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The Davenport Homestead Museum stood outside the town of Rockport, Massachusetts, and most days anyone could drop in and get a taste of what it was like to live in one of the more racially-integrated villages in the American Revolution. Most days were, as a result, incredibly busy, often full of schoolchildren of varying ages accompanied by teachers and tour guides.
On major holidays, of course, they’d shut the roads and give everyone a few days off. Some security would still remain, of course, just enough to discourage hooligans from sneaking in, but they weren’t enough to keep a couple of highly-trained Assassins out. They hadn’t been before, when Desmond and his cell came to dig up the Grand Temple key, and despite beefing up their security, it still wasn’t enough to keep Edward and Mary out.
“Can’t believe that pizza delivery trick worked,” Edward said, gently stepping over unconscious, snoring guards on his way up to the manor. He bent down and snagged some cash off one of them—there was a boba tea place on the way back to Capulet he wanted to try out. “You’d think they’d check their food.”
“To be fair, who would even think there was anything worth stealing here?” Mary said, taking the Pizza Hut cap off and shaking out her hair.
“Templars,” said Edward.
“Yet they’ve never figured out where the lever is,” said Mary, walking up the hill. She stopped at the entrance, then turned back to him, eyes full of concern. He loved her, truly, she was one of his closest and dearest friends, but he looked away from her concern so she wouldn’t see him bristling at it. “Will you be all right if you walk into this? Might spin your head right ‘round.”
“You said that about that—the statue of the Sage,” said Edward. “Yet my head’s still on straight. Anyway, I ought to ask you that: you skipped nearly three centuries to get here, while I just spent time in a very different realm.”
“I’m the one who drove us here,” said Mary, knocking her knuckles against his shoulder. “So that question’s long since moot.”
“Oh, right, I’d blocked that out of my memory since we almost careened off the road,” said Edward, earning another, slightly harder knock to the shoulder. “I’m fine, Mary. I’ve never even been here, anyway.”
“This was your grandson’s home, though,” said Mary.
Edward said nothing, because—she had a point. This was Connor’s home, once upon a time. This whole village had been under his care, and it had thrived well past the Assassins’ time here, although no one seemed to remember it now. If he stepped inside, he’d be walking in his grandson’s footsteps, and who knew what he’d find waiting for him at the end of it.
He breathed out. “I have to do this,” he said.
“Then I do too,” said Mary, and opened the door.
Pieces of Mohawk art lined the walls, paired with plaques that told of their origins. One seemed particularly old and well-cared for, with a plaque that dated it back to the American Revolution. Framed paintings hung alongside them, depicting the most notable inhabitants of the village. The first face to greet Edward and Mary was Connor’s—he had dark eyes, dark hair tied back, brown skin, and, ah yes, the Kenway nose and mouth. This painting had been done when he was older than Mary was—forty-five, perhaps, if Edward were to guess from the lines on his face, the few streaks of gray in his hair.
He stood next to the homestead’s flag, clearly not quite comfortable in his fine clothes. Edward couldn’t help a smile. In that, they were very similar.
Mary said, “He’s got your nose. See, it hasn’t healed quite right either.”
“Well, that bit’s not my fault, it’s almost certainly some Templar’s,” said Edward, then winced as he remembered that his own son was a Templar.
Mary didn’t comment on the wince, but her hand rested on his elbow and she tugged him along with her, towards the candelabra. “You do the honors,” she said. “Since he was your grandson.”
He sighed, but pulled the lever downward. The secret door in front of them groaned and creaked open, and then—got stuck halfway through. He had to shove it open the rest of the way. “Bloody miracle it even opened at all, I suppose,” said Edward. “Wonder when it was last opened.”
“Forever ago, I’d imagine,” said Mary, turning on her flashlight. Edward didn’t bother with one—one of the nicer things about being a half-demon now was that he could see clearly in the dark. He led the way, careful where he stepped, and Mary followed just behind him, the beam held high.
She was not far off in her guess. Edward coughed as he passed through a cobweb, then coughed against as the accumulated dust of a century invaded his nostrils. He pulled up the collar of his shirt to try and block against it, and said, “Fuck’s sake, they could at least clean this place up a few times a year.”
“Can’t do much cleaning,” said Mary, in between fits of coughing, “if you don’t even know it exists. Damn, nobody’s been down here for ages.”
“Do you think there’s an armor that can deflect bullets just waiting for us down here?” Edward asked.
“We ain’t that lucky,” said Mary, sweeping the beam of light across the room. Down here was a practice dummy, long since lost its stuffing, some writings on the wall where someone had almost certainly hung up Templar portraits, a scattered amount of broken weapons lying around the floor, some armors and clothes on mannequins—
“Hey,” said Edward, “Mary, hey, look—were those mine?” The coat looked quite fine, a deep red in the harsh beam of Mary’s flashlight, and there were stockings like you’d expect to see on a fussy little nobleman. Even a cravat. On the stump of the mannequin’s neck was a tricorner hat with white feathers poking out. “I don’t—I don’t remember this.”
“I remember seeing you wear something like this a few times,” said Mary. “You said you’d found it on some island. Apparently it belonged to Captain Morgan before you claimed it for your own use—you said you cut a fine figure in it.” She drew closer, and hesitantly ran a finger along a seam. “I’m surprised it’s still holding together after all this time,” she said.
He couldn’t remember, try as he might. His memory had been ripped apart, and while he’d managed to put most of it back together, there were times like this that all he had was a feeling. Other times he didn’t even have that, just the reassurance from Mary or Anne or Dante that he’d done this, said that, had this, wrote that. Sometimes he wondered if he could still lay claim to his own name, or if Edward Kenway had died in the dark and he was little more than the shattered remnants, a ghost that wore his face. He thought that less often these days, but it bubbled to the surface now.
“I still don’t remember it,” he said, softly.
“Maybe we can take it back, see it restored,” said Mary. “Even if it doesn’t help jog your memory, it’s a shame to leave it here gathering dust.”
A shame to leave it down here, when it could do a world of good in the light. Edward touched one of its sleeves, trailed his finger down a seam, and thought of how it stood out even in the darkness, a slash of bright red. It had been years since he wore something that stood out like this. How would it feel on his skin now? Would it slide smoothly over his arms or would it hang off his shoulders, as if he was a scarecrow in an ill-fitting jacket?
“We could,” he said, hesitantly.
Mary stepped forward and started carefully taking it off the mannequin. “Go look around,” she said, “might be there’s something else of interest around here, and we don’t exactly have all night.”
Right, because the drugs only worked for so long. Edward left her to it, and went to what once must’ve been the armory, expecting to see nothing there.
Instead: some sort of package that clearly contained a bow. It’d need some repairs and some care, god knew how long it had been down here, but someone had clearly wrapped it up meaning for it to be discovered and used one day. Edward undid the twine that held the package wrapped up, then peeled back flaps of leather to find a bow with fine detailing along the curve, its bowstring wrapped around it, four leather-bound journals, and a letter.
To whosoever finds this room, the first line read, in a hand steady enough to be legible, with only the slightest shake, as though whoever wrote it knew that their time was soon coming to an end.
“Mary,” Edward called. “Come in here, you need to see this.”
“Coming, coming,” said Mary, folding up the outfit into a bag and coming over. The hat’s feathers peeked out of the bag’s opening, and she leaned over. “It’s your grandson,” she said, softly.
Edward’s breath caught on a hook in his throat. “Oh,” he said, and read on:
I am writing this as I near the end of my life. When I finish this letter, I do not doubt that my spirit will return to whence it came, and join my ancestors there, but what comes after that I do not know. No one does. Yet there is still much work left to be done, and there always will be, for there will always be those who have so little faith in humanity that they wish to steer us to what they view as the correct path, as though humanity as a collective is little more than cattle to drive into a pen.
When I was younger—much, much younger, so much younger than my youngest daughter, now a Mentor in her own right—I had believed that if I fought hard enough, if I made enough allies in high enough places, then justice would be done in my lifetime, and we would see a new country born that could live up to those higher ideals. But justice and freedom for all, I know, can never be achieved in one lifetime no matter how you try. You cannot change the minds of so many people in just one short life, just as you cannot change the course of a river in one life.
But I have learned, in my time, that it matters that you try anyway. One candle in the winter darkness may not be much, but it is a light, and you stand a better chance of coming home than with no light at all. It still matters that you fight against the dark with all you have, and when you have nothing left, you pass on the flame to someone else, in the hope that they will carry it to the end of the road.
I have reached the end of my road. Hope has walked by my side this entire time, and although at times it took me to places I did not wish to go, I have no regrets. My time is done, though, and it is time for me to pass this hope to someone else. Remember: should all insist that you turn back, that there is no sense to continuing on down this road, that it is easier to simply compromise with the changing times, you must carry on. May these journals of mine, and may this bow that once served me well, help you light your way.
And perhaps one day, I will see you at the end of your road, and guide you safely home.
Yours,
Ratonhnhaké:ton.
“He’s a good lad,” Mary said, softly. “Kind. Stubborn as his grandfather.”
“I wish I’d met him,” said Edward, folding the letter up carefully, so damn carefully. He picked the bow up, traced fingers over the intricate carvings, and said, “Been a long time since I used the bow. I may as well refresh my memory on it.” He blinked, the carvings beginning to blur in his vision, and reached up a hand to wipe at his eyes.
Mary placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezed three times. He exhaled, then carefully wrapped the package back up—it would be easier to transport as one package instead of separate items. This he held close to his chest, more careful and more reverent than he would’ve been if it were a chest full of gold, or a bag of precious jewels.
They left everything else there, although Mary made sure to text Desmond so he knew about what was waiting for him in the manor’s secret room. “Seems like he made a few adjustments to the coat,” she said, as they trudged back down the hill. She gathered her hair back up under the Pizza Hut cap, brushed dust off her shirt.
“He was taller than I was, he’d have needed to anyway,” said Edward. “I’ll have it restored and tailored for me once we get back.”
“Can I at least keep the hat,” said Mary.
“No, I like the hat,” said Edward. “Get your own, there’s plenty of hats like this at Party City.” He leaned against her anyway as they walked, and together they slipped past the boundaries of the homestead.
They were silent as they pulled away from the homestead, with music from Edward’s phone filling the air in the car. The only words he said as they pulled into the parking lot of the boba tea place were, “Just the normal amount of sugar, and tell ‘em I want honey oolong.”
He unwrapped the package while she was out, and picked a journal at random. He turned on the overhead light and flipped to the first page. There is a tentative peace between the British and the rebels now in place, Connor had written, yet there is still much work to be done. The Templars’ influence has waned with Charles Lee’s death, and my father’s before him, but that does not mean we can rest easy. Today I ride to speak with Ben Tallmadge, for he has asked me to enact a rescue of a valuable agent of the Culper Ring that he only refers to as “a 355”—a woman, in his code. He believes that she has fallen into British hands and worries for her safety at the hands of disgruntled Loyalists…
“Thrilling read there, huh,” said Mary, getting into the driver’s seat. Edward shut the journal, then wrapped it back up again with the other journals, this time setting the bow by his foot on the car floor. She handed him his drink, and he took a sip. “From what your descendant says, he didn’t have an easy life.”
“Like you said, no one honest ever has an easy life,” said Edward, thinking of Haytham’s journal, the final entries of a man who’d come to think that he might never really know what it was like to see some measure of peace. Whatever else his son had done, it still broke Edward’s heart to read it, to know Haytham’s sorry fate, to know what Connor had to do. It had been the right thing to do. He didn’t blame him, couldn’t.
But that it had been necessary at all…
I’m sorry I wasn’t there.
“Still,” he said, out loud, “this letter he wrote—he had a family that he loved, he had a village he was in charge of, he had a good, long life, despite it all. And he found a little peace, at the end, or else he might not have been so sanguine writing this letter.”
“I’m glad for him,” she said. “And who knows, maybe if he got to pull it off, finding that peace, you might too.”
He would’ve brushed that off a year ago, told her it had been too long and he’d changed too much to ever know that kind of peace in himself. He was still tempted to say as much even now, but he looked down at the bow leaning next to his leg, and thought of Connor, standing next to the homestead’s flag. Despite how stiff and uncomfortable he looked in the finer, more mayoral clothes he’d been wearing in that painting, the small smile on his face had looked real. He’d been happy there.
Maybe Edward could catch a hold of something close to what Connor had found. That would be nice.
“I hope so,” he said, and leaned back against the headrest as they pulled out of the parking lot.
He touched the bow beside his leg, and smiled.