And the way I dreamt a dream dear reader, a dream most strange.
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And in this peculiar vision, I was walking peacefully in grassy paddocks not far from the train station I suppose. I notice animals grazing: horses, sheep and oxen too. I see crops of corn and other such things growing prodigiously.
But there are none of the houses I know, no train line or any indication of modernity; instead, there are Cedar trees and a gentle undulation; this is a farm I think, a beautiful farm. And there is an absence of people - save for the woman, the one woman now walking toward me now...
“Timothy, you’ve finally come to say hello my boy.”
And she knows me somehow. She has deep, dark eyes and a shock of black, black hair.
“I’ve seen you here before my boy, I’ve seen you down here, seen you up on the High Street too, seen you all about here, my boy.”
She is a small and wiry woman, beautiful and strong. She looks happy, yet wayworn, dangerous, yet caring - and she says to me now, as the wind fills her hair:
“My name is Molly Morgan, and this is my land, my home.”
And dreams are so strange for I am in two places at once: I am among the same grassy fields, and tracks that I knew as a child, the same smells and atmosphere pervade my senses - yet I also know that this is 1820, and that this is the legendary Molly Morgan standing here before me!
I am walking with her now, through tracks in the grass, worn passages in the soft soil. And I’m incredulous that she walked here in these same places as me and us, that she walks here still...
“Go on,” I say, “I’ll follow thee,” for I know not what else to say to ghosts...
She tells me how she came here, on those brutal ships: chained and starving - told me of her wrangles and woes - how now she feels like this is where she was meant to be.
She points to where I will live, tells me that on that spot will be my house; she tells me of my friends and neighbours, says she knows them too and has seen them come and go across the years. She glides on towards the bullock track now; tells me of the troubles of the town, how hard it is for some, and how she tries to help where she can.
We arrive on the track, on the High Street. And I stand with her there, looking east, on my street, our street, with Molly Morgan. She points to her hut where the Royal Hotel and Horseshoe Bend will be. She says this will make a fine street, a great street.
She tells me how she loves it all so much, the street and the river, the fields and the soil, the people - she tells me that she wants us to cherish it, she asks me to remind us all to care for it, for this place, for each other... And I tell her I will, I will. And so it goes.