The Best Laid Plans (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

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There had been a huge storm the previous night, and so Sam and Polly had been expecting some damage. But what they were seeing now was far worse than they had imagined. The heavy rain had caused the river in front of their home to completely overflow, so half of their property was now completely submerged in water.

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The deluge had also triggered a rock slide from one side of the mountain slopes behind them. So there were also rocks and mud and entire trees that were now kind of littering their yard and adjacent fields. Sam saw, luckily, the slide had missed their house in the barn where they kept their livestock. But only barely.

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And there was damage to those structures from the storm itself that he would have to repair. So Sam began calculating how much time and money it was going to take to clean all this up. And next to him, he heard Polly kind of mumble to herself that this had all been a really bad idea. Sam sighed because he knew that Polly was referring to their decision to move to the Notch in the first place.

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And right now, staring at all this awful destruction right in front of him, he had to agree with her. This might have been a terrible idea. So up until about a year ago, Sam and Polly and their five kids had lived on a farm about 20 miles away from where they were right now. And it had been a very quiet, cozy life.

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But Sam had always had this feeling that he wanted to do something more exciting than just be a regular old farmer. And with this house in the notch, he'd seen an opportunity for adventure and also an opportunity to make some money. So in this part of the White Mountain Range, there was a 12 mile long road that cut through the range from one side to the other.

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But Sam knew he still had a lot to do before the notch house became some kind of artist's retreat. And now, with this extensive damage from the most recent storm, he had even more things to fix, which he also had to admit was actually the least of his problems.

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because as he and his wife Polly looked around at the aftermath of the storm, he knew, really, he was lucky that their house was even still standing, and that he and his family were even still alive. I mean, that storm was catastrophic. And as Sam thought about how close they'd come to death, his heart began to race.

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I mean, he wondered if Paulie was right and they should really at this point just pack the family up and go back to simple farming because it was safer. But leaving meant sort of admitting failure. His big dream would be over. There would be no artist's retreat, no tourist mecca. You know, he would not be some creative benefactor. He'd just be a farmer.

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So he took a deep breath and then he asked his wife to please give this place one more chance. He promised he would do everything he possibly could to not just repair the property, but also make it safe and secure so it could withstand whatever the mountain threw at them. And Polly hesitated, but ultimately she believed in her husband and she nodded in agreement.

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For the next two months, Sam and his two hired workers worked practically around the clock repairing the damage from the storm. They fixed up windows and shingles and cleared away all the debris, which took forever. And then once all the repairs were done, Sam continued working, but now he focused on improving the property.

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It's like, if you prepared this house for a storm and clearly it was able to withstand the storm, why did the Willys leave? As Edward continued to walk around the house, he saw that the Willy's Bible was still lying on the kitchen table wide open. And when he leaned over and read the passage that was on the page, He couldn't help but, you know, kind of shiver when he saw what it said.

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It said, the Lord also thundered in the heavens and the highest gave his voice, hailstones and coals of fire. Hours later, when the sun finally began to come up, Edward and the others went outside and began searching the property for signs of the Willys. And over the next few hours, the original party of 12 grew as more and more people showed up to assist in the search.

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By this point, word had spread pretty far about the family's disappearance And so residents from all over the White Mountains had come here to help. And eventually, hundreds of people were combing the mountainside to find the Willys, or at least to find a clue about where they might have gone.

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At around noon, when still there had been nothing found, Edward decided he would go search closer to the river, since by this point, the water levels had gone down some. And when he got to the water's edge, he began to hear this strange buzzing sound. And so he followed it... And eventually he saw something poking out from behind some debris.

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And when he saw what it was, Edward began to scream for help. So the thing that Sam Willie was most afraid of happening in a large storm was a rock slide, especially with that huge boulder positioned right behind his house. But when Sam realized it was going to be impossible to move said boulder or otherwise shield his family from falling mountain rocks,

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And even after all of that, the authorities still weren't finished. They left the city and began forcing the French nobility out of their castles to go face charges in the city. Months turned into years, and the arrests continued to pile up, and each one was more shocking than the last. Until the investigation led authorities to the actual royal palace in Paris.

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and to the king's favorite mistress. By the time the police finished their investigation, hundreds of people all across France, ranging from commoners to literal royalty, were either facing charges or sitting in jail cells. And screams filled the halls of these prisons as the arrested were tortured for whatever information they might have. Scores of people fled the country.

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And then eventually, all around Paris, these enormous pyres were built in the public squares. And one by one, dozens and dozens of people were led out to these pyres, strapped to the poles in the middle of them, and then burned to death in front of thousands of Parisian spectators. And it was all because of Marie. So, Marie Boss was not just a fortune teller.

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She made her real money by making and selling poison. And it would turn out that she was not the only one. In fact, at the time, you could say Paris basically ran on poison. Since the late 1660s, according to one estimate, around half of the people who lived in that city, from housewives to literal royalty, had poisoned someone or been poisoned by someone.

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It had become absurdly common for people, especially rich people, to buy poison from Marie and the network of 400 or so other poisoners around the city and use it to quietly commit murder so that the victims' deaths looked natural. But poison was not just used to kill people. It was sort of used like a solution for many kinds of problems.