His wife doesn't come for him in the night as expected as her sons have come down with the plague, so he dies in a storm. Joss' hands are nailed to the man's mine stowes. He eventually attempts murder to rob a man, but the man survives.
Joss finally agrees but begins demanding high payments for his services, making him a despised man in town. Anna asks her father to help dig the graves as the sexton has died, and Michael Mompellion is exhausted from adding this to all his other duties. Anna's stepmother, Aphra, is highly superstitious and, like Anna's father Joss, expresses contempt toward the Mompellions. Superstitions continue to escalate as many claim they have seen Anys' ghost and pay her to instruct them how to prevent sickness. Michael worked on her father's estate and becomes her friend, then husband. Pregnant and afraid, she used a hot poker to destroy the unborn child but also destroyed her womb and so can't have children. Elinor shares how she ran off with a young man who abandoned her. She tries using opium to numb her pain but decides against continuing the drug after Elinor shares her history and addiction to poppies.
At times, Anna feels jealousy about the love that exists between Elinor and Michael as she is so lonely with all her loved ones dead. Anna gets closer to Elinor, who she views as a friend, teacher and mother-figure. Anna had always admired these women, and soon she and Elinor begin studying their herbs and medical books to aid the sick and strengthen the healthy. The women are brutally murdered by a mob. Some villagers turn to superstition and blame the plague on Mem and Anys Gowdie, midwives and herb specialists. Michael and his wife, Elinor, spend most of their time tending to the sick and praying with the dying. Recognizing this as a plague, the pastor, Michael Mompellion, asks the villagers to take an oath agreeing to quarantine the town to prevent the spread of the disease. He dies soon after the bolts of cloth arrive, and his death is quickly followed by those of Anna's sons and neighbors. The plague begins when she takes in a lodger, who has cloth imported from London for his tailoring. Anna works as a maid at the rectory and occasionally at the local estate, Bradford Hall. Her husband, Sam, had died in a mining accident. The story is told through the eyes of a young maid, Anna Frith, as she witnesses the disintegration of her small community as death takes its toll on every family, including her own.īefore the plague starts, Anna is a young widow with two small boys. When a plague strikes the village, residents make the extraordinary choice, led by a young priest, to quarantine themselves to prevent further spread of the disease. Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague is a fictional portrayal of actual events that occurred in the small English village of Eyam in 1666.
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