Maggie's Door

  “He’s in so much pain,” Garvey said.

  Hadn’t Anna said something about that? “Even if the cure doesn’t work, it means something just to make the poor soul feel better.”

  Patch was one of the children running. She could see that. A dangerous thing to do. One misstep on that slippery deck and he would slide, and suppose he went over the side of the ship? She caught her breath and pushed herself to her feet. “Patch,” she called, but then she saw Eliza in back of him, watching.

  “Are you coming?” Garvey asked.

  “I was looking after my brother,” she said.

  How can you not go? Anna would say.

  Eliza was playing a game with Patch. She had raised her dress over her ankles and was showing him how to do the steps of the basket game. Nory turned back to Garvey. “I have nothing to help your friend, but I will come anyway.”

  He nodded. “I haven’t known what to do. I thank you, miss. I really do.”

  She followed him along the deck and down a long flight of steps. “Where are we going?”

  “I’m hiding him. He’s in a small area, a closet without light. The water oozes and barrels shift, but there is nowhere else.”

  A stowaway, then. She had heard of people like that, brave boys who sneaked aboard ships without money, without tickets.

  “It is the cook’s apprentice,” Garvey said.

  “Why . . . ?” she began, but there was no finishing. In front of her was darkness so deep she couldn’t see Garvey, she couldn’t see her own hand.

  She reached out to hold on to his sleeve and followed him down the long passageway.

  TWENTY-TWO

  SEAN

  He had been asleep a long time. But if he had slept that long, why did he ache so?

  And then he remembered, or thought he remembered, the cook waiting outside the book man’s cabin, waiting for him, marching him back to the galley without a word; the cook’s hand heavy on his arm, his own heart beating, beating.

  And then in the galley . . .

  He didn’t want to think about that. He wanted to think of Nory wearing a red ribbon in her hair, Nory at Patrick’s Well on the cliff top, Nory singing, twirling, calling herself Queen Maeve.

  Thirsty. So thirsty.

  A hot day once in Maidin Bay. He and Nory had leaned over Lord Cunningham’s stream, drinking the icy water, splashing it on their faces.

  If only he had a sip of water now. If only he could spill water over his head, over his arm.

  In the galley the cook had hoisted a large pot of water from the stove. “Wastrel,” he’d screamed. “Useless.”

  Sean had seen it coming, wondering how hot it was. He had raised his arms to cover his head, seeing Garvey jump out of the way. But it wasn’t the pot of water the cook poured over the top of his head and over his shoulders that had scalded him. That water was hot but not boiling. But he couldn’t catch his breath and he thought of the currach and the day he’d almost drowned in the green water of the sea.

  He had fallen back against the stove. He heard the hissing as one arm hit the red-hot top; he heard the sound his own voice made. Then the cook was gone, and Garvey was pulling bits of his sleeve away from his skin.

  And somehow he was in this place and he could hear the drip of the water and the shush-shush sound of the waves against the side of the boat.

  If only he could drink some of the water.

  He saw the lantern swinging over his head, just a point of light in the darkness, back and forth, back and forth.

  “Ah, Nory,” he whispered. “Let us go up to Patrick’s Well.”

  She didn’t answer, of course; she wasn’t there. She was home in Maidin Bay. But he heard the sound of crying then, a terrible crying that went on and on. Someone was leaning over him. The voice sounded like Nory’s and the feel of the hand on his face was like hers, but he just couldn’t open his eyes, and he slept again.

  TWENTY-THREE

  NORY

  What is the matter with you? There are things to be done. That was what Anna would have said.

  Nory drew a breath. There was so much to wonder at: how he had been burned, what he was doing on this ship and why she hadn’t seen him, but most of all how she could save him.

  The small candlelight flickered across his face and she knew she would save him. She thought it with the same fierceness she had felt when she had walked that long distance with Patch, each step burning and her foot leaking blood.

  Beeswax and mutton fat boiled together.

  Why should that work?

  She thought of the beehive on the edge of Anna’s field; she thought of the combs they had broken off to eat, hard and sweet. The wax would harden into the mutton fat. It would cover a wound to give it time to heal.

  That made sense to her.

  But there was no beeswax here, no mutton for fat. What else?

  Garvey was watching her.

  She made a roof of her hands over Sean’s forehead and felt the fever like Granda’s. “Do you have tallow for candles?” Without waiting for him to answer, she said, “Find some. And find fat.”

  “But the cook—”

  “I don’t care where you get it. Just do it and boil it, and stir it together and bring it to me.”

  She thought of Anna giving milk to Patch when she herself would have given anything for a sip of that warm froth on top. She thought of climbing the cliffs, wind howling, cupping eggs in her hands for all of them. She thought of that walk from Ballilee to the ship. And in front of her was Anna’s face.

  No more mixing of herbs when she didn’t know what she was doing. No more throwing biscuits to birds that cared nothing for human food. She had to think, to use her head.

  She took Garvey by the sleeve. “Boil fat with tallow and bring it to me,” she said again, knowing that he would do it because if he didn’t she would somehow do it herself.

  She thought of Anna spreading her arms, her wrists thin as her blue sleeves fell back. “We’re part of the earth,” she had said, “but just as much part of the sea, the streams, the rivers. We need water to live, and the sick person needs it even more.”

  “And water,” Nory said. “Not the water we’ve been drinking, but clear water, clean water.”

  “I can’t—”

  “Yes,” she said, “you must,” and turned away from him, pulling off her shawl to cover Sean with it. “You will be well, a stór,” she whispered, hearing Garvey’s footsteps going toward the door. She put her arm under Sean, holding him the way she had held Patch. She began to sing, the song she had sung when Maggie married Francey. She sang a song about the fair in Drumatoole, making up the words as she went along; she sang about the ribbon he had pulled out of her hair when she was a little girl. She felt her voice catch as she sang about his red hair and the year he had fallen into the sea.

  Watching his face in that dim light, she knew he could hear some of it, and so she sang about a girl who was so glad she had found her friend, and how together they’d knock on her sister’s door, his brother’s door. They’d see his sister Mary, with her soft eyes.

  And by that time Garvey was back with the water. “You may not think it is clean enough,” he said. “The vat held wine before the trip, I think. But it is the best there is on this ship.”

  She reached for it, nodding her thanks.

  “We are lucky,” he said. “The cook has been drinking and sleeps at last, a deep sleep—for the first time in this voyage, I’m thinking.”

  Nory barely paid attention as he left again. She ripped her sleeve to the elbow and tore it into strips to soak in the water, first to wet Sean’s lips and then to drip the water into his mouth.

  She wet another strip and gently squeezed it over the burn, running the water over his arm, and did that until the water was gone.

  And then Garvey was there and he had brought Patch with him. She watched Patch leaning over Sean, touching his forehead. “Where did you go, Sean Red?” he kept asking.

  Garvey
held wax and fat in a bowl, still warm from the heat of the stove, and held her shoulders to steady her from the motion of the ship. She stirred it, then covered Sean’s arm with it from shoulder to wrist, watching it harden bit by bit, then wrapped a cloth over all of it, sitting back on her heels, trying to think if there was something else she could do.

  “He will not die,” she told Patch, and then said it again to Garvey.

  “A burn like that . . . ,” Garvey began.

  She raised her hand, afraid that Sean would hear. “We will dance on the cliffs of Brooklyn.”

  “The cook will be looking for him,” Garvey said slowly.

  “And dance down Smith Street,” she said, watching Sean’s eyes move in back of his lids.

  She didn’t leave him, not that day, nor all the next. For hours Patch slept next to them rolled into a ball in Garvey’s jacket.

  The color came back into Sean’s face, and once she saw that his eyes were open and he was looking at her as if he didn’t believe she was there.

  “I am real,” she said.

  Soon after that Garvey brought her tea, real tea, that colored the water a rich dark color. She had never tasted anything so wonderful, she thought, and he told her then that the cook had raged when he couldn’t find Sean, and said he never wanted to set eyes on Sean’s face again.

  At last she realized that Sean was sleeping peacefully. She shared the rest of the tea with Patch, and a biscuit Garvey had brought, and then she leaned back against the bulkhead thinking she could sleep, really sleep. Maybe she would dream of the cliffs and Granda. If only he had been there, she would have been happier than she’d ever been. She thought too of her da and Celia in a ship ahead of them. Maybe by now it had found its way to Brooklyn: Da and Celia there, waiting with Maggie.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  SEAN

  It was a day he’d remember forever. Nory broke off pieces of the tough plaster and underneath was new skin, red and clean.

  It was the day Garvey told them someone had seen green plants floating in the water, and a flock of small shorebirds had flown overhead. He told them too that it would be safe to go up to look. The cook had never once left the galley.

  On the deck Sean watched as Patch begged Nory for a crumb of biscuit to throw from the side of the ship, “for the birds to help us with the rest of the journey.” She broke off a piece, but Sean could see she didn’t believe that story.

  It was a story he had heard Mam tell, and he wondered if she was still alive. Nory had told him what happened, and it went through his mind that someday when he learned to write he would send a letter to Father Harte in Maidin Bay. He could almost see the priest, his soutane flapping as he climbed the hill to their house, and Mam there, listening to what he had written.

  He felt a burning in his throat thinking of all this, and knew that Mam was probably gone like Nory’s granda, but then he shook his head and thought of how hard he would work and the money he’d send. He told himself she would make the trip, but this time like the book man, in a cabin of her own.

  Nory pulled at his sleeve. “Look, Sean Red.”

  Rising up out of the sea was the land, smoke from many fires rising gray above it, reminding him of coming home from fishing in the currach on a misty night to see the same charcoal look of the land.

  A woman next to him pointed. “It’s the port of New York,” she said. “We’ve lasted through this whole terrible trip.”

  And Nory next to him: “That is Mrs. Casey,” she said, “who tried to help Granda.”

  He turned. Next to the older woman was a young girl looking out at the sea. Her dark curls were cut close to her head, and Sean thought he had seen her before. In Maidin Bay? At the fair in Drumatoole? She wore a faded red ribbon around her neck. Someday he would buy another ribbon like that for Nory.

  But he didn’t have long to think about that. Garvey came running, breathless. “The captain sent orders,” he said. “You must all sweep out the hold. Throw the old straw bedding overboard and anything that is not clean.” He looked worried. “Wash yourselves because a doctor will be coming aboard.”

  “A doctor?” Nory said.

  Garvey nodded. “You will be sent back to Ireland if he doesn’t like the way you look.”

  Sean tried to help in the hold; he stayed as far away from the galley as he could, still anxious that the cook would see him. As he carried piles of straw up on deck he watched the land coming closer. Other ships were sailing not far from them, and people stood on those decks to throw things overboard. The sea was filled with straw, filthy bits of it floating on the waves, pieces of cloth and boxes bobbing along as well. “My coat,” Patch said, pointing.

  “How did we do that?” Nory said, turning to Sean. “How could we . . . ?”

  “Never mind,” Sean told them. “Everything will be new for us, and there will even be a coat for Patch by the time winter comes.” He said it although he could hardly believe it, but somehow he would make it happen. He thought about reading too, and he knew he would make that happen as well.

  They went back to the hold to wash the bunks and the planks under them with the muddy water they had left, and climbed the stairway one last time.

  It seemed there was no room on deck for another person. Everyone had come up to watch as they angled for a place in the harbor. How long it would be, Sean wondered, before he reached Francey and Maggie in Brooklyn? Today? Tomorrow?

  But right now he stood as straight as he could. The doctor was coming and he wanted to be sure he’d be one of the ones who reached the docks of New York.

  BROOKLYN

  TWENTY-FIVE

  NORY

  She had thought about this day so many times, but it wasn’t at all the way she had pictured it. This flat place, boxes and papers littering the streets, horses clopping along ahead of them and in back of them. Houses crowded in on either side, all of them with windows, and rows of steps in front. And this was where they were going to live: a place that was a hundred times larger than Ballilee, a hundred times larger than Drumatoole.

  She didn’t see the diamonds in the streets the way she had thought she might, but it didn’t make any difference. People stood in the streets talking to each other, laughing, people who didn’t look hungry or dirty the way they had at home. People alive with full cheeks, and some with smiling faces.

  Even the brightness of the day was surprising. Brooklyn was hot; the sun beamed down on her head, an orange ball high above the houses, shining on the windows. Perspiration dampened her neck and her back, and next to her, Patch had drops on his small nose.

  She loved this sun, and this heat. She loved the littered dirt roads that were bringing them to 416 Smith Street.

  Turning to Sean, she saw the tears in his eyes. She reached out to put her hand on top of his. He must be thinking of his mother and his brothers Liam and Michael. Who knew where any of them were, or if he’d see them again?

  “I’m all right, Nory,” he said, turning his hand to hold hers. “The trip is almost over now.”

  She smiled. “And we’re not even walking this last bit.” How strange it was! They were driving in a carriage that had planks for seats, and a horse in front with a small plume tucked in its mane!

  As they had put their feet on the gangplank that led to the dock, a girl had come toward them. “Where have you been?” she asked Sean, and, not waiting for an answer, gave him a book.

  “The fox,” he had said. “The wolf. I cannot take this.”

  She had looked impatient. “You must. That and a coin my father has sent for a carriage to take you where you are going. It is because you found me during the storm.” She leaned forward. “You and I know it was a wonderful storm and I was safe.” She tucked a coin into his hand and laughed before she darted away from them. Sean had stood there looking after her until Garvey called to them. “Goodbye, your honors,” he said. “Maybe we’ll meet again.”

  “At 416 Smith Street,” Sean called after him. “That’s where w
e’ll be.” He ran to catch up.

  Now in the carriage Nory put up her hand to touch the narrow ribbon around her neck. It had been there since she stood on the New York pier this morning, legs unsteady, on land for the first time in weeks but the rolling feeling of the ocean still with her. She had turned to see the rough wooden buildings along the pier, and people standing around them looking dazed to be there at last.

  From in back of her had come a harsh voice: “I won’t be seeing you again.”

  She had spun around and reached out to Eliza, to put her hands on those thin shoulders. “I wish you . . . ,” she had said, trying to think of what it would be like not to see Eliza again. “I wish you everything good.”

  Eliza had bent her head with the soft curls that were beginning to grow again and untied the ribbon she wore around her neck. “This is for you, Nory Ryan.”

  “I can’t take that,” Nory had said, just as Sean had said it to the other girl a few moments earlier. Still she reached out to touch the softness of the faded ribbon.

  Eliza smiled, her teeth dark. “For you, a remembrance.”

  Nory could see Sean wandering through the crowd of people just ahead of her now. She knew he was looking for her. “Oh, Eliza,” she said. “I’ll never forget you.”

  Eliza looped the ribbon around Nory’s neck. “It belonged to a boy who shared his food with me. I tried to give it back to him, but he was gone.” She bit at her bottom lip. “So many people on that terrible road.”

  Still feeling the ribbon against her throat, Nory raised her head to the sun as the carriage turned. Her bag shifted under her. Not much left in that bag, she thought—the wee cracked cup she’d keep forever to remind her of this long and bitter trip; Mam’s wedding dress, wrinkled and stained on the bottom from the seawater; a few seeds and dried leaves scattered in the fabric, all that was left from Anna.

  Never mind the stains. They’d air the dress on a pole outside. Never mind the leaves she had thrown overboard. She’d grow the few seeds that were left and find more somehow. She could see Anna in her head, her tiny white cap, her small hands. Dear Anna, I won’t forget what you’ve taught me.