"Our History" Trivia Quiz

Answer: Boat

In September 1702, Sarah Westcott travels by boat anticipating a swift arrival in the new island hamlet of Widow's Bay. Expected to wed the founder of the village, she looks forward to becoming Mrs. Richard Warren in due time. She reaches land at a fortunate time, missing the dense fog, and hopes into a horse-drawn carriage bound for the church. The town is quaint enough on first glance, but clearly has its concerns; she passes along the main road and peers into the houses, finding one containing a sick man, racked with fever.

Much to the locals' surprise, Sarah arrived in Widow's Bay alone, having resigned to the life of a spinster. She asks if Richard Warren is a man of good repute, but doesn't seem to get an answer. Before long, Pastor Collins welcomes her and asks her to come to him if she has any problems.

Answer: A brooch

Sarah and Richard are wed in short order, and Pastor Collins is kind to let Richard in on the vows, the founder having written them himself (though Collins refers to them as 'unique'). And they are certainly unique and somewhat elaborate, almost as though her obligations extended far past the bonds of marriage.

That night, Sarah would meet Thomas, John, Cromwell, Holyoak, and Francis (whose finger was lost in a wagon wheel), all of whom would be considered her children to mind. As a gift, Sarah would bestow a brooch unto Francis' doll, a keepsake that once belonged to her mother. The other kids ask if they will be receiving gifts as well. Fortunately, the awkward circumstance is interrupted by the early tolling of a bell from the village church. Richard departs immediately, blaming his work and requesting that Sarah put the children to bed.

Answer: A plague of illness

After writing in her journal, Sarah hears sounds coming from downstairs and she grabs a candle to investigate. It's in one of the sitting rooms that she finds Richard, seated at the table in a fugue state. Richard's hand is bleeding, and the capsule held around his neck on a chain is open in front of him. He tells Sarah to leave him be before resuming his activity.

The following morning, Sarah watches as the locals wheel a body into the local cemetery. Inquiring further, she's told that there is a plague upon the village; a madness comes upon the infected. The town's physician is able to give patients something to calm them, but nothing will stop the death. Richard, she's told, advises that the bad times will end eventually. In the evening, Richard asserts that there are three new infected in the village, bringing them to a total of twenty since the fog rolled in.

Answer: The dining room

Sarah overhears the conversations that Richard has with his trusted locals and learns that while she and others are being told not to worry about the alleged mania gripping Widow's Bay, some of the afflicted are driven to brutally kill their families. It appears to be getting worse. Richard asks Sarah to leave for bed in spite of not finishing cleaning, but as she departs, she overhears Richard being asked about the pendant around his neck. It's cause, enough, for him to lash out, beating his guest senseless with his own walking cane.

Sarah appears not to have slept the night; she rises to find the bedroom door open and, when she heads downstairs, she finds no sight of the brutal fight that occurred...at least until she sees the state of the kitchen. Setting to work tidying, she finds something odd... a crawlspace beneath the floorboards. And inside she finds the bloodied staff her husband wielded the night before.

Answer: Leave her door unlocked

Sarah visits Pastor Collins for advice and admits that while her days were sorrowful before arriving in Widow's Bay, she lives in terror now. She reveals the murder and the tunnel beneath the house, but the pastor is unflinching when he calmly says there is an evil about the town. He fears that the devil, himself, has chosen Richard for communion. Richard's last wife is amongst those who went missing.

Pastor Collins suggests that there was a reason Sarah was brought to the island, and that was decided by God, who required something of her. The pastor asks her, when she goes to bed in the evening, to leave the front door unlatched. In the dead of night, he and other locals will make a visit and to what must be done.

At the dinner table that night, Richard would lament the burdens of leading the town, acknowledging that he's known about the townspeoples' plot against him. He asks her, once again, to send the children to bed. In doing this, Sarah lags behind and unlatches the door.

Answer: No

In the middle of the night, while Sarah tries to sleep, she's alerted by the sound of someone entering the house and coming into her room. Before long, a dark-cloaked individual stands over the bed and raises a blade overhead, preparing to stab downward (almost into Sarah before she makes a motion for her husband laying next to her). She tries to remain calm in this but as the intruder makes his first stabs, she races out of the room and down the stairs.

All falls silent in due time until someone makes their way down after her. To her shock, it's the cloaked man who's tossed down the stairs. Richard, clearly worse for wear, reminds Sarah not to leave the house for her own safety. He will protect them, he says. In the meantime, she should return to their bed to pray

Answer: A cellar door

Sarah's time in the house is fraught with tension. As she heads downstairs in the morning she finds that the floor hasn't been cleaned of blood and, worse, the windows are boarded shut and the door is chained from the outside. She moves the dining room table aside and descends into the tunnel beneath the house, committed to investigating the truth. What she finds is concerning and perplexing.

The deeper she goes, the darker and larger the tunnels seem to get. And that's when she locates the wooden door.

Inside, all she appears to find is a chair seated directly in front of a closed cellar door.

Answer: Poison

Sarah manages to escape the house by finding a way through the tunnels and climbing out through the town well, and when she does she rushes to the church to inform Pastor Collins who, at the time, is speaking to a handful of trustworthy locals. She decries her husband for not necessarily consorting with the devil, but being the devil himself. After all, he survived being stabbed multiple times. She points them to the well and recommends sending ten strong men to kill Richard.

And fortunately, Pastor Collins has been thinking about Sarah. A merchant vessel expected to depart in the evening has room for her on it. But in the meantime, they need her help. They hand her a small vial of poison and ask her to place it in Richard's drink, guilting her by claiming that the burden is on her to protect her newly-met children.

That afternoon, Sarah writes what will be the final entry in her journal (to be read centuries later by the locals) only to be stopped by her husband. He asks to read the book and departs with it. On her last evening in Widow's Bay, Sarah pours the poison into her husband's cup and serves it to him with brandy, offering it while he reads her journal. Ironically, he feels he needs to be of clear mind.

Answer: No

Sarah sends the children to bed and reminds Richard that they have been married for days without having the chance to know each other intimately. This plan seems to work quite well; Richard even gets seduced into having a sip of his brandy. The problem is that he wordlessly tries to get Sarah to imbibe as well, and she unceremoniously spits it back into the glass. Realizing that she's with the townsfolk he motions to strangle her to death, but this attack is foiled when his eldest son knocks him out from behind, revenge for killing his mother.

As Sarah and the children run from the house to the merchant vessel on the shore, the townsfolk converge on the house. The family passes them by and reaches the dock to find the boat has already departed. It doesn't stop their escape attempt, however; they get into a rowboat and prepare to leave, even as a local, afflicted by the island's influence, attempts to stop them. Sarah knocks her out with an oar and joins the kids to paddle away.

Answer: Wyck

Richard awakens bound and already prepared to be dealt with by the townspeople. While Pastor Collins makes a motion for the capsule around Richard's neck, Richard doesn't let him take it, claiming that the island doesn't want him to have it. It leads them to believe that he's certainly made a deal with the devil, even if he claims that it's actually their god. The group carries him to a coffin and places him inside while he pleas for his freedom. After all, he saved the village in their first year after he ate the mushrooms in the woods. It was through those that the island spoke to him.

Before they seal Richard in the box and bury him, he leaves them with one reminder: they must sacrifice to the island, blood for blood, to ensure their welfare. It's the only way to fulfill the pact or, else, the plague will never stop and the horror will never cease. Pastor Collins informs him that his children will be safe because Sarah is taking them off the island, but Richard, mad with terror, realizes this will kill them all.

In the present day, Wyck arrives at the historic cemetery, digs down, and finally reaches Richard Warren's coffin.