers, in wampum, for
every baptism, from the parents or sponsors. He shall furnish
bread and wine for the communion, at the charge of the
church. He shall furnish the minister, in writing, the names
and ages of the children to be baptized, together with the
names of the parents and sponsors; he shall also serve as a
messenger for the consistories.
Art. 4th. He shall give the funeral invitations, and toll the
bells, for which service he shall receive, for persons of fifteen
years of age and upwards, twelve guilders; and for persons
under fifteen, eight guilders. If he shall invite out of the town,
he shall receive three additional guilders for every town; and if
he shall cross the river to New York, he shall have four
guilders more.

SCHOOL MONEY.
He shall receive for a speller or reader in the day school
three guilders for a quarter, and for a writer four guilders.
 In the evening school, he shall receive for a speller or
reader four guilders for a quarter, and for a writer five guilders.

SALARY.
The remainder of his salary shall be four hundred guilders
in wheat, of wampum value, deliverable at Brooklyn Ferry;
and for his service from October to May, two hundred and
thirty-four guilders in wheat, at the same place, with the
dwelling, pasturage, and meadow appertaining to the school
to begin the first day of October.
I agree to the above articles, and promise to observe the
same to the best of my ability.
Johannis Van Eckellen.
Truly we have through this contract—to any one with any powers
of historic imagination—a complete picture of the duties of the
schoolmaster of that day.
When the English came in power in 1664, some changes were
made in matters of education in New York, but few changes in any of
the conditions in Albany. Governor Nicholls, on his first visit up the
river, made one significant appointment,—that of an English
schoolmaster. This was the Englishman’s license to teach:—
“Whereas the teaching of the English Tongue is necessary
in this Government; I have, therefore, thought fitt to give
License to John Shutte to bee the English Schoolmaster at
Albany: and upon condition that the said John Shutte shall not
demand any more wages from each Scholar than is given by
the Dutch to their Dutch Schoolmasters. I have further
granted to the said John Shutte that hee shall bee the only
English Schoolmaster at Albany.”
The last clause of this license seems superfluous; for it is very
doubtful whether there was for many years any other English teacher
who eagerly sought what was so far from being either an onerous or
lucrative position. Many generations of Albany children grew to
manhood ere the Dutch schoolmasters found their positions
supererogatory.
Women-teachers and girl-scholars were of small account in New
York in early days. Girls did, however, attend the public schools. We
find Matthew Hillyer, in 1676, setting forth in New York that he “hath
kept school for children of both sexes for two years past to
satisfaction.” Dame-schools existed, especially on Long Island,
where English influences and Connecticut emigration obtained. In
Flushing Elizabeth Cowperthwait was reckoned with in 1681 for
“schooling and diet for children;” and in 1683 she received for thirty
weeks’ schooling, of “Martha Johanna,” a scarlet petticoat,—truly a
typical Dutch payment. A school bill settled by John Bowne in
Flushing in 1695 shows that sixpence a week was paid to the
teacher for each scholar who learned reading, while writing and
ciphering cost one shilling twopence a week. This, considering the
usual wages and prices of the times, was fair pay enough.
We have access to a detailed school bill of the Lloyd boys in 1693,
but they were sent away from their Long Island home at Lloyd’s
Neck to New England; so the information is of no value as a record
of a New York school; but one or two of these items are curious
enough to be recounted:—
£ s. d.
1 Quarter’s board for boys 9 7 6
Pd knitting stockings for Joseph 1 4
Pd knitting 1 stocking for Henry 6
Joseph’s Schooling, 7 mos. 7
A bottle of wine for His Mistris 10
To shoo nails & cutting their har 7
Stockins & mittins 3 9
Pd a woman tailor mending their cloaths 3 3
Wormwood & rubab for them 6
To Joseph’s Mistris for yearly feast and wine 1 8
 Pair gloves for boys 2 6
Drest deerskin for the boys’ breeches 1 6
Wormwood and rhubarb for the boys and a feast and wine for the
schoolmistress, albeit the wine was but tenpence a bottle, seems
somewhat unfair discrimination.
There is an excellent list of the clothing of a New York schoolboy
of eleven years given in a letter written by Fitz-John Winthrop to
Robert Livingstone in 1690. This young lad, John Livingstone, had
also been in school in New England. The “account of linen & clothes”
shows him to have been very well dressed. It reads thus:—

Eleven new shirts

4 pr laced sleves
8 plane cravets
4 cravets with lace
4 stripte wastecoats with black buttons
1 flowered wastecoat
4 new osinbrig britches
1 gray hat with a black ribbon
1 gray hat with a blew ribbon
1 dousin black buttons
1 dousin coloured buttons
3 pr gold buttons
3 pr silver buttons
2 pr fine blew stockings
1 pr fine red stockins
4 white handkerchiefs
2 speckled handkerchiefs
 3 pair gloves
1 stuff coat with black buttons
1 cloth coat
1 pr blew plush britches
1 pr serge britches
2 combs
1 pr new shoees
Silk & thred to mend his clothes.

In 1685 Goody Davis taught a dame-school at Jamaica; and in

1687 Rachel Spencer died in Hempstead, and her name was
recorded as that of a schoolmistress. In 1716, at the Court of
Sessions in Westchester, one of the farm-wives, Dame Shaw,
complained that “a travelling woman who came out of ye Jerseys
who kept school at several places in Rye parish, hath left with her a
child eleven months old, for which she desires relief from the parish.”
It is easy to fancy a vague romance through this short record of
the life of this nameless “travelling woman” who, babe in arms,
earned a scanty living by teaching, and who at last abandoned the
school and the child whose birth may, perhaps, have sent her a
nameless wanderer in a strange country,—for “the Jerseys” were far
away from Rye parish in those days.
There was a schoolmistress in Hempstead at a later date. She
was old in 1774. I don’t know her name, but I know of the end of her
days. The vestry allowed her forty shillings, “to be dealt out to her a
little at a time, so as to last her all winter.” She lived through that
luxurious winter, and died in 1775. Her coffin cost twelve shillings,
and Widow Thurston was paid six shillings for digging the grave for
her old crony and gossip. Schoolmistresses were not many on Long
Island,—can we wonder at it? Had this dame been one of the
penniless church-poor in a Dutch community (which Hempstead was
not), she would probably have had forty shillings a month instead of
a winter, and a funeral that would have been not only decent in all
the necessities of a funeral, but a triumph of prodigality in all the
comforts and pleasures of the mortuary accompaniments of the day,
such as wine, rum, beer, cakes, tobacco, and pipes.
The “book-learning” afforded to colonial girls in New York was
certainly very meagre. Mrs. Anne Grant wrote of the first quarter of
the eighteenth century:—
“It was at that time very difficult to procure the means of
instruction in those island districts; female education was, of
consequence, conducted on a very limited scale; girls learned
needlework (in which they were indeed both skilful and
ingenious) from their mothers and aunts; they were taught,
too, at that period to read, in Dutch, the Bible, and a few
Calvinistic tracts of the devotional kind. But in the infancy of
the settlement few girls read English; when they did, they
were thought accomplished; they generally spoke it, however
imperfectly, and few were taught writing.”
William Smith, the historian of New York, writing during the year
1756 of his fellow townswomen, and of education in general in New
York, gives what was doubtless a true picture of the inelegance of
education in New York:—
“There is nothing they [New York women] so generally
neglect as Reading, and indeed all the Arts for the
improvement of the Mind, in which I confess we have set
them the Example. Our Schools are in the Lowest Order, the
Instructors want Instruction, and through a long, shameful
neglect of the Arts and Sciences our Common Speech is very
corrupt, and the Evidences of a Bad Taste both as to thought
and Language are visible in all our Proceedings publick and
private.”
One obstacle to the establishment and success of schools and
education was the hybridization of language. New Yorkers spoke
neither perfect Dutch nor good English. It was difficult in some
townships to gather an English-speaking jury; hence, naturally,
neither tongue could be taught save in the early and simpler stages
of education. It was difficult for those little Dutch-men who heard
Holland-Dutch spoken constantly at home to abandon it entirely and
speak English in the schools. The Flatbush master (himself a
Dutchman, but bound to teach English) invented an ingenious plan
to crowd out the use of Dutch in school. He carried a little metal
token which he gave each day to the first scholar whom he heard
use a Dutch word. That scholar could promptly turn the token over to
any other scholar whom he likewise detected in using Dutch, and he
in turn could do the same. Thus the token passed from hand to hand
through the day; but the unlucky wight who chanced to have
possession of it when the school day was over was soundly
whipped.
In default of “spilling,” as one master wrote in his receipts, and in
which he was somewhat shaky himself, he and all other colonial
teachers took a firm stand on “cyphering.” “The Bible and figgers is
all I want my boys to know,” said one old farmer. When the school
session opened and closed, as we have seen in Flatbush, with
prayer and praise, with catechism every day, and special catechising
twice a week, even “figgers” did not have much of a chance. All the
old Dutch primers that I have seen, the Groot A B C boeks zeer
bekwaam voor de yongekinderen te leeren, contain nothing (besides
the alphabet) but religious sentences, prayers, verses of the Bible,
pious rhymes, etc.; and dingy little books they are, not even up to the
standard of our well-known New England Primer.
Though the Dutch were great printers of horn-books, I do not find
that they were universal users of those quaint little “engines of
learning.” If used in Dutch-American schools, none now survive the
lapse of two centuries; and indeed only one can be found in a
Holland museum. Mr. Tuer, the historian of the horn-book, states that
there is one in the museum at Antwerp, printed by H. Walpot, of
Dordrecht, Netherlands, in 1640; and a beautiful silver-backed Dutch
horn-book in the collection of an English clergyman at Coombe
Place, England; and a few others in public libraries that are probably
Dutch. Dutch artists show, by their frequent representations of horn-
books in paintings of children, that the little a-b-boordje was well
known. In the “Christ blessing Little Children,” by Rembrandt, the
presentment of a child has a horn-book hanging at his side. In
several pictures by Jan Steen, 1626-79, horn-books may be noted;
in one a child has hung his horn-book on a parrot’s perch while he
plays. In 1753 English children used horn-books in New York as in
the other provinces, for they were advertised with Bibles and primers
in the New York newspapers at that time.
Printed arithmetics were rarely used or seen. Schoolmasters
carried with them carefully executed “sum-books” in manuscript,
from which scholars copied the sums and rules into small blank-
books of their own. One, of a Gravesend scholar in 1754, has
evidently served to prove the pupil’s skill both in arithmetic and
penmanship. The book is prefaced by instructive aphorisms, such as
“Carefully mind to mend in every line;” “Game not in school when
you should write.” The wording of the rules is somewhat curious.
One reads:—
“Rule of Bartar, which is for exchanging of ware, One
Commodity for another. This Rule shows the Merchants how
they may Proportion their Goods so that neither of them may
sustain loss. Sum. Two Merchants A. and B. bartar. A. hath
320 Dozen of Candles @ ⁴⁄₆ per Dozen; for which B. giveth
him £30 in Cash and ye Rest in Cotton @ 8d per lb. I demand:
how much Cotton B. must give A. more than the £30 in Cash.”
As commerce increased and many young men sought a seafaring
life, navigation was taught, and advanced mathematics. In 1749 the
notice of a Brooklyn “Philomath” on Nassau Island shows that he
could teach “Arithmetick vulgar and decimal; Geometry plain and
Spherical; Surveying, Navigation in 3 kinds, viz: Plain Mercator and
Great Circle Sailing, Astronomy, and Dialling.” Thus did this
Philomath meet the demand of the day. In 1773 the Flatbush
Grammar School was taught by John Copp, who also took scholar-
boarders, who “have the advantage of being taught geography in the
winter evenings, with many other useful particulars that frequently
occur to the teacher,” which seems to present a rather melancholy
picture when we reflect on the other particulars of good coasting and
skating that then were around Flatbush, on the Steenbakkery for
instance, which, doubtless, would frequently occur on winter
evenings to the scholar-boarder.
 CHAPTER III
WOOING AND WEDDING

The domestic life of the Dutch settlers flowed on in a smooth-

running and rather dull stream, varying little through either honor-
bearing or discreditable incident from day to day. Any turbulence of
dissension or divorce between husband and wife was apparently
little known and certainly little noted. Occasionally an entry which
tells of temporary division or infelicity can be unearthed from the
dingy pages of some old court-record, thereby disclosing a scene
and actors so remote, so shadowy, so dimmed with the dust of
centuries, that the incident often bears no semblance of having
happened to real living folk, but seems rather to pertain to a group of
inanimate puppets. One of these featureless, colorless, stiff Dutch
marionettes is Anneke, the daughter of boisterous old Domine
Schaets, the first minister at Fort Orange. A fleeting glimpse of her
marital infelicity is disclosed through the record of her presence in
Albany under the shadow of some unexplained and now forgotten
scandal. To satisfy her father’s virtuous and severe congregation,
she refrained from contaminating attendance at Communion. The
domine resented this condition of affairs, and refused to appear
before the Consistory though summoned four times by the bode. He
persisted in irritatingly “ripping up new differences and offences;” and
he disregarded with equal scorn the summons of a magistrate to
appear before the Court; and he was therefore suspended from his
clerical office. All was at last “arranged in love and friendship,”
leaving out the dispute about “Universal Grace,” which I suppose
could not be settled; but daughter Anneke was ordered off to New
York to her husband, “with a letter of recommendation; and as she
was so headstrong, and would not depart without the Sheriff’s and
Constable’s interference, her disobedience was annexed to the
letter.” It is pleasing to know, from the record of an “Extraordinary
Court holden in Albany” a month later,—in July, 1681,—of a very
satisfactory result in the affairs of the young couple.
“Tho: Davidtse promisses to conduct himself well and
honorably towards his wife Anneke Schaets, to Love and
never neglect her, but faithfully and properly to maintain and
support her with her children according to his means, hereby
making null and void all questions that have occurred and
transpired between them both, never to repeat them, but are
entirely reconciled: and for better assurance of his real
Intention and good Resolution to observe the same, he
requests that two good men be named to oversee his conduct
at New York towards his said wife, being entirely disposed
and inclined to live honorably and well with her as a Christian
man ought, subjecting himself willingly to the rule and censure
of the said men. On the other hand his wife Anneke Schaets,
promisses also to conduct herself quietly and well and to
accompany him to New York with her children and property,
not to leave him any more, but to serve and help him and with
him to share the sweets and the sours as becomes a
Christian spouse: Requesting all differences which had ever
existed between them both may be hereby quashed and
brought no more to light or cast up, as she on her side is
heartily disposed to. Their Worship of the Court Recommend
parties on both Sides to observe strictly their Reconciliation
now made, and the gentleman at New York will be informed
that the matter is so far arranged.”
We can certainly add the profound hope, after all this quarrelling
and making up, after all those good promises, that Anneke’s home
was no longer “unregulated and poorly kept,” as was told of her by
the Labadist travellers during their visit to Albany at that time. The
appointing of “two good men” as arbitrators or overseers of conduct
was very usual in such cases; thereby public adjustment in open
court of such quarrels was avoided.
Tender parents could not unduly shelter a daughter who had left
her husband’s bed and board. He could promptly apply to the court
for an order for her return to him, and an injunction to her parents