I look back toward the Xerxes and Captain Greeney’s ship. Smoke rises from the Xerxes, but it is afloat. I squint, and out of the smoke, I see the shape of another small whaleboat coming toward us.
“No,” I whisper. Saliva falls from my lip and freezes to my chin in a second. It’s him. It’s Captain Greeney following us in his own whaleboat.
“Row, Eustace!” I say. My mouth is frozen. It’s difficult to make the words. “He’s coming.”
Eustace heaves the oars through the water. Greeney’s boat gets nearer and nearer until his body and then his eyes are in view. He sets down his oars. He’s reaching for something in the bottom of his boat. And then a harpoon flies past us and lands in the water and ice beyond.
“He’s trying to catch us,” I say.
Eustace doesn’t respond to me. He’s working so hard, fighting the cold and the ice and the water and the weight of the boat and me and Fob. He strokes and strokes the oars. He’s breathing heavily but evenly.
Another harpoon flies at us, and this time it penetrates the side of our boat. The rope attached to it goes taut. Our boat lurches. Waves lap up and over it all around. Then Greeney pulls on the rope, yanks himself toward us.
“Pull the harpoon out, Lu,” says Eustace. He continues to stroke, though we go nowhere. He keeps tension in the rope. “You have to pull the harpoon out! I can’t stop rowing!”
I’m so cold that I don’t feel like I can move. I’m not sure my body works.
“Do it,” pleads Eustace.
I put down the crate. Every movement hurts. I shake my arms and my fingers to life.
Greeney is slowly yanking himself closer to us even as Eustace rows and rows to get away from him.
I grab hold of the harpoon. Its arrow tip is deep in the wood. I push it down and then up again. It barely budges.
“Resign yourself!” Greeney shouts across the water. “I will have the head!”
You won’t, I think. I shake the arrow tip back and forth and up and down. Come on, I think. Fob barks at Greeney. It’s a sad, hoarse bark.
“You’ll die like my father did,” I say. It’s so quiet I don’t know if he’s heard. “You must die,” I say louder. “Like all of us do.”
Then the ocean beneath me turns from grayish white to black. The water moves with whatever glides beneath us. I work and work at the harpoon tip. Eustace stops rowing and fighting against the pull of Greeney’s harpoon to watch the shadow slide away. Whatever it is, it’s big. One hundred feet or more.
To get tossed into this water, this bitter cold water, means certain death.
I tug at the harpoon, slow and steady, as I once did with Captain Abbot’s tooth. Finally, I wrench it free from our boat.
I hold it high. My arms shake. But my body fills with vigor. I rear back and throw it at Greeney’s boat. The harpoon wobbles through the air and lands in his bow.
“I am free of you, Captain Greeney!” I shout, my voice strong now.
He scrambles to pick it up and stands.
“I’ll follow you right to the South Pole!” he shouts at me. “I will have it.”
“You won’t,” I say, shaking my head. “You weren’t brave enough to get there last time. And you’re not now, either.” My words fly straight and sure.
He leans back and prepares to throw the harpoon at us again. His face contorts into something snakelike. His eyes widen and his lips sneer.
A strange wave rolls across the water, ominous. The wake pitches our boat up and down.
“What is that?” I ask. I watch a long shadow creep through the water. The wave it creates grows bigger and crushes any ice in its way.
“Hang on,” says Eustace. He holds on to the sides of the boat. “It’s your whale. It’s got to be your whale. Watch.”
I do.
The ocean seems to rise up and then fall away like the earth descending into a sinkhole. Only this time, the curved back of a giant rises from where the water falls. The whale gains speed, and the wake grows larger. When he’s within feet of Captain Greeney’s boat, the whale dives. His enormous fluke pops above the water and then slips down quiet as a ghost. The water goes silent and still.
Captain Greeney has seen the whale, too. He’s watching the water. He sits and grabs hold of the sides of his boat. He looks over one way and then the other.
Very slowly, Eustace takes up the oars and calmly pulls us farther away from Captain Greeney. “We have to keep going,” he says.
I put the Medicine Head’s crate on my lap. Eustace rows and I watch behind us, at the scene of Greeney on his whaleboat.
Then the water all around Captain Greeney flutters and bubbles and froths. His boat looks as though it sits on top of a boiling pot of soup.
The nose of the whale bursts out of the water and pushes Greeney’s boat into the air. The boat rises and rises, balanced on the boxlike nose of the sperm whale, my sperm whale.
Water sprays all around until the whale’s two fins are out of the water, his hump is out of the water. He rises until his own weight tips him forward and he dives, sending Greeney’s boat sailing through the air. Greeney is thrown from his boat. He’s aloft and flying. The whale falls back into the sea with a mighty splash. Then Greeney’s boat, and Greeney, too, land in the water. The waves roil. Frothing water bubbles and spurts.
Fob barks. I pat his head and tell him, “Shh.”
The whale thrashes and splashes and ruins the boat. Wood and ice chunks fly in every direction. Our boat rocks but remains upright in the violence. Eustace pulls and pulls the oars through the water and ice.
The whale shows no mercy. When he finally stops, parts of the boat float here and there, oars, boots, a cap, and harpoons bobbing on the water. For a while, the whale hovers on the surface. I can hear him heaving, as though he has exhausted himself. He blows a long spray of water and air into the sky. Then the whale curves his back and dives. Eustace and I wait. But nothing happens. There’s no sign of the whale or of the man who murdered my father.
Captain Greeney has succumbed to the ocean. That’s what Captain Abbot meant when he said “only one of us.” The Medicine Head showed him all this.
He’s not insane at all.
The ocean calms down like a lion does after he eats. Small tears gather in the corners of my eyes, which freeze and hurt like glass shards. Even after all he put my father and my family through, my heart is heavy for Captain Greeney. “Death is a gift,” I whisper, for my own sake, mostly.
CHAPTER 33
Our whaleboat is encased in ice. It creaks and cracks. The ice hunks crumble and squeak against each other and the side of the boat.
“We have to keep going,” I say.
The ocean is slushy. Eustace rows us through the last field of ice. He leans over and smashes us through big chunks. He works hard. Sweat on his forehead and in his hairline has frozen. Ice crystals cover his entire face.
I smell the air. Dirt. Rock. A scent that’s elemental and dry.
From underneath the boat comes a flittering and swooshing noise. Short, squat shadows buzz under the water all around us.
“Not again,” I say. I’m afraid the whale has returned to destroy us, too. But these shadows are too fast, too short. “What are those?”
“Penguins,” says Eustace. “They’re penguins.”
A black-and-white body pops up on a sheet of ice and stares at us as we glide by. We watch it. It means we are close to land.
“I told you they’re nothing like chickens,” I say to Eustace.
Eustace chuckles. “You were right about that,” he says. “They don’t look a bit like chickens.” He speaks slowly and quietly. His lips quiver and his voice shakes.
“They probably taste the same,” I say. I giggle and shiver at the same time, and so does Eustace. My body warms a bit with the laugh.
Eustace pokes away slabs of ice as he strokes us through the water. I can hear what sounds like waves splashing against a shore. We keep going. My whole body shakes. When I lick my
lips, the moisture freezes.
Eustace slows in his rowing. He closes his eyes and leans back a bit. Then he stops moving altogether and appears to be sleeping upright.
“Eustace?” I say. “Hey. Eustace. Are you all right?” I breathe into my hands.
He doesn’t answer. His face is stone still. He’s not shivering or shaking the way I am. I’m so cold, I can barely move, but I get to my knees. I crawl to him. “Come, Fob,” I say.
Fob whines but creeps toward Eustace, too.
I grab Eustace’s arm and peel the oar out of his hand, which is curled like a claw. I remove the fur mitten Nova gave him. I pull his hand to my mouth and blow warm air on his fingers.
“Sit, Fob,” I say, and he settles on top of Eustace’s feet. “Don’t move, boy.” Fob curls around Eustace’s legs. He whines.
“You’ve got to clench and unclench your fingers and toes,” I say to Eustace, even though I’m not sure he can hear me. I’m not sure I’m really saying the words. I know I’m thinking them, but I have a strange sense of being outside myself. “Or you’ll lose them.”
I move his fingers back and forth. I blow on them. Finally, he opens his eyes and says, “Ow, that hurts.” He closes his eyes again.
I slap his hands on his own thigh. Again and again.
“Ow,” he says more forcefully. “Stop that.”
“Stay awake,” I say. “You can’t fall asleep.” I smack him on one cheek and then the other. He tries to grab my hand, but he’s too slow.
“You better stop hitting me,” he says.
“Wake up,” I say, “and I’ll stop hitting you.”
Eustace sits up straight. He puts his mitten back on and takes the oar in hand again.
I am fumbling around in the whaleboat, thinking to find an extra blanket or something, when I discover a lantern and matches.
I lift them and try to smile, but my mouth is frozen.
“Not yet,” says Eustace. “Not until we get rid of that thing.” He gazes at the Medicine Head. “No heat,” he says.
“Right,” I say.
Pretty soon, Eustace is rowing steadily again. I drum my fingers on top of the Medicine Head’s crate. It’s absolutely quiet.
Ice mountains rise into the sky. White hills roll beyond. Between them are patches of black. Nothing seems alive out there except the land itself. And then there’s a place before us where the ocean slopes up onto a shore with dirt. Dirt. The continent of Antarctica. This is where my father was. This is where I am. Wonder’s Land. Our namesake at the edge of the world.
Eustace stares up at the white cliffs. “Wow,” he says. “It’s beautiful.” He pulls the oars through the ice and water.
Suddenly, the boat stops. Eustace jabs at the ice with his oars. He pokes at it with a harpoon. Then he says, “We’re stuck solid. We won’t get in any closer. I think I can throw it from here.”
He turns to me. I hold the crate tight. I’m not sure I can give it up. What if I can never see my father again? What if holding the head is the only way?
“Give it to me,” Eustace says. “Lu, give it to me.”
And then I see an apparition. Father is on the ship Vivienne. He’s holding his binoculars. I see him pointing and then writing down his discovery. I can hear him, too. He’s saying, “I did it! There it is! The continent of Antarctica!” I don’t breathe. I want to listen to him forever. I would like to stay right here and have this dream forever. My body is rigid. My heart says, Hold me. Thump. Thump. Hold me. Thump. Thump. Hold me. Hold me. Thump. Hold me. Hold me. Thump.
I’m dying, I know. I don’t care. I want to be with Father.
“Hallelujah!” shouts Eustace. I exhale. My breath is a white fog, like the ghost of myself. The apparition of my father disappears. “You’ll freeze to death if we don’t finish this thing now,” Eustace says. He drops the oars. He comes to me and rubs his hands on my face.
“We’re almost done,” he says. “We’ve almost done it. Let go of the crate.”
“I can’t,” I whisper. I want to close my eyes and sleep.
“Yes, you can,” he says, gently. He puts his hands over mine and rubs them until they tingle. I lift one finger at a time from the crate. I open and close my fingers, which resist moving from their crowbar curl. Eustace takes off the top. “Let’s do it,” he says.
I reach in and pick up the Medicine Head. I wait for something to happen. But nothing does. The Medicine Head has no power here. Its leathery skin feels hard and won’t give a bit. The lips sneer at me. The eyes seem closed in frozen concentration.
“Lu!” I hear. “Give it to me.”
“Yes,” I say. “Take it.”
Eustace drops it into the bottom of the boat and begins circling a rope around it.
“I need a good knot,” he says. “Can you do it?”
I wiggle my fingers. They are practically frozen solid. “Yes, I can do it.”
I kneel down in the bottom of the boat and force my fingers to make the loops for a simple buntline hitch. When I’m finished, Eustace attaches the other end of the rope to the harpoon. He jabs an oar into the ice on either side of the boat to hold it steady. Then he stands and rears back.
“Wait,” I say. “Wait.” I stand. “I want to do it.”
“What?” he says. “I mean, are you sure?”
“I can,” I say. “Remember that lady’s whistle I tossed?”
He nods and moves. He helps steady me.
I draw the harpoon back and then, like a whale slapping its fluke, I hurl it forward, flinging it as far as I can, with the Medicine Head attached.
It flies off into the white, through the winter air. It flies and flies away from Captain Abbot and Captain Greeney and Eustace and Nova and Fob. It flies away from Father. It flies and flies away from me, and as soon as I hear the sharp piercing of a steel point into frozen ground, I know it’s gone forever. The wind blows and picks up snow. Soon it will be buried.
I will the ice and gales of Antarctica to tether the Medicine Head to it forever. I will the Medicine Head to be covered and encased in a frozen grave.
I work my fingers so that they pinch a match, and I strike it until it’s lit. It sparks and then grows very small. I cup my other hand around the flame until it grows strong. Then I open the lantern and put the flame to the wick.
Fire. A small one, but fire nevertheless. I close the lantern and put it between us at our feet. And I don’t know how, but the heat from that small flame makes all the difference.
Eustace sits down next to me and holds me in his arms. Fob tucks himself between us. There’s a heat there, too, in the center of us.
I feel free, close to Father. I feel like I can finally go back to Kansas, go back home.
“You did it,” Eustace says. “You did it, Hallelujah Wonder.” He hugs me tight. Fob barks, a full, hearty, healthy bark. In the distance, I can hear the sounds of hammers putting the Xerxes back together. I can hear the strong voice of Nova shouting for the men to lower another whaleboat. She’s coming for us.
I hug Eustace back. “We did it, Eustace.”
CHAPTER 34
On days such as today, when the warm winds guide the Xerxes over the flat Atlantic Ocean, I like to slide across the deck to a place near the galley where I can sit and think.
“Keep an eye on Fob,” I tell Eustace.
Fob pads over to him and lies down. “Another few weeks and you’ll be in Kansas, Lu,” Eustace says. He smiles. “You’re almost home. Big work to be done there.”
“Yes,” I say. “I’m sure the farm needs tending. And that Priss could use some help with the hogs. Your ma. My mother.” I scratch at dead skin, which has turned white and flaky, on my fingertips. The very same thing has happened to the tips of Eustace’s fingers as a result of the temperatures in Antarctica. I scratch and watch that skin float away. “And the abolitionists need me, too.”
Eustace picks the skin off his fingertips as well. “Yes,” he says. “A lot of big work. I’m proud of you, Hal
lelujah Wonder.”
My chest swells up.
“I’m proud of you, too, Eustace,” I say. And I mean it. “I’ll tell your ma all about it.” I mean that, too.
It’ll be difficult to leave Eustace, but leave him I will. For now, anyway. He’s safe here with Captain Abbot and Nova. And he likes this work. I like to think that someday, when I’m older, after I’ve taken care of Father’s treasure in a proper museum, I’ll come back here for a visit. I still hope to be a scientist, but I think I’ll be one who stays on land, mostly. I’ve had enough of the ocean for a while. A couple of years ago, Father told me some people were digging up bones of what looked like huge lizards in America. I might spend some time seeing what that’s all about. I will carry on the Wonder name in my own way.
I think about Kansas, full of terrible problems, lonely acres, cross neighbors, stingy clouds, but it is where I will return. I lie down and hold my breath until a noise like the swooshing of water fills my ears.
Soon I can almost feel the earth rock-solid beneath me. I pretend I’m on the plains. If I squint, the sails of the Xerxes are the thin streaming clouds of the Tolerone sky. On the windward side, the gentle waves glisten like waving wheat fields. On the leeward side, the breaching of a sperm whale is the curve of a rocky limestone outcropping. I go on this way for as long as I can, trying to beat however long I held my breath yesterday. Eventually, though, I have to breathe again. And with the oxygen filling my lungs comes back reality, comes back the tail end of my journey, comes back Mother, waiting and rocking, comes back Ruby, comes back Priss, and comes back unsettled Kansas.
I breathe out slowly.
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AUTHOR’S NOTE
A number of years ago, a colleague and I were rummaging through the book closet at the school where we taught, looking for novels to teach to our classes. Though boxes of treasures filled the room, we struggled to find a novel with a strong female protagonist.
Wonder at the Edge of the World Page 22