The Crossing Read online

  “LISTEN TO ME, Lucy.” Who is this whispering to me? A face loomed over her head.

  “Listen carefully.” Nathaniel Lawrence had pulled up the gauze mask he had worn for the last two days as part of the ruse. He had told the constable that Lucy was suffering from an infectious disease and even suggested that the constable keep his distance and wear a mask if coming within ten feet of the cell.

  “Who are you?” She blinked. It felt as if she was coming out of a long, deep sleep, yet at the same time, she had been aware of this man’s presence the entire time.

  “I am your uncle, and I am also a doctor. But they don’t know that.” He tipped his head toward the hall. He had to speak quickly as the constable could return at any moment.

  “My uncle?” Lucy repeated, stunned. I have an uncle? She tried to sit up to get a better look at the man’s face but found she didn’t have the strength. Was he mer? Was he her mother’s brother or … He certainly did not look mer in the least, but neither did Stannish Whitman Wheeler. How long had he been gone from the sea?

  He took her hand and squeezed it. “I am your father’s brother. Your sister May is waiting for you outside, and I’m going to bring you to her. But you must be brave. We are going to pretend that you have died.”

  “Died?” Lucy repeated, her mind still a swirl of confused thoughts. Perhaps she had died. Perhaps this was what happened when one died. They were rejoined with their family, but then there would be no May. No Hannah, for they would still be living. She would have left them behind.

  “We are just pretending, but we don’t have much time. The constable will have to go and fetch the coroner. And that is when I’ll sneak you out of here. May and Phin are waiting by the river.”

  “Phin!” She was suddenly alert.

  “Yes. I don’t believe that young man has slept since you were arrested. He’s going to be overwhelmed with relief.”

  “Is he coming with me and May?”

  “No, not now, for you’ll have to swim. It’ll be hard at first because you have been away from the sea for a long time. But May will help you.”

  “Am I really going to swim?” There was a thrill in her voice that touched the deepest part of Nathaniel’s being.

  “Yes, you are going to swim across the sea to your true homeland, where you came from. Your mother’s sister, Avalonia, is there.”

  Lucy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”

  “All right. I am going to now put a mask over your mouth as well and will soon put you in the shroud.”

  The play begins, he thought, and the stakes are mortal.

  “Constable! Constable!” he called out, and quickly pulled up his mask.

  “Yes, sir? What is it?”

  “I am afraid she has died.” He took out his pocket watch and looked at it. “Exactly one minute ago. Now you must fetch the coroner, but all precautions must be taken in removing the body. The coroner himself must be gowned as I have been. Anyone who is handling the body must be as well, with, of course, masks. Any gurneys must be dipped after removal of the body.”

  “Dipped?”

  “Yes, in disinfectants. It’s standard procedure for dealing with infectious disease. He’ll know what I am talking about.”

  “This might take a bit of time.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “Will you be all right, Doctor Lawrence? I mean, you’ve been treating her for two days now.”

  “I have been taking some quinine tablets. Same as the ones I suggested to you as soon as I first suspected. I think you will be fine as well. Of course this cell will have to be completely disinfected as well after the removal of the body.”

  The body, Lucy thought. How strange that sounded, how bizarre. It was as if she had been separated into two different entities. But at the same time she felt a true wholeness as a wild happiness began to flood through her.

  It took Nathaniel Lawrence less than a minute to put her in the shroud. The constable had left the cell door unlocked, for there was no necessity to lock up a dead inmate. Lawrence had carefully observed the layout of this section of the prison, the women’s section, when he had first come to examine Lucy. She was the only inmate. There was a back door through which deliveries came. It would provide the quickest and the least conspicuous route to the shipyard on the Georges River. It was Sunday, so there would be no workers.

  Lucy felt her uncle pick her up. He moved fast for an old man, and he did seem old — at least sixty. What if they were caught? Would he be able to fight off the constable? All kinds of thoughts whirled in her head. He said that May was waiting for her and so was Phin! Dear Phin, but what about Hannah? She heard the creak of the door and then the cold air hit. Lawrence knew that the air would be colder than the water for her, such was the odd physiology of mer beings. May was waiting exactly where she was supposed to be. They peeled off the shroud. The sun was just rising, painting the water a soft pink in the east. It was toward the rim of that sunrise that they would swim.

  “Oh, Lucy!” May embraced her but was startled by her emaciated appearance. Phineas had waded into the water, helping to support her, and Hugh was on the other side of May.

  “She’ll be all right, May,” the doctor said. “Just support her to start with. She’ll gain strength as her blood saline levels equalize. The farther downriver you go the stronger she’ll get. The sea is less than half a mile.” He sighed deeply. “Now, off you go.”

  Lucy turned to Phin, who’d wrapped his arm around her waist and was staring at her with a combination of wonder and disbelief. “You’re alive,” he said, smiling through his tears. “You will live, and no ocean will ever separate us, I promise. I will find you.”

  Hugh lowered his mouth to May’s ear. “The stars will guide me, May. They will be my windows on your new day, and I shall come.”

  Lucy, with May steadying her, slipped into the brackish waters of the river. May could tell that her sister was terribly weak. She slid her arm around her chest and began to pull her as she swam. Within seconds, May’s legs fused and her tail unfurled. But she could still feel the drag of Lucy’s two legs through the water. The river was deepening and becoming slightly saltier. She could sense Lucy’s legs trying to merge. But it was taking a long time. Then suddenly they felt the flush of the tide sucking them into the bay. The brine of the sea enveloped them and May felt a new curl in the wake — their wake! That curl could only be made by one thing — Lucy’s legs had finally merged and the flukes of her tail were working, synchronized with her own. She lightened her grip on Lucy, who propelled herself through the water with a joyful cry. “I can do it, May. I can do it. I am back!”

  Mer creatures do not need charts nor compasses. They need no sextants nor chronometers. They have a “northing” in their own heads, not unlike many birds. They feel the pull of currents and deep underwater streams that course through the seas, and they can read them as the navigators read the stars. For their entire lives, Lucy and May were indeed homeward bound, though it was a home they had never seen. Soon they would feel the first outlier wisps of the Avalaur current, which would eventually bleed into the Gyre of Corry, off Hag’s Head, and is said to be the very source, the cradle, of the mer folk. With each minute, Lucy felt herself growing stronger. And one thought began to burgeon in both Lucy’s and her sister’s minds. Where was Hannah? They could both feel that strange space between them, a pocket of air, a void in the water — a missingness. They — Lucy, May, and Hannah — had all felt these voids when they had first crossed over, and now Lucy and May felt it again. Did it mean that Hannah had crossed back for good? Had she left the sea entirely and forever?

  THE STEWARD GASTON had found Hannah the uniform of what was called a femme de chambre, or chambermaid. These women assisted the passengers’ personal staff and were trained to help seasick passengers. A large part of their work consisted of preparing the stateroom for sleep, turning down beds, wiping up the lavatory, bringing vases of fresh flowers from the chill
rooms of the florist. Stella, Mrs. Dyer’s lady’s maid, had been complicit in these arrangements as she had no great love for her mistress and was moved by Gaston’s account of poor Hannah. Hannah herself had listened to Ettie with a mixture of confusion and disbelief. But she had remained calm and only replied, “I shall see for myself.”

  Once the uniform had been procured it was easy for Hannah to pass from steerage into the hedonistic realms of first class. The weather had been especially warm all day and the seas calm. Many people were walking on the general promenade decks, and those who had private ones were out on them. Some, like Mrs. Dyer, had hired musicians from the ship’s orchestra to entertain them, and when Hannah first entered the stateroom she could hear the strains of a waltz being played by a violinist. Swirling through the air inside the stateroom was the scent of Mrs. Dyer’s favorite perfume, L’Étoile D’Amour. Stella was instructed to spray it on the freshly made bed each evening. Hannah had helped her.

  Stella beckoned for Hannah to come to the porthole. She pulled aside the silk curtain slightly. Hannah opened her eyes wide. She could not quite believe the scene she was seeing through the porthole in stateroom 138 onto the private promenade deck, but she was no longer confused. The two dancing figures glided by within a yard of the porthole. They stopped dancing. Stannish cupped his large hands, those long beautiful fingers, around the back of Mrs. Dyer’s head. The two silhouettes drew closer and closer, and Hannah watched in numb shock as they kissed passionately. Ettie was right. She braced for a tide of anguish, of hearbreak. But to her surprise, it never came. She was unsure of whom she was more furious with — Stannish or herself? He had treated her dreadfully, but she’d allowed herself to be duped.

  Finally Hannah tore her eyes away and walked in a daze back to her cabin in steerage. She took off the uniform and hung it up. She needed to keep it. She wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t as if she needed any more proof. Did she really want to torture herself more, to go back again? She could not sleep, and lay awake for several hours. It was well after midnight when she heard the familiar tapping on the door. She froze as a chill ran through her. It was Stannish! Could he possibly have the audacity to visit her and his mistress on the same evening? But she was sure it was he. He always did three soft, quick taps in a row and then two.

  She got out of bed and opened the door, standing perfectly still in her high-necked muslin nightgown. He filled the frame blocking the light from the corridor. “Darling girl, you look like an angel.” She could smell the scent on him, the perfume that saturated Mrs. Dyer’s stateroom, L’Étoile D’Amour. Hannah closed her eyes while he kissed her. The scent was so overwhelming she felt like she might gag. “Put on your shawl, darling. It’s quite warm out. We can go to the aft deck as we did before. I have another present for you.”

  When she had returned from Mrs. Dyer’s stateroom after the first onslaught of grief, her tears had hardened into little pebbles of fury. But now she felt an inexplicable calm rising in her like a tide. Was this tranquillity the other side of fury? She was not sure. She allowed him to take her hand and lead her up the stairs to a passageway that led to an aft second class deck on Level C. He kissed her again.

  “Hannah, are you all right?” he asked.

  “What is that scent I smell?”

  “What scent?”

  “A strange perfume”

  “Oh, I was sitting at a table tonight with some women. You know how these ladies overdo it with their perfume.”

  She looked at him steadily. “So that explains it,” she said softly. The succinct reply seemed to unnerve him slightly.

  “Explains what?”

  “Explains why you smell the way you do.”

  “Hannah, you’re not yourself tonight.”

  She looked out at the sea. Suddenly she realized that what he said was so true, but in a way he would never suspect. There was something out there. She took a step away from him and pressed her hands to each side of her rib cage. She felt something. Something where those voids used to be, the emptiness beside her before she had met her sisters. They were out there … out there somewhere, someplace. She turned and ran up another set of stairs.

  “Hannah, where are you going?”

  “I need to be alone now for a while, Stannish. Let me think.”

  His brow creased. “Hannah, don’t do anything — anything —” He began to stammer. “Anything foolish.”

  “Believe me, I shall do nothing foolish,” Hannah said. A coldness had crept into her voice that he had never heard before. But he turned and left.

  The dawn was just breaking. She felt a churning within her. She scrambled to a higher deck. The sea was so calm. The moon cast its light like a bright silver ribbon across the still water, and she could feel the pull of an invisible force beneath the surface. Her sisters were out there, she was sure of it.

  Hannah curled up near a bollard wound with docking lines. She would not wake until long after the dawn.

  Ettie had risen early. For the last two days she had made a habit of going to the Marconi room because she found that it was in the early part of the morning that the most interesting messages came in. She liked in particular to study the wireless operators’ fingers as they tapped out the messages. Tiny sparks darted into the air from the keys as the men transmitted weather information from the current position of the ship. Occasionally they would let her tap out simple messages, and she was becoming more adept. She had been there less than five minutes when she saw Mr. McCurdy’s eyebrows shoot up. “My, my,” he murmured. It must have been something exciting. She looked at the series of dots and dashes that he was jotting down. The marks began to assemble themselves into meaningful chunks, and the news was staggering. “Convicted murderess escapes jail. Lucy …” That was as far as she got. She gave a shriek. Both operators looked around in alarm.

  “No, don’t stop. I’m sorry. Go on. Go on.”

  Mr. McCurdy and Mr. Mintz turned back to their sets. The little sparks began to jump as the two men clicked the keys. Their eyes and their ears with the headphones were focused on the receiving circuits — the Maggie, a magnetic detector, that worked in conjunction with the Marconi tuner and converted the received radio frequency to electrical currents. The sparks were truly flying now. Mr. Mintz handed Ettie an extra set of headphones to wear. She grabbed a clipboard and pencil and began to record the Morse code.

  “Lucy Snow, the convicted murderess sentenced to hang in less than a month, managed to escape from her prison cell in Thomaston, Maine. Miss Snow had fallen critically ill during her incarceration and was being treated by a doctor whose name was not available at the time of publication. She had been said to have died of what was thought to be an infectious disease, according to the constable of the prison. The constable left the prison to seek out the coroner. When he returned to the jail, the body was gone, as was the doctor. A search was launched immediately for the doctor and the girl.”

  “Henrietta! Henrietta!” Mr. Mintz was shaking her shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  Tears were streaming down her face. “I am fine. Fine.” She began to remove the earphones. She had never been happier, but she knew she couldn’t appear ecstatic. She had to get to Hannah. Hannah must be told. Her sister was safe. Lucy was safe!

  EYEDROPPERS ARE SO handy, Lila thought. Handy and efficient, for one could always get just the right amount and no mess. And she needed just the right amount. Not too much and not too little, or else someone might become suspicious. It had worked out so well that Miss Doyle was not a good sea traveler. She had been afflicted with nausea ever since setting foot on the Leonidas. The ship’s physician had prescribed tincture of ginger mixed with mint oil. It was easy enough for Lila to add two drops of her own laudanum. The strong mint and ginger flavors of the physician’s medicine neatly camouflaged the bitterness of the laudanum and, most important, put Miss Doyle into a deep slumber. When she was not sleeping, she became quite dull and compliant with whatever Lila wanted or threatened. Best of
all, no one seemed to notice any real changes in Miss Doyle’s behavior. If they did notice, they ascribed it to her nausea.

  Lila prepared the nighttime dose while Miss Doyle bathed in the rather sumptuous bathtub. Miss Doyle had never enjoyed such lavish plumbing facilities and spent quite a bit of time in the sybaritic tub, which actually had a little pillow so that one could read while reclining. Of course there was always the possibility that Miss Doyle might drown in that tub. She had fallen asleep one night, and Lila had performed what she considered a noble rescue. The book, however, a penny dreadful — String of Rubies or some such thing — succumbed to the depths of the tub and was more or less wrecked. Lila had, however, endeared herself to Miss Doyle by going to the ship’s library to hunt for another book of equal literary luster. When she couldn’t find one, she asked their chambermaid if she might have any access to such books, and the chambermaid returned with two. Miss Doyle was suitably impressed and profoundly grateful. She even reported on this kind deed of Lila’s to her parents — neglecting, of course, to mention the nature of the book. This thrilled Edwina and Horace Hawley greatly, for their daughter had never been known for her compassion.

  And now their “compassionate” daughter’s eyes sparkled with that glitter so often associated with madness as she worked with the eyedropper, preparing Miss Doyle’s evening potion. “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,” she whispered to herself. “Who shall be the first to go? Is it Ettie or Mrs. Dyer? Who shall be the first to retire …?” Then she paused and with a giggle blurted out, “Permanently!”

  Ettie thought she was so smart sneaking around the ship spying on people. But Lila had her own ways. Her father had given each of his daughters a generous allowance so that they might buy from the ocean liner’s boutiques. Shopping had become a new divertissement on luxury liners, and just as the famous restaurateurs and hoteliers had advised on accommodations and food, some of London’s and Paris’s fine stores had opened concessions on board the Leonidas. Passengers could either pay cash or charge it to their staterooms. There was a lovely millinery shop as well as another next door that specialized in Turkish shawls, quite the rage, and Italian silk scarves from the region of Como. Lila had bought several and found that they became a very liquid currency with stateroom maids. She was careful never to bribe personal staff with her gifts. She knew from experience that Roseanne or Mr. Marston had such fierce loyalty that they would never be bribable, and she assumed that other families’ staff would be the same. But stateroom maids were different. They had no particular loyalty, and besides, she was not asking them to do anything illegal like stealing. What did she need with Mrs. Dyer’s jewels? She just wanted information, and, on this particularly evening, access to the stateroom. She had told the stewardess that she was a relative of Mrs. Dyer and needed to bring her a present.