An Elaborated Introduction

Chapter One: An Elaborated Introduction

In 1607, my husband had journeyed from one world to the next in search of riches beyond measure. As governor, it had been easy for him to obtain fruits of the land due to his political influences; he had been given the permission to create a charter and had enough funds to go on expeditions whenever he thought it had been fit. However, despite my lover's sense of finance, his many explorations had been fruitless. While Cortez found precious metals and Pizarro found valuable gems, my husband could never discover the land's hidden riches. Although I had tried to persuade him that not all treasure was silver and gold, he refused to accept my word. I always had let it slide because he and I were different as day and night, and our opinions were so calloused that it was always a surprise to others that we had married each other at all.

My name is Rita Ratcliffe. Although that may not mean much to anyone who lived outside of London, England, it explained a lot to anybody who was native to England. My entire life had revolved around my husband's accomplishments: if his reputation was in good standing then so was mine. If he was despised by all, then so was I. However, things had changed after my husband, John Ratcliffe, attacked the natives from the Powhatan Tribe. John had gone from being a well-respected governor to one racist, sexist, savage man whose only love in the world was gold (and that was as close to the truth as it ever came).

John Ratcliffe was the same man who had been on an expedition to search for gold when his men had come across the lovely Indian princess, Pocahontas. John had been infamous for having shot his captain, John Smith, whilst he was intending to kill Pocahontas's father, Powhatan himself. After Ratcliffe (nobody except me referred to him by his first name) returned to London, it was rumored that his men had created a mutiny and turned on him on the last second. Ratcliffe was right about that. John Smith had convinced the men that Ratcliffe had lied to them since they had left London.

Ratcliffe had them believe that the point of the voyage was out of prosperity, freedom, and the journey of their lives"only exploration in mind. He hadn't informed them that he intended to keep the gold for himself and take all the credit. However, despite the truth, King James I had believed his governor's story over Captain Smith's so-called fairytale and had the mutinous sailors hanged. John Smith was captured, beheaded, and hanged for 'treason'.

Nobody had known the truth except me.

What good came out of it was that my husband hadn't intended to take hold of my reputation anymore. John knew that if I had spilled the truth, the king would have had his head on a silver platter within seconds: lying to the king was just as treacherous as creating a mutiny.

John Ratcliffe and I had never seen eye to eye on the topic of savages, or what he called 'savages'. It was an often disagreement between us; and although he hadn't appreciated my openness for such a declaration, I was never afraid to stand up for my beliefs. Savages, or what I refer to as the Natives, were any foreign people that were met during expeditions to the 'New Worlds'. In this case, the savages that he had hated were the people who had lived among Pocahontas. Ratcliffe had seen them as uncivilized. He had believed that they were ravenous, filthy animals; I had always believed that they were exotically different with a touch of culture and a taste of life. John had assumed that I was never part of the white supremacy due to my compassion for the Natives. He and the rest of society believed that I didn't fit among the other settlers. I shared their opinion, though with pride instead of disgust.

While they had been compliant with cutting down the forests, digging up the earth, and invading the Natives' land, I had felt appalled at such an intrusion. The Natives were not animals. And even then, I felt that such destruction of a beautiful landscape was harmful to the ecosystem. I felt for the animals who had lost their homes by human greed. John believed that I was overly sensitive about the entire subject.

His greed surpassed any love that he would hold for me. Although he would never admit it, I knew so deep down; he had a lust for gold. It wasn't just a suspicion. His own body would react to it as if he was aroused. And I knew that he enjoyed the attention of other women. While we were not compatible, I had a suspicion that he wanted to be with the women who adored his riches and his 'ambition'. His ambition was more for selfish gain than to improve the lives of savages around the world. I thought that would be the last thing that John would ever want to do: improve someone's life before his own needs were satisfied.

I was an explorer, which aroused a lot of disagreement and disapproval among the British civilians. It was unheard of for a woman to venture on her own around foreign parts of the world; it was more so if she enjoyed venturing solo. John had found my adventurous personality to be quite amusing, though he was overly protective...jealous.

I had wanted to explore the Yellowstone, which would have been entirely out of the question for anyone else.

Yellowstone was a large woodland, covered with many pine trees. As one ventured through the forest, the light would peek through only parts of the canopy above, creating small rays of sunshine on the pallets of rock that lined the entire island like a wall. The sunshine would appear brightest on the rock, which turned the white rock a pale yellow. Hence, Yellowstone. Although the land was beautiful and the possibilities of riches were extremely high, the adventurers of England hesitated to journey through such a dark forest because of the casualty rates. Many wanderers had gone missing. They hadn't returned from an expedition and were assumed dead. Five search parties had entered, none had ever come back.

Coward by heart, John would never venture forth into the forest. It was rumored by ignorant scholars that the bodies that could have been identified as bodies were mauled by a large pack of 42 wolves, or the Natives that lived off the land were cannibalistic. Or, if I considered superstition, it was a possibility that the pack that attacked the explorers were one pack of werewolves: both man and beast. 42 wolves had seemed a bit off the scale to me, and blood thirsty cannibals who lived in the same domain seemed a bit impossible, but I entertained both theories with some amusement. Even the theory about werewolves seemed to just inspire awe.

The superstition that a werewolf actually existed amused me to some degree because I had once dreamed of becoming such a beast. It was theorized that if Lycanthropy was given as a blessing either by request or by birth, the Lycan's transformation would be more wolfish: in other words, more beautiful and animal-like. If the Lycan was infected by the curse by an attack or given through spite, he would transform into a werewolf that was more man than wolf: a more unattractive version of Lycanthropy.

The superstition about werewolves and silver was that a werewolf would only be killed by silver if it entered the blood stream: a silver bullet would do this, or a silver stake. Wearing silver would burn and hurt, but wouldn't kill him. And the moon...a human would transform during a full moon whether it would be a blessing or a curse. If it was a blessing, the werewolf could transform at will without the full moon. If it was a curse, it would only be during the full moon.

If the Lycanthropy was a blessing then the werewolf would recognize its cohorts during the transformation during the full moon (and the other transformations). If it was a curse then the werewolf would kill anything in its path during the full moon, whether it would be a friend or stranger.

If Lycanthropy was a blessing then animals (mostly predatory) would be comfortable around him, like an animal kin. If it was a curse, any animal would be uneasy around it: horses would panic, dogs would attack, birds would start squawking, etc.

Obviously, I was fascinated by werewolves, and this was one of the reasons why I wanted to explore Yellowstone; another was to stop my husband from destroying a beautiful landmark. He had unearthed so many 'New Worlds' and had come out empty-handed. I feared that he would do the same with my one place that I wanted to keep untouched.

I felt that I had more connection with the animals and the 'savages' than I did with my own kin. On an explorer's agenda, this was beneficial to my mission for I loved the world; and for the most part, the world loved me back. John and I were separate people. We could never share a true love without arguing about who was right and who was wrong. I supposed that on some level, both of us were wrong about the other, and that seemed the most basic factual conclusion from what happened to us in Yellowstone.

My name is Rita Ratcliffe, and I am the reason why my husband is dead.