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  This had not been good news. Trying to get around Bairn was like trying to get around Anna—they both had eyes in the back of their heads. But here was where Felix’s English came in handy. He saw one of the dock workers lift a barrel lid and peer inside. “Why are these ones empty?” The dock worker sounded puzzled.

  “They’re heading north to fill them,” another dock worker answered back, lifting his hand to his mouth as if he were drinking from a bottle.

  Then Felix had a brilliant idea.

  He waited until a load of barrels was getting uploaded by the capstan, cautiously crawled around the barrels still to be loaded, lifted the lid partially off the barrel that the dock worker had indicated was empty, and dove into the barrel, then closed the lid. It was a bit topsy-turvy when the barrel was loaded, and his head, elbows, and knees got bumped more than a few times, but with all the noise of the docks, his hiding place went unnoticed. As soon as he heard the footsteps of the deckhands climb up the ladder to the top deck, and he didn’t hear any other sounds, he lifted the lid of the barrel and peered around. Satisfied he was alone, he jumped out of the barrel, only to be nearly discovered by a sailor, an older fellow as wrinkled as a dried apple, who was coming out of the fo’c’sle. Fortunately, the lighting was so dim that the old sailor probably thought it was a rat he’d heard. He walked around the lower deck, muttering to himself about needing to put more arsenic down.

  Felix was as nervous as a cat. He held his breath until the old sailor climbed the companionway ladder to the upper deck, then he let out a huge sigh of relief. He had to be careful and not be found. Not yet.

  He heard the familiar rhythmic cadence of his brother’s boot steps up above, striding up and down the deck in that long stride of his. Felix would know his brother anywhere. His heard Bairn’s voice as he spoke to someone, then he heard that someone answer in response, with intermittent sneezes and coughs like he had the plague. Bairn shouted out to the deckhands to make way, and Felix realized he must have been talking to the captain.

  Felix hoped Anna would get the letter he left for her, telling her not to worry, that he was with Bairn and would make sure they returned safe and sound, come late spring. With her grandparents.

  Ohhhhh, wait.

  He patted his pockets and heard a crunching sound. The letter! He’d forgotten to slip it into Anna’s basket with her rose.

  Oh well. She’d figure out where he went. Anna was smart like that. She could calm his mother down so she didn’t dip back into her sadness. He felt another sting of regret. His mother was not like other mothers, not like Maria or Barbara. His mother carried sadness around like a burden, almost like the way Anna carried her rose basket. It was never far from her.

  Would his mother understand that he was with Bairn, that he couldn’t bear to be parted from him? Surely, she could understand that.

  And if not, spring would be here soon enough. He dismissed the ping of worry about his mother and settled down, leaning against the ship’s exterior wall, waiting for the tide to come in and the ship to go out.

  Felix did not dare venture from the lower deck quite yet—not until the ship was well under way, far from any chance of it turning around if he were discovered, and not until he had a sense of the ship’s rhythm. He had much to learn—to listen for the watch bells, to instantly recognize this new captain’s voice, to count the deckhands and know where they were at all times.

  To Felix’s reckoning, he should stay below deck for at least two days, longer if he could stand it. But oh, he was getting so hungry! The growls of his stomach sounded like angry tigers lived inside him.

  He dug into his satchel to find an apple to eat. Inside it were not the apples he had grabbed from a bushel, but a bundle of papers, a tan linen shirt, a blue woolen scarf. In Felix’s haste to slip away unnoticed from the wagon caravan, he had accidentally grabbed the wrong leather satchel. Rats! He was famished.

  He heard someone come down the ladder and hid behind a barrel near a cannon portal. A sailor—the cook, perhaps?—was rooting through a few barrels and filled his apron with something, then climbed back up the ladder, knees creaking with each step.

  Remember that, Felix told himself. Cook has creaky knees.

  It was surprising how much a person knew about another person, without really knowing him. Already, he was learning. Cook had cracking knees, the captain had a persistent sneeze and hacking cough, Bairn had bold, strong footsteps. All clues to their identity, when a person lived hidden in the lower deck.

  Why so many cannons on this ship? The Charming Nancy did not have nearly as many. He was beside himself with excitement, eager to explore this ship—every inch. But first, he was desperate for something to eat.

  He crawled on hands and knees over to the barrels where the cook had filled his apron with supplies. He had left a mess getting flour from one barrel. Maria would box the cook’s ears if she saw such a mess, but he would leave good clues for Felix to figure out where the food barrels were. He peered into the barrels, opened one to find onions—no thank you—and then hit a gold mine. A barrel filled with apples, so freshly picked that leaves were still on the stems. This, Felix believed, was a sign from God that he would be provided for. He could live on apples for weeks. Months, if necessary.

  He heard sailors shout to each other as they unfurled the sails from the masts. Sails snapped. The ship creaked and groaned, lurched, tipping one way, then another, as it started to move away from the dock. Once it went roundabout and more sails were unfurled, one by one, so that the ship gained speed and hit open water, it had a kind of music all its own. Creaks, groans, rattles, bangs, slapping sails.

  He hurried over to the cannon hole to watch the ship make its way slowly down the mouth of the Delaware River. He ran to the other side of the ship to see Port Philadelphia pass by. He gave it a salute, the way he’d seen sailors do.

  He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the scent of the sea.

  And now Felix was quite free to do as he pleased. No boy could ever have been as happy as he was at that very moment.

  And then, out of nowhere, down the ladder came Squinty Eye’s awful dog, his tongue hanging out, nails clicking along the wooden planks, his short, nearly hairless tail wagging back and forth, pleased to have found Felix.

  Bairn stood at the helm of the ship, overlooking the dock, the port, the river filled with bobbing ships. A thousand times his eyes must have taken in such a scene. It was all the same, and so was he. He hadn’t changed at all, not at all.

  Or had he?

  He threw off that jabbing thought and let the old rhythm of the sea return to him. How he’d missed this.

  Sail ships had distinct personalities. No two had been built alike, no two handled alike. Bairn had learned to familiarize himself with the sounds of each sail ship he served on, grew to know them like they were people. He closed his eyes, listening carefully to adapt himself to the unique sounds of the Lady Luck. The noise of a ship was similar to the effect of heel taps on a boot—it let a man know he was alive, breathing, and had someplace to go.

  Someplace to go. Someplace to return to.

  A cold, clear reality swept over Bairn in a terrible wave, one so powerful it stole his breath. He was alone again, truly alone. This time, the fault was not his father’s, or greedy redemptioners’, but his own foolish judgment.

  Why had he left Anna? Why had he left his mother, his father, his brother? He himself couldn’t grasp what it was inside of him, where it came from, that made him walk away from what was right there, right in front of him, everything he’d ever dreamed about and longed for.

  What was the matter with him?

  Before he could answer, wind and tide came together and the captain gave the signal to prepare the ship to make way. Bairn set aside his turmoil and snapped into action as first mate. Exiting the port required his full attention, especially at twilight, and he was grateful. It took skill to maneuver the ship around anchored vessels and approaching ships, and th
is barque was new to him.

  Its load was light as it left Port Philadelphia, which required an adjustment of sails to slow its movement. And then, as the river widened and they headed toward the Delaware Bay, Bairn cupped his mouth and shouted, “Hard-a-lee!” to the sailor who manned the wheel, to turn the ship’s head. He hollered another command to the sailors on the masts, to unfurl the last of the sails and let them billow.

  “Aye, sir!” echoed back.

  He stood at the stern, taking a deep breath, and watched the receding wooded shoreline of Pennsylvania. His thoughts returned to Anna.

  Anna cried when they’d said goodbye and it tore his heart in two. She was not one to cry. It touched him with a grave longing for something he couldn’t name.

  Was he wrong to leave her? It was for such a short time, five, maybe six months. Bairn had learned a great deal about time in his life on the sea. Time wasn’t meant to be hoarded but to be mastered. Use it well, or lose it poorly. He told as much to Anna and she strongly disagreed. She said time was to be measured. Exchanged like a value. She made it sound like gold.

  He’d done everything he could to leave things right between them: He worked out the compromise to have the men affirm submission to the British Crown rather than swear an oath. He helped the church gather supplies and tools, horses and wagons. He explained to the minister that he was not accompanying them. Christian said he was disappointed but not surprised, and he wished him well. And then Bairn bid them goodbye as the wagon caravan got on its way.

  It wasn’t fair to promise Anna that he would return with her grandparents. He didn’t say it aloud to her, but he wondered if they might have already passed to their glory. He remembered them as quite elderly. Or what if they refused to come, like they had done on this past year’s journey?

  Her grandparents had made the right decision. The journey was a brutal one, made increasingly difficult by things that were out of anyone’s control. He’d heard of one ship, bringing German Moravians, whose whereabouts were still unknown.

  Surely, this last year was atypical. The captains were more experienced now, toting passengers in the lower decks and not just cotton and woolens. Surely, next year’s crossing would be much easier.

  And then what? Would he be ready to return to Anna, to his family? To take his spot beside his father and become one of the farmers who tamed the wilderness?

  Or would he be wrestling with the same doubts? The same despair? Anna thought so. She said it wasn’t a problem of his vocation. It was a problem with his heart.

  A gust of wind billowed the mighty sails, so strong it lifted his hat. He grabbed the brim with both hands, firmly settled it on his brow, and tried to dismiss the distressing emotions that followed him like shadows. It was the old melancholy that was returning to him—confusion and heaviness. Loneliness.

  He walked around the upper deck, checking spars and halyards, looking for any loose ropes. As he jumped down from the fo’c’sle deck, he stopped and turned in a full circle.

  He was not a man prone to superstition or funny feelings, not like most sailors and deckhands. They drew meaning from every jot and tittle, in every dream, every cloud that floated by. No, he’d never paid any mind to that nonsense about premonitions.

  But there was an odd feeling he couldn’t shake. All day long, he had the strangest feeling that he was being watched.

  And then he heard a familiar bark.

  8

  Lady Luck, Atlantic Ocean

  October 21, 1737

  Everything had been going so well, just as Felix had planned.

  The ship’s bow sliced through dark water as sails billowed. Lady Luck was on her way down the Delaware River to meet the Atlantic Ocean.

  From the top of the companionway ladder, Felix had peered through the hatch to watch his brother walk along the upper deck and climb onto the ship’s bowsprit. Bairn had simply stood there, with his arms straight at his sides and his head slightly lifted, and though Felix couldn’t see his face, his brother’s very presence seemed to alter from the inside out. Suddenly it was all there, in the set of his shoulders, in the way he braced his legs on the deck. His brother looked every bit the sea captain.

  Felix’s heart swelled with pride. No wonder Bairn had to go back to sea! This, this was where he belonged. A leader among men who tamed the mighty ocean. Not stuck in the wilderness, pushing a plow or yielding an ax.

  It was all going so well, just as Felix had planned.

  And then the dog let out a bark.

  That dog! That awful dog. It always, always found Felix and gave him away. His brother must have heard its bark because he bolted toward the companionway, down the ladder to the lower deck, and let out a whistle, a signal to the awful dog to come. The dog barked, ran to Bairn, and ran back to Felix with its dumb tail wagging in a circle. Ducking his head so he wouldn’t hit the beams, Bairn marched right over to Felix’s hiding place by the cannon. Slowly, Felix lifted his head to face his brother’s glare.

  Bairn stared down at him, his hands on his hips. “I should have ken! I should have ken! Y’ jumped the wagons and ran t’ the docks. I should have ken y’d do such a dastardly thing!”

  Felix slowly rose to his feet. “Are you going to turn back the ship?”

  Bairn’s face went from shock to fury. “Return? Are y’ daft, lad? We’re too far from shore to return.” His eyes narrowed. He pointed at Felix. “Which y’ surely ken—why else would y’ be hidin’ down here?” Bairn shook his head. “Did y’ have the wits about you to let anyone ken y’ve gone missin’?”

  Felix pulled the letter from his jacket. “I wrote a letter to Anna.” He opened it up. He’d been quite proud of that letter. “But then I forgot to leave it in her rose basket.”

  Bairn leaned against a barrel. “So now y’ve caused them undue worry and delay. You ken Anna will return t’ look for y’. She thinks of y’ as her burden.” He covered his face with his hands. “Felix, dinnae y’ think of what this would do t’ yer poor mother? The sea devils will return to her.”

  Sea devils were the sailors’ way to speak of sadness. “I guess I didn’t think much about sea devils.” Though he did like the way it rolled off his tongue. Sea devils. He would be completely fluent in English by the time he came back to Port Philadelphia, and wouldn’t his father be proud of him then? Wouldn’t Anna? Yes. He could just see the delight in their faces as he negotiated trades for them. Then they would see that he had made a wonderful decision. Even his mother wouldn’t be so terribly bothered.

  “Why did y’ do such a thing?”

  “I heard you and Captain Stedman talk.”

  “What? When?”

  “I was hiding under a wagon wheel. Right by your boots.”

  “So y’ decided then and there to run away?”

  “I’m not running away! How can I be running away when I’m with my brother?”

  “Y’ have a wee brother now.”

  “That’s just it. Mama is happy as long as she has a baby to fuss over. She has Papa and the new baby. And Anna too. They all have each other. But you, Bairn, you don’t have anyone. You need someone with you. You needed me.”

  For a long time, Bairn stood silently, watching Felix.

  Felix lifted a finger in the air the way Captain Stedman did when he tried to drive home a point. “And soon enough, you and I will be back in Port Philadelphia. You said so yourself. We’ll go straight to the new settlement and help Papa chop down trees.” He brought his hand down in a chopping motion. “You’ll see, Bairn. They’ll hardly know we’ve been gone. They might not even miss us.”

  Bairn gave him a look as if he might be sun touched, but Felix had the utmost confidence in his logic. “So, what’s the plan?” he asked Bairn, who always had one.

  “I’ll not be hiding y’.”

  “Understood.”

  “We’re goin’ to find the captain to explain yer sudden appearance.” Bairn gave him a little push in the direction of the stairs. “Go, then. Go on.
”

  “What will he do?”

  “My guess is he’ll put y’ on the next passin’ ship to return y’ to Port Philadelphia. From there, you’ll be on yer own to find yer way t’ the settlement.”

  Oh no. The wheels in Felix’s mind started to spin. “Here’s a better idea. I could be cabin boy. The captain will listen to you, Bairn. And there’s no cabin boy on this ship.” He didn’t think there was, anyway.

  Bairn frowned, but he turned and headed to the upper deck to find the captain. At the top of the ladder, he turned and shouted, “Are y’ coming or not?”

  Felix ran to the ladder to catch up with Bairn. The awful dog trotted behind him.

  Up the Schuylkill River

  Anna gazed at the flickering flames of the fire, wanting to sleep but her mind was spinning. Beyond, in the dark infinity of the deep woods, a wolf howled at the moon. She wondered if it might be the mate of the wolf Henrik had killed. Was that poor she wolf waiting for her mate to return, wondering what had happened to him?

  The she wolf would have a long wait.

  She ducked her head to hide a tear that slipped down her cheek. How ridiculous. To cry over a wolf. But that wasn’t what was upsetting her. She was thinking of Bairn. Of Felix.

  As soon as dawn broke, Anna was heading to Philadelphia to look for the boy. It had taken some finagling for Christian to acquiesce. When she first told him she wanted to return, he refused. “Absolutely not,” Christian had said. “The men will go. Josef and Isaac.”

  “I’m the only one who can speak English,” Anna said. “And I think I might know where Felix might be.” Near the docks would be her first guess. “I can find him in half the time.”

  “Not alone,” Christian said. “Far too dangerous.”

  It would be dangerous to be alone, she knew that. But she was worried Christian would consider letting Felix fend for himself. He was that exasperating a boy. And yet he was one of theirs, and she loved him dearly. As soon as she found him, she would hug him, then scold him furiously. Then hug him again.