box.
Snap.
Too confident, she drops it the last half-inch. The noise seems impossibly loud in the dark. Her body ices over and she can’t move. Her heart thumps out of her chest; even her eyeballs seems to pulse. Arthur stops snoring, makes a grunting noise.
Then, slowly, rhythmically, he starts again. She has never been so glad to hear him snore. She almost laughs.
She feels around the box again for the locks. One by one, she fastens them. A kind of reckless certainty has gripped her. All will be well, so she takes her time, quietly pushes the mace under the bed, then slips the key into Arthur’s waistcoat.
Up the ladder. Into bed. She doesn’t sleep for hours and hours because the excitement takes forever to cool from her blood.
For now, Daniel’s bracelet is safe. It will at least get to the other side, Sydney, where Arthur is to hand the mace over to Mr. Barton on behalf of the Queen. Isabella anticipates more key-stealing and tiptoeing about before the ceremony, of course, but for the present she is simply glad that the black ribbon is not in danger of going overboard. The rest she can work out when she is finally off this stinking vessel.
T he next few days are bleak. A black cloud descends on her. At first she thinks the darkness is caused by her not having thebracelet around her wrist, and perhaps that is a little of the reason. But more likely it’s the weather, which has turned leaden and windy and rough.
The place to be, on a ship in stormy seas, is above deck. Below deck, without her eyes to find a horizon, the roiling seasickness can set in. So she spends hours every day up on the anchor deck, the voices of men shouting and swearing behind her, watching the gray sea and the gray sky and trying to stay clear of the rain under the canvas cover. Ordinarily, Meggy would have joined her, but Meggy avoids her now, preferring to mark the time embroidering in the saloon. Life goes on below deck, all the little mundane details of lived experience tick along, pushing time into lines. Above deck, with nothing in sight but endless sea, time stops and she is pitching and yawing through an eternal gray moment. It is like her sadness, this interminable journey. She sees no land, she can predict no end, all is storm-beaten.
And sometimes when the rain comes hammering hard, but never cold, and she has to shrink under the last dry space behind the ship’s wheel, she hears Mr. Harrow barking orders and she thinks about what Meggy told her. He lost his wife. And here he functions perfectly well. She would not be able to sail a ship. She would run it aground in her grief, surely. But, while the Captain fumbles through tasks, Mr. Harrow is calm and capable. Sometimes she steals glances at him, looking for the pain on his face, but she doesn’t see it. Then she realizes she is being as bad as Meggy, and she puts her face on her knees again and waits and waits, through time and distance and stormy seas.
T hen the first gray light glimmers at the hem of the darkness.
Isabella sees Mr. Harrow in the galley. He, like her, is searchingfor something to stop up the hunger until lunch. He crouches with his head in the cupboard.
When she says, “Good morning,” he startles and hits his head.
“I’m so sorry,” she says.
“It’s fine,” he replies, standing, rubbing his head. “Are you looking for food too?”
She nods. “I hid some dried apple in a tin at the back, behind the flour.”
He returns his attention to the cupboard, smiling. “Ah, very clever.” He pulls out the tin and attempts to prize off the lid. “Did you put this lid on yourself?” he says, with effort.
She laughs, spreading her palms apart. “My mother used to say I should have been born a boy. ‘Strong as a goat, wild as a blackbird.’” Remembering Mother’s old saying makes her instantly sad. She doesn’t feel strong and wild anymore.
He has the lid off now and is offering her the tin. She selects a handful of sliced apple. Mr.
Snap.
Too confident, she drops it the last half-inch. The noise seems impossibly loud in the dark. Her body ices over and she can’t move. Her heart thumps out of her chest; even her eyeballs seems to pulse. Arthur stops snoring, makes a grunting noise.
Then, slowly, rhythmically, he starts again. She has never been so glad to hear him snore. She almost laughs.
She feels around the box again for the locks. One by one, she fastens them. A kind of reckless certainty has gripped her. All will be well, so she takes her time, quietly pushes the mace under the bed, then slips the key into Arthur’s waistcoat.
Up the ladder. Into bed. She doesn’t sleep for hours and hours because the excitement takes forever to cool from her blood.
For now, Daniel’s bracelet is safe. It will at least get to the other side, Sydney, where Arthur is to hand the mace over to Mr. Barton on behalf of the Queen. Isabella anticipates more key-stealing and tiptoeing about before the ceremony, of course, but for the present she is simply glad that the black ribbon is not in danger of going overboard. The rest she can work out when she is finally off this stinking vessel.
T he next few days are bleak. A black cloud descends on her. At first she thinks the darkness is caused by her not having thebracelet around her wrist, and perhaps that is a little of the reason. But more likely it’s the weather, which has turned leaden and windy and rough.
The place to be, on a ship in stormy seas, is above deck. Below deck, without her eyes to find a horizon, the roiling seasickness can set in. So she spends hours every day up on the anchor deck, the voices of men shouting and swearing behind her, watching the gray sea and the gray sky and trying to stay clear of the rain under the canvas cover. Ordinarily, Meggy would have joined her, but Meggy avoids her now, preferring to mark the time embroidering in the saloon. Life goes on below deck, all the little mundane details of lived experience tick along, pushing time into lines. Above deck, with nothing in sight but endless sea, time stops and she is pitching and yawing through an eternal gray moment. It is like her sadness, this interminable journey. She sees no land, she can predict no end, all is storm-beaten.
And sometimes when the rain comes hammering hard, but never cold, and she has to shrink under the last dry space behind the ship’s wheel, she hears Mr. Harrow barking orders and she thinks about what Meggy told her. He lost his wife. And here he functions perfectly well. She would not be able to sail a ship. She would run it aground in her grief, surely. But, while the Captain fumbles through tasks, Mr. Harrow is calm and capable. Sometimes she steals glances at him, looking for the pain on his face, but she doesn’t see it. Then she realizes she is being as bad as Meggy, and she puts her face on her knees again and waits and waits, through time and distance and stormy seas.
T hen the first gray light glimmers at the hem of the darkness.
Isabella sees Mr. Harrow in the galley. He, like her, is searchingfor something to stop up the hunger until lunch. He crouches with his head in the cupboard.
When she says, “Good morning,” he startles and hits his head.
“I’m so sorry,” she says.
“It’s fine,” he replies, standing, rubbing his head. “Are you looking for food too?”
She nods. “I hid some dried apple in a tin at the back, behind the flour.”
He returns his attention to the cupboard, smiling. “Ah, very clever.” He pulls out the tin and attempts to prize off the lid. “Did you put this lid on yourself?” he says, with effort.
She laughs, spreading her palms apart. “My mother used to say I should have been born a boy. ‘Strong as a goat, wild as a blackbird.’” Remembering Mother’s old saying makes her instantly sad. She doesn’t feel strong and wild anymore.
He has the lid off now and is offering her the tin. She selects a handful of sliced apple. Mr.
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