by kc dyer
As the group of them tumbled onto the deck, Darby could see the woman had a little girl running behind her. The woman continued to scream and the little girl was crying and trying to cling to her mother’s skirt.
It was Ellen.
Alec Damian pointed the musket at various people in the crowd that was starting to gather. No one seemed anxious to see him use it. The captain emerged from below, and neatly plucked the bundle from the hands of the crew member. A look of disgust on his face, he turned and shook the thing at the woman.
“This is AGAINST the rules,” he roared, his face purple with rage. The bundle was wrapped with some grimy lace that perhaps once had been white but was now a grey and matted mess. The captain shook the bundle so hard the lace came free, and to Darby’s horror, she saw a tuft of reddish-blond hair.
It couldn’t be.
It was.
A baby—tinier than Darby had ever seen.
Ellen’s mother screamed again. She seemed to be beyond words. Ellen clung to her leg, crying uncontrollably.
“Damian. Get me a bit o’ that cloth,” the captain snarled. The large man grasped a section of sail from the pile about to be mended and, with a mighty flex of his arms, ripped a piece of the fabric away.
Cameron laid the small bundle on the piece of cloth, and the thin wrappings around it fell away. The air was suddenly completely still. The captain turned slowly toward the crowd of passengers and his face changed, somehow.
“I am not a monster,” he said, his voice shaking with emotion. “This will be done as best we are able. But Missus Donnelly, ye have ta know that keeping this bairn on board will mean nothing but death for the rest of us. The child is long dead, woman.”
Darby could not tear her eyes off the baby. Every square inch of the tiny body was covered in blisters. Between the fingers and toes, all through the hair—it was the worst thing she had ever seen in her life. On the torso, most of the blisters were flattened, but she could see where many of them had filled with blood. The face had no features at all. It just looked like a solid black mask. The baby’s eyes were open and what should have been the whites of the eyes were also filled with blood. There were even blisters on the tongue, which was swollen right out of the mouth.
The captain pulled the cloth across the little body and the baby’s mother stood up. She was still held tightly in the grip of the crew member, but she had somehow found her voice.
“ ’Tis only that I wanted her buried on consecrated ground, Captain,” she said, and Darby could see what the words were costing her. Sweat stood out across her forehead, and her face was ashen grey. Darby could also see a rash of red blisters on the inside of her forearms. “I didn’t want my Sara cast over the side like the others, without the words of a priest to see her wee soul to heaven. Please,” her voice faltered, “please. I will keep her safe, away from the rest of the passengers. You have my word. You may lock me up as you did the others. Just let my baby be sent on her journey by a priest, Captain.”
Darby felt a wave of weakness wash over her at the sight of the tiny body, and had to lean against the wall so she didn’t fall down. The hundreds of passengers continued to watch in utter silence, and even Ellen stopped wailing.
Cameron jerked his head at another of his crewmen, who dragged a plank of wood across the deck. The captain, far more gently now, lay the tiny limp bundle on the plank and quickly swaddled it in the rough sailcloth. Darby could see his hands tremble as he covered the dead child’s face.
“I’m afraid I cannot agree to your request, Missus Donnelly,” he said. “The risk is too great.”
The baby’s mother collapsed completely, weeping, at the captain’s feet.
Suddenly the captain turned to Pádraig. “You,” he said roughly. “Yer a teacher, are you not? You must ’ave some Latin. Give us a few words to speed this wee babe on its journey.”
Alice was clutching her brother tightly by the hand, but she let go and he stepped toward the captain. Darby heard him start to say what sounded like the words of a prayer, and as he did, the captain tied the sailcloth tightly in place around the bundle with a length of leather lacing. Alice reached over and put an arm around Ellen, who was still crying softly at her mother’s side.
Darby had been leaning back against the wooden door of the storage closet, and she was aware of Gabe, still beside her. “This way,” he breathed in her ear, and as the captain picked up the bundle, they slipped around the edge of the foredeck.
“Wait,” Darby whispered, as he propelled her along. “I just need to know they will be all right.”
He stopped and looked her in the face. “A few will be,” he said in a low voice. “But your time here is done.”
Over his shoulder she could see the captain move to the rail with the bundle in his arms. He turned to the baby’s mother, and Darby was surprised to see tears rolling down his face. “I know what’s in your ’eart,” he said to Mrs. Donnelly. “One of me own ’as made this journey, you may remember.”
Darby looked at Gabe. “His wife was one of the first stricken,” he whispered. “She died little more than a week into the sailing.” He put his hand on her head to protect her from bumping it on the stone fireplace.
As she knelt down, Darby watched the captain nod at his crewman, who lifted the plank of wood and tipped the tiny body over the side of the ship.
She didn’t hear a splash.
But as the strange fog curled out of the stone hearth to take her, she watched the white and grey–clad form of Sara’s mother break free of the crewman’s arms and throw herself, like a swooping gull, over the side of the ship to join her baby. And the last sounds Darby heard were Ellen’s screams.
Darby lay on the grass and stared up at the sky, her face covered in tears and her head pounding like the percussion section of the school orchestra.
When Gabe had sweet-talked her onto the window ledge, she’d forgotten about the headache. But it hadn’t forgotten her, and it was back, in all its pain-wracked, Technicolor glory.
She tried to think about something else to push the pain away. The problem was she didn’t want to think about where she had just been or what she had just witnessed. The tiny baby’s blackened face was the worst thing Darby had ever seen in her life. But at least the baby’s pain was over. The pain in her mother’s face and in her sister’s screams … Darby knew they would live on in her memory forever.
She couldn’t help it—she just lay there and cried. For Ellen, who, if she even survived the journey, would be an orphan in a strange land. For Pádraig and Alice, who had pinned all their hopes on moving to a place that, if Driscoll was right, valued them less than stray dogs. And, if forced to admit it, she cried a bit for herself, too. She didn’t want to have seen what those people went through. She didn’t want to know.
Too late. The damage was done, as her mother would say. Dark-side Darby seeing the worst, as usual. But what else was there to see?
This made her sit up. In spite of the headache, one thing was perfectly clear. This wasn’t just Darby looking at the dark side. These things had really happened. Alice and Pádraig and Ellen’s mother had lives so awful, they had risked everything to come to Canada.
Strangely enough, as she wiped her tears away, she found the headache easing a little. She could still feel where the axe had been planted behind her right eye, but it was like somebody had pulled it out, and was maybe just taking a breather before swinging it into her brain again. She curled back over on her side and breathed in the scent of the fragrant grass of Gabriel’s garden. The pain might be easing, but the awful pictures were still there. Starving, ragged people, risking their lives and everything they had to come to a land that didn’t want them. How would she ever forget the loss and pain in Ellen’s voice?
Suddenly another voice was in her head. “Big Irish family,” Fiona had said. “I can’t keep them all straight.”
Could Fiona’s family have arrived in Canada on a ship like the Elizabeth? She had said her
family was Irish. And if her family was Irish …
Darby rolled over onto her knees and carefully tried to stand up. The pain hovered behind her eyes and rattled around the inside of her skull a little, but it was so much easier than before, she wanted to cry with relief.
No more crying. There were questions to answer.
Darby walked in the front door to find Nan on the telephone. She still couldn’t move her head very fast, but the worst of the headache was definitely gone. The whole way home she’d been going over cover stories to explain where she’d been, but …
“That’s wonderful news, Allan. Do you want to want to speak with Darby? She’s just walked in the door.”
Nothing. Not even a “Where have you been, young lady?” Darby looked at her watch.
“Oh, Allan, I didn’t know it was a secret. Of course I won’t tell. That’s for you and Sandra to decide.”
4:00 p.m. Darby pushed the button to check the date.
“Lovely to talk with you, dear. Here’s Darby!” She held out the phone.
July twenty-first.
She’d been gone for just a little more than an hour.
“Darby, dear—did you hear me? Your father is on the phone. He wants to say hello. Here you go, dear.”
Nan passed the phone to Darby and she had a conversation with her dad of which, even seconds after she hung up, she could not remember a single word. She thought maybe he said the reno was going well. She thought he also may have said they had a surprise for her. She knew he told her when they were planning to arrive for a short visit before taking her home.
She just couldn’t remember any of it.
Every fibre of Darby’s being told her she had been away for two days on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean. With the minor added detail of the whole event happening in another century. But her watch and her grandmother’s reaction indicated something completely different. So she did the only sensible thing possible under the circumstances.
Darby peeled potatoes.
After her dad said goodbye, Nan handed over the potato peeler and a bucket of spuds. One thing Darby had already learned—nothing is better for thinking than having to peel a big red wash bucket full of potatoes.
“Just a moment, young lady,” Nan said sternly. “What is that you have jammed in your pocket?”
Darby looked down. Sure enough, the pocket of her cutoffs was sticking out like there was a potato in it. She reached inside.
“Uh—it’s just a rock, Nan,” Darby said, and pulled it out.
Not just any rock, though. It was the piece of hearthstone from the Elizabeth that Gabe had tripped over.
“Well, please don’t carry big rocks around in your pocket like that. You might have ripped your shorts.”
Darby carefully set the rock on the back stairs where she would remember to take it up to her room. Then she grabbed the bucket, the peeler and a sheet of The Guardian and took them out to the back porch. She wanted to let her hands do the work while her brain tried to sort out what had happened. She thought about the first trip to the frozen North. She thought about the second trip on the Atlantic Ocean.
And then she thought about something entirely different. Darby was a sceptic by nature. She clearly remembered the moment she figured out that bunnies were not biologically capable of laying chocolate eggs, and shortly after that, the moment she decided the hand replacing the tooth under her pillow with a toonie might not be coated in fairy dust. But this was not like those moments. In fact, this was the opposite of those moments. Instead of seeing life in the harsh light of reality, she had to talk herself into believing in magic.
Darby found herself in the very odd position, while peeling potatoes on her grandparents’ back porch, of beginning to doubt her own doubts.
The cure for all of this could only be a few good, solid facts. And there was one place Darby had come to rely on when she needed information. Her plan for tomorrow was set. She needed to hit the library.
When Darby walked back into the kitchen with her big bowl of freshly peeled potatoes, Nan looked at her critically. “You are wearing that helmet when you ride your skateboard, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Nan.”
“Hm. I guess it can’t do much to protect those shins of yours. You look like you’ve been crawling through broken glass,” she said, gesturing at the scrapes on Darby’s legs.
Darby had to admit they did look pretty bad.
“It worries me more that your eyes are still so red,” Nan said. “Is your head aching again?”
“It was a bit sore today, but it’s a lot better now,” Darby said carefully. She didn’t want to lie to Nan, but there was no way she wanted to share any wacko theories at this point—or admit she’d been crying.
“I think you need a little more rest,” Nan said firmly.
“Well, I’m only planning to go to the library tomorrow. Nothing strenuous,” Darby said.
“All right,” Nan agreed reluctantly. “But only if you walk over. I want you to take a day away from riding that skateboard.”
A one-day ban? No problem. Darby could live with that.
“Okay,” she agreed, and went over to the sink to wash her hands.
The telephone rang again. Nan laughed. “My goodness. I hardly hear this thing all year, but now that you are here it seems to ring all the time.”
She picked up the phone with a jolly “Hello!” but her face fell almost immediately. “Thank you, Ernie,” she said quietly. “I’ll get my bag and meet you right out front.”
She hung up the telephone and Darby could see her trying to put on a cheerful face.
“What is it, Nan?”
“Oh, it’s just your grandfather, up to his tricks again. I thought he was having a nap upstairs, but it turns out he was taking a little trip down to Province House.”
She picked up her purse and headed for the front door.
“I’ll come too,” Darby said, and flipped off the switch on the stove burner under the potatoes.
“Thank you, dear,” Nan said. “Between the three of us, I know we’ll be able to persuade him to come home.”
It was really only a couple of blocks to get to the big government building, so Ernie had them there in a flash. “I was just circling, looking to pick up a fare,” he said to Nan, “when I saw him sitting by the cenotaph. I—I just thought it might be better if you came to get him.”
Darby hopped out of the cab with Nan as soon as Ernie pulled over at a taxi stand, and she spotted Gramps right away. He was the only person standing beside the cenotaph in boxer shorts and undershirt.
“Oh, dear,” she heard Nan say, under her breath. Darby knew this would be horrifyingly embarrassing for Nan, so she decided to put a different spin on it.
“We have pyjama day at school all the time and all the kids wear boxers,” she said to her worried grandmother. “The more colourful, the better. Besides, half the guys wear their pants so low, their boxers are hanging out anyway.” It could have been a lot worse, Darby thought. Lucky he didn’t sleep naked.
“Hi Gramps,” she said cheerfully, as she walked up to him. “Did you know that Nan’s making garlic mashed potatoes for supper?”
Nan shot Darby a grateful look and they both reached over to take one of his hands. He had been staring at the names listed under the Korean Conflict, reaching up and running his fingers over them as he read them under his breath. When Darby spoke, his eyes were cloudy and distant, and he looked like he didn’t have a clue who she was.
But at the sight of Nan, his eyes cleared. “Just thought I’d nip down to have a peek at the boys,” he said gruffly and then caught sight of the cab. “What are you doing here, Ernie?”
Ernie slapped Gramps on the back. “Just cruising around, Vern. It’s a slow day today. How’s about you let me give you a lift home?”
“No need for that, Ernie. It’s just a block or two if we cut through the lane.”
“Darby is not feeling well,” blurted Nan, suddenly. “I think it
’s better to accept Ernie’s kind offer and get her home quickly.”
Gramps bobbed his head immediately. “These young ones,” he said to Ernie as he hopped in the front seat beside him. “No stamina. Let’s get the kid home, Ern.”
He leaned over the backseat to look at them. “I hear ye’ve got garlic mash on the menu, Etta. That so?”
Nan nodded at Gramps, then turned to smile at Darby. The drive home took all of two minutes, and Nan insisted that Ernie come in and enjoy roast chicken and mashed potatoes with the family.
Crisis averted. Gramps even appeared at the dinner table with his trousers on.
“It’s lucky it’s summer,” Darby said, staring up at the indigo sky. She’d last seen a sky that colour when sailing on a ship in a different century. The very thought made her shiver a little.
Nan and Darby were sitting on the porch after dinner. They had just waved goodbye to Ernie. Gramps was in watching the news and guarding his remote from teenage-girl invasion.
“I’m sure anyone who saw him thought he was just out walking, wearing his shorts.”
Nan arched an eyebrow at Darby. “Oh, yes. He commonly goes out in his blue-striped shorts with horses on them.”
Darby laughed a little. “Nan, you have got to get Gramps up to speed with today’s fashion. Blue stripes are so last year. This year everyone will only be seen in green stripes with horses.”
Nan laughed a little, too, which made Darby happy. She was more concerned about Nan at the moment than she was about Gramps. He’d be okay. For a while, anyway.
Nan sat beside Darby with her medicine-in-a-sherry-glass. She’d even broken down and let her granddaughter have a Coke.
“But the caffeine is so bad for you, dear,” she’d wailed. Darby grinned. Half the kids in her class would’ve been sneaking the sherry, for Pete’s sake.