The Ghost of the Mary Celeste by Valerie Martin Page A

yard. Mother Briggs urged Olie to eat more, and he spoke of his adventure. His ship sprang a leak a week out and they pumped it for a fortnight, partly in foul weather that came up so fierce and so sudden, and the sailors so occupied with pumping, that the mainsail split before they could get it down. They limped into the Gulf of Mexico and got a tow to New Orleans, where the ship was pulled up for repairs. They spent ten days in port and every one was money lost. There was yellow fever in the city, so they stayed at the port and ate only the food they had in their shipprovisions for fear of catching the disease. The rest of the journey was rough, a hurricane nearly capsized them and in the frenzy two sailors were lost overboard. “I always hate to write those letters,” Olie said. “One was married just a month before we sailed.”
    Hannah, who had been listening closely with her eyes lowered, said softly, “And the two sailors were lost on June sixth.”
    Olie gazed at her—we all did—with surprise; then he calculated dates in his head and replied, “Yes, it was. How did you know?”
    Hannah blinked rapidly and touched her brow with her fingertips. “I’m not sure.”
    “How strange,” Father said, “that you should know the day.”
    “It came to me as you were speaking,” Hannah said to Olie.
    I glanced at Benjamin, who gazed upon my sister with an expression of profound sympathy.
    “I guess it was somewhere in my head and you read it there,” Olie said, patting her hand with his fingertips.
    Hannah nodded, shy now that she had everyone’s attention.
    Mother Briggs busied herself pulling in empty plates. “It’s a coincidence,” she said, and the matter of my clairvoyant sister was thus closed. But I was thinking Hannah’s premonition worked in reverse, it was a postmonition; she was mysteriously informed about an event already concluded. It was odd that she would announce the correct date, though perhaps it was not so difficult to figure, as she knew the date Olie sailed, the approximate time to New Orleans, the number of days there, etc., so she could, with a little calculation, arrive at a fairly accurate guess. She may have been counting the days of the trip from the start, mentally assigning dates to the chronology of Olie’s story. It probably wasn’t clairvoyance, just plain addition. But if this was so, why did she claim to have no idea how she arrived at the correct date?
    We rose from the table and set out to the field to finish our labors. Just as Benjamin and I arrived at our overflowing baskets, he slipped his hand into his jacket pocket and produced a much-folded envelope. “Here’s my reply,” he said. “Read it when you get home. Let me know what you think of it tomorrow.”
    I took the envelope and unfolded it, my hand trembling with curiosity. He had written
SALLIE
across the front in his bold script. “I will,” I said, depositing it in my apron pocket. Benjamin turned his attention to our baskets. “We’ll take this one first,” he said. Each of us took a handle and lifted the basket between us; then we began our descent to the house.
    Birds at sea sing tunelessly
,
    But I know one who sings on key
.
    I long to steal her from the shore
,
    That she might sing alone for me
,
    And be my songbird evermore
    Sailing on the sparkling sea
.
    I’ve read it a hundred times. My cousin wants to take me away! And oh, how willingly I would go.
    I woke this morning with a smile on my face, knowing we would soon be off to Rose Cottage for jam making and there I would see my cousin and tell him what I think of his invitation. Well, not exactly an invitation; his plan is to “steal” me.
    He wasn’t at home when we arrived, but in the afternoon, when the whole house smelled of cooking fruit, he appeared at the kitchen door and looked in at us, highly amused. “Just as I suspected,” he said. “Ladies in a jam.”
    I was putting wax seals on a squadron of jars; Hannah was pitting yet