Lord John Grey has time to think on his way back to Spanish Town in A Plague of Zombies Section 12. He’s already able to poke holes in Mrs. Abernathy’s story.
John is focused on how to stop the uprising. To do that, he needed to see if the maroons were theones murdering people. Now that he’s started to rule that out, he can put the focus on taking down the rebellion.
Breaking down A Plague of Zombies Section 12
It took two days for Lord John Grey to get back to Spanish Town. This gave John time to think about things.
John had listened to stories that Mrs. Abernathy had told him. One of those was that the maroons had killed her husband. She claimed to head to the spring and hide there from the maroons to save her life, and she claimed to almost freeze to death while doing it.
Well, John poked a hole in that story. Before he left Rose Hall, he saw Geillis swimming in the spring. Did she realize that he was there still or not? That remains to be seen. It is possible that she thought she could seduce him, but it’s also possible that she was completely oblivious or didn’t care.
What John has realized is that Mrs. Abernathy killed her husband. I don’t think that surprises any of us considering we know she’s killed two husbands already. John is sure there wasn’t an attack on Rose Hall.
Will John do anything about it? It doesn’t seem so. His focus is on the maroons and the rebellion. That makes sense considering how Mrs. Abernathy is still around years later.
Could this chapter be used in a TV series adaptation?
I think this chapter would have to play out in real time instead of being caught up on the events as John gets back to Spanish Town. We need to see Mrs. Abernathy explain the story. I could even see it working with a depiction of the events that she’s sharing. Then we could see her swimming in the spring and for John to realize what it means.
It also wouldn’t work with him internalizing the thoughts about it not being a maroon attack. He needs to be able to talk to someone like Tom about that, which would mean shifting the chapter a little if A Plague of Zombies was every developed.
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