The Crossing

by Kathryn Lasky

  May and Phin and Hugh, who was May’s beau, were trying everything possible to help Lucy. Hugh had found her a lawyer, who had agreed to take on the case for a greatly reduced fee that Hugh was paying.

  Phineas Heanssler was so passionately in love with Lucy that he would do anything to engineer her escape. He spent sleepless nights at his drawing board at the Heanssler boatyard designing not yachts for millionaires but escapes from the Thomaston jail. There were photographs that he had taken of the forbidding granite structure. He had meticulous drawings of the building’s exterior showing every window, doorway, and chimney. From the outside it seemed impenetrable, and so far he had not been allowed inside to visit Lucy. Every time he had come he was turned away. He would then go outside, and, circling the building, he tried to imagine just where in the cavernous stone fortress she was being held. Hannah seemed to be able to do nothing. She had said she could not even raise the subject with Stannish. And May? May was trying, but what could Lucy’s two sisters really do? It was a risk for them. They were, after all, triplets. They looked like one another, and now they looked like a suspected murderess.

  The music was beginning to crescendo, signaling that the bride was about to enter. All the people turned their heads. Hannah squinted. A figure swathed in lace and veils on the arm of her father stood at the head of the aisle ready to take her first steps toward matrimony. She appeared engulfed in the lace. It was as if the person had somehow dissolved into a misty nothingness. However, perched above the veils was a dazzling diamond tiara.

  There was a slight gasp from the elderly lady sitting across from Hannah in the box pew. Her eyes, as everyone else’s, were riveted on the tiara. “They certainly don’t spare the horses!” she whispered to her husband, then she sniffed in obvious disapproval. Her husband gave her a sharp look. Her bloodless lips pressed into a thin line as if she was afraid more words might escape.

  Hannah’s eyes continued to follow the bride down the aisle to the groom, who was awaiting her. His face glowed with expectation. His eyes were riveted on the tiara. Perhaps he was calculating that the value of the diamonds alone could keep his estate operating for the next one hundred years. But of course they would never have to sell the diamonds, for there was cash — cash in the Royal Bank of England, where the next and last installment of the dowry was being deposited at this very moment in London. Lucy had heard all the intimate details of their engagement, which as Muffy described it were actually more of a transaction than an engagement. Lucy had related such details to her sisters. She had been privy to these matters when she had first been chosen to be the maid of honor. That was before the murder, of course. When May asked Lucy if the bride was truly in love with the Earl of Lyford, she reported that Muffy had called him “The dearest man. A true gentleman … but not a passion.” Then she had added that it was not what Lucy felt for Phineas. Nor was it what May felt for Hugh or Hannah for Stannish.

  Hannah’s cheeks now began to burn when she thought of her and Stannish’s close moments together. She looked at him standing in a line with the other groomsmen off to one side. He was the handsomest of them all. His thick black hair gleamed in the light that fell through the high clerestory windows of the church. He was taller than any of the other men, with broad shoulders and a deep chest. She had often wondered what he had looked like when … when … Her mind stumbled as it always did when she thought of Stannish once being mer. He had been like her and like Lucy and May. But he had given it all up for his true passion — painting.

  When Hannah met Stannish she had not yet crossed over. She did not know that she, too, was part mer. But he seemed to know it the moment he set eyes on her. He had warned her that there would come a time when she must choose. His words flooded back to her.

  “Listen to me, Hannah! Right now you can go back and forth between two worlds. But it will not be this way always. In a year, at the very longest, you must make a choice. You must be of one world or the other.”

  Hannah was half listening as the couple began reciting their vows. The groom, speaking in his somewhat high-pitched accented voice, had started:

  “I take thee, Matilda, to be my lawful wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth.”

  And then Muffy began to recite her vows. Her voice trembled and was barely audible. “I, Matilda, take thee, Thomas, to be my lawful wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey, till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I give thee my troth.”

  Her veil now parted for the kiss. The diamonds of the tiara refracted the light from the clerestory windows like half a dozen prisms, so it seemed as if a net had been cast over the couple as they turned to walk down the aisle arm in arm. Just like a seining net, Hannah thought.

  Seining nets for trapping mackerel were the worst danger a sea creature could encounter, worse than a shark or a killer whale. She and May and Lucy were always alert for them and had helped many seal pups escape. She had heard the searing, melancholy keening of the mother seals as they watched their babies ensnared in the webbing.

  Hannah’s breath became short; her heart raced. The stall was no longer a stall but a coffin. She had to get out. But she could not leave before the bridal couple. The recessional march seemed endless. There was the bride and groom, then the bridesmaids, each with a groomsman on her arm. Stannish was now coming down the aisle. He gave her a wink as he passed by the pew where she was sitting.

  “I see you have an admirer!” The elderly woman leaned across the space between them and patted her hand with her own, gloved in lavender lace. “I do so admire your hat — lovely, without a feather on it!” She slid her eyes to the hat of the woman in the next pew. It was a green hat festooned with elaborate silk flowers and a small bird with its wings spread in flight. “The flowers are fake,” her pew mate hissed. “And you can bet that blush on Denise Lattimore’s face is fake as well, but that bird is real and dead as a doornail.”

  “Now, don’t get overworked, dear,” her husband said.

  Hannah had seen many such hats in her mistress’s closet when she had worked at the Hawleys’. Edwina Hawley had flocks of dead birds roosting on hats in her special hat-and-shoe closet. Hannah tipped her head. “Is it a warbler of some sort?”

  “Yes, unfortunately a rare sort these days. A Vermivora celata, Orange-crowned warbler. Breeds mostly in Canada. Winters in the southern states and all the way to Mexico. An early migrant to the south in the fall. Nevertheless, it got caught in Miss Lattimore’s net.” She made a scathing sound in the back of her throat. “Well, I guess it’s time to move out.” She gathered her cloak and rose from the pew. “Oh, mercy, look at that — wings of an egret and Mrs. Gardner wearing it, no less! She should know better! All that money and she still has to slaughter a bird. She should just stick to collecting art. She’s building that so-called palace over on the Fenway. I want to say just stick to that, Belle, and stop murdering birds.”

  “Elizabeth, I doubt she is doing the actual shooting of the birds,” her husband said, interrupting this tirade.

  “Robert, what difference does it make? She is supporting the murdering of birds by buying these cursed hats.”

  “Dear, we’re in a church!”

  “Yes, and God is looking down on his slain bounty, his murdered creatures.”

  A minute or two later Hannah was on the church steps. The elderly couple had drifted off when they spotted some friends. Hannah was scanning the crowds for Stannish. She hoped he would not insist on her attending the reception. She had a terrible headache. This wedding was taking its toll. Her own at the little chapel in Tuscany would be so much better. No reception. Her body unencumbered by the swathes of tulle and satin. Bare shoulders he had
drawn in the illustration of the gown. She would feel as if she was swimming! She felt guilty at once at the foolish thought. But this wedding seemed endless, and it was as if a tidal wave of dread had been building inside her. It’s not my wedding, she told herself over and over. Mine will be nothing like this. She had honestly thought she was going to faint at one moment when the diamonds had splintered the light pouring through the window. She knew the only way she could stop this headache was to go down to the harbor just after dusk and slip into the water.

  “Hannah!” a voice shrieked. It was as if a bolt of lightning had struck her. She stiffened as she saw Ettie bounding up the steps toward her. She seemed to have grown a foot. She was twelve years old now and was wearing her dark chestnut hair in a more sophisticated style. Her normally solemn gray eyes flashed with confusion as she took in Hannah’s appearance. “What happened to you?”

  Hannah tried to laugh, to make light of her question. “Well, I might ask the same of you. You’ve shot up at least a foot, and your hair.”

  “Yes, and your hair!” Ettie looked at her sternly. Ettie was the only one of the Hawleys who knew the truth about Hannah, that she was part mer and had left their service because of falling in love with Stannish Whitman Wheeler. “Whose idea was that?” she said sharply, and pointed at Hannah’s head. Hannah sighed. There was never any getting around Ettie. She was the most direct person in the world. She would always be, in terms of her perception, years older than her twelve years, or the nine-year-old whom Hannah had first encountered when she had entered service in the Hawley household.

  “Why aren’t you in Europe? You were supposed to have sailed weeks ago,” Hannah asked, trying to change the subject.

  “We had to delay.” Ettie was eyeing her carefully. “Some business matter,” she said in a distracted voice, then took a step closer and snapped at her. “But you’re not answering my question — what has happened to you? You’re so different. It’s not just your hair, is it? No. No, not just the hair.” Ettie’s eyes crawled over her. It was almost painful to be examined in this manner. “Something has changed in you. You — you look varnished.” The word hung in the air. Tears sprang to Hannah’s eyes.

  Then Ettie planted herself more squarely in front of Hannah and glared at her. “And what about Lucy? Have you given up on her?”

  Hannah recoiled. How could Ettie think she had forgotten Lucy? What was the phrase? Blood is thicker than water? Blood was water in this case. Saltwater. And Stannish was no longer mer. No longer of the salt. She felt an overpowering desolation. “Oh, Ettie! That’s cruel.”

  The girl was immediately contrite. “Step around the corner. There’s an alley behind the church where we can talk. I don’t want my parents to see me, and you obviously don’t want someone to see you. Good grief, your hair!” She grabbed Hannah’s hand. “This way!”

  Two minutes later they were steeped in the gloom of the King’s Chapel burying ground, the oldest cemetery in Boston. The gravestones were so old that some of the inscriptions had been worn away almost completely. Many of them leaned forward at precarious angles as if the bodies beneath them were slightly restless and pushing upward in an attempt to rejoin the world of the living. The gravestones’ dark shadows lay like planks on the ground. Ettie was still clasping Hannah’s hand.

  “Now, tell me all about this.” She leaned forward and pulled a curl that was brushing Hannah’s collar.

  “It was Stannish’s idea.” Ettie’s eyes hardened. Her mouth clamped shut into a grimace of disapproval. “Ettie, face it. I look exactly like my sister who is convicted of murder. There is no way I can appear in public. It would raise too many questions. That is why Stannish and I plan to move abroad when we marry, to England, and spend time in Europe. He has lots of clients there.”

  “But what about that other part off your life, Hannah?” A mournfulness loomed in her gray eyes.

  “You often have to give up things when you find love, Ettie. You’ll learn this as you get older.” The words came out stiff and empty, as if another voice were speaking them. They came from a strange place inside of her that she did not recognize. They were patronizing, “varnished” words uttered to betray true feelings. She hated the sound of her own voice when she said them. Ettie gave her a withering look as if to say, “You sanctimonious fool.”

  “No, I won’t.” She stomped her foot as sparks seemed to fly from her eyes. It was the stubborn little girl gesture that Hannah had come to know so well. Sometimes Ettie’s problem was that despite her formidable intelligence she was still just a child.

  “I’ll get used to it. Stannish said it gets easier.” And then, she thought, it shall be a marriage of two minds as in the sonnet. “He’s done it. He knows.”

  “But maybe he doesn’t really know you, Hannah. What is that hair color anyway?”

  “It’s — it’s … well, he calls it cognac.”

  “Cognac, like what Papa drinks after dinner with the gentlemen in the library while they smoke those smelly cigars! Cognac. That is absolutely stupid. It’s brown and not nearly as pretty as your red hair was. Not nearly.” Her voice cracked. Hannah thought Ettie might cry. “And look, he even dyed your eyebrows.”

  The way Ettie was speaking it sounded as if Hannah had been the victim of an assault. She dared not tell Ettie that Stannish had taken to calling her Anna. Hannah, he had said, was indeed an Irish scullery maid’s name, but Anna was elegant and very European. Why, he had just received a commission to paint the Principessa Anna of Luxembourg, who was said to be the most beautiful woman in Europe. But Hannah knew why he had done it. Again it was to erase any trace of who she had been, and of course it was easy, as “Anna” was so close to “Hannah.” If he slipped, it would not really be noticed, whereas if he had named her Barbara or Emily that might prove difficult. However, Stannish never slipped. He took easily to renaming her. “The name fits!” he had declared as he stood back regarding her as he might have regarded a portrait he was painting.

  Ettie stepped closer. She had grown so much that her eyes were almost level with Hannah’s. She shook her head wearily. “I just don’t understand it.” She was scrutinizing Hannah’s face as if searching for what had been.

  “Ettie,” Hannah said softly, taking her hand. “It’s still me.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s not you. You’re just a canvas for him to paint on.”

  In the distance they heard a newsie from the Boston Evening Transcript. “New York society murderess to die! Read all about it!” Hannah and Ettie turned to each other in horror and then together bolted from the cemetery in the direction of the newsboy.

  “WELL, THAT’S GOT to go!” Marjorie Snow barked as she went into the bedroom that had been her daughter’s and saw her husband staring at the large dollhouse. “I’ll send a note over to the orphan home that they should pick it up.” The Reverend Stephen Snow turned around slowly to face his wife. There was a glacial light in his eyes. He still clutched the newspaper with the horrific headline in the New York Times. DEATH PENALTY FOR MINISTER’S DAUGHTER.

  “You’ll do no such thing,” he said. His tone was flat, devoid of any expression.

  Marjorie felt a chill run up her spine. What was wrong with Stephen? Wasn’t she trying her best to put on a good face? They were having to leave this charming house, the rectory of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in New York, for a nothing little church in Indiana. She didn’t even know there were Episcopalians in Indiana. She thought there were only Indians out there and some rough-hewn pioneer types probably living in log cabins and sod houses. It was appalling. But one had of make the best of things. At least they were heading to a place where there were no major newspapers that might have accounts of the dreadful recent events in their life.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, dear. But sulking isn’t going to help,” Marjorie said.

  “Help? Help what?” His shoulders sank, and it seemed as if he were disappearing within his own clothes, shrinking inside his skin.
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br />   “Our move to Indianapolis. I mean, I know it’s not the most desirable parish.”

  “The only person I want to help is our daughter.”

  “Have you gone mad?”

  He tipped his head to one side and regarded his wife before he spoke. His eyes were glazed with tears that threatened to spill. But then he stood up straighter and attempted to square the sagging shoulders.

  “No, Marjorie, I have not gone mad. I want to help our daughter, Lucy.”

  “But she is not our daughter. We adopted her. From the same orphanage that we are sending this dollhouse to.”

  “That makes no difference.” There was a glint of anger that Marjorie had never seen in his tear-glazed eyes. She stepped closer to study this unexpected reaction from her normally mild husband. There were scant inches between them. “You don’t understand, Stephen,” she hissed.

  “What don’t I understand, Marjorie?”

  “She’s not normal. She’s — she’s not human … she’s a changeling!”

  Stephen Snow blinked. Confusion swam in his eyes. Marjorie felt herself relax. He was coming to his senses. Then he looked at her with pure hatred. “I think I do understand.” His voice was raw.

  “Wh-what … do you mean …?” Terror seized her. He could not possibly know anything.

  “The poison.”

  “What poison?” Marjorie asked.

  “The rat poison. You put that poison in that small handbag of hers when the police came to arrest her. It — it …” He struggled for breath as he spoke. “You planted the murder weapon so Lucy would take the blame. But it was you who poisoned the duke, wasn’t it? You murdered him and let your own daughter take the blame.” He recoiled from her as if he were peering into a pit of vipers.