I stood in the meager shade of the mast. The wind from the south toyed with my hair and made the sea shimmer. It was foolish to worry, I told myself. The map wouldn’t work. No matter what my father believed.
Then the door to the captain’s cabin creaked open, and he emerged. I stood up straight as Bee stepped aside and Slate took the wheel, staring out over the bow. I stared too, watching for fog and seeing none. My hand returned to the pearl at my throat.
Kashmir elbowed me, and I let out the breath I hadn’t known I was holding. I elbowed him back, so glad he was near. Because in the back of my mind, I did not doubt the map, after all.
“So, what do you think? Combien de temps jusqu’a ce qu’il renonce?” Kash said, glancing at Slate. “How long until he gives up?” Kashmir had come to the ship with a solid grasp of a handful of languages; I had taught him how to read, and in return, he’d taught me French, so he could make private jokes in public. “Les jours? Les semaines?”
“Oh, weeks, definitely,” I answered with forced levity. “He’ll stare at the horizon until he drops, then wake up and try again tomorrow. We’re in for a long wait.”
“Ah, well.” Kash folded his arms and looked over the rail into the water; it was a deep jade, a shade darker than his eyes. “Rotgut tells me you can catch lobsters here.”
“He told me too. He’s very excited.”
“He’s always excited when it comes to food,” Kash said.
“Can you blame him? He was a monk before he was a cook.”
“Speaking of food, are you hungry for breakfast? There’s cold pizza in the galley. Unless Rotgut’s eaten it all.”
I laughed. “Not yet, but I’m glad we’re stocked up in case he has us drifting for . . .” I turned to point my chin at the captain, and saw his eyes. They were faraway and focused on something else, something on the horizon, something the rest of us couldn’t see.
The words lodged in my throat as I followed his gaze. The fog had come just off the bow, pale and shimmering like organza. Behind us, New York’s hazy coast had evaporated like dew. For moment, the whole world was still and my blood rushed loud in my ears. Then the wind picked up again, in a different direction, twisting my curls past my face and bringing a new scent, sweet as milk after the briny breeze that raced along the shores of Long Island. The mist was melting away as quickly as it had appeared, revealing a wide sea the color of cobalt.
The map had worked.
MAP TO COME
My thoughts scattered like chipped ice, and my vision blackened at the edges, as though I was staring through a spyglass. For a moment, I thought the Pacific Ocean would be the last thing I ever saw. Then warm hands gripped my arms, and I sagged against Kashmir’s chest, my breath burning in my lungs.
“Amira?” He lifted my chin and I focused on his eyes, seeing fear there for the first time since the day he’d come aboard.
“I’m fine.” I locked my knees and pushed against him, trying to find my footing. Then I ran my hands over my arms, as if to reassure myself I was still here. “I’m fine.”
“Land to starboard!” Rotgut called from his perch. “Steamer aways aft.”
I dragged in a gulp of air and shaded my eyes. I could barely make out a smudge of lead gray that would, within a few hours, resolve itself into a string of islands, as Rotgut had said, away off starboard: the one place and time in the world I didn’t want to visit.
It had been so easy. Almost as if we were welcome here.
“Make ready!” Bee reminded us as she hauled at the halyard, raising our sails. The Temptation creaked as she swung around and caught the following wind.
“Right,” I said aloud, as much to shake myself into action as to answer her. “Nineteenth century, nineteenth century, ah, running lights.” The thoughts were coming slow, but they were coming. By 1850, both the United States and the United Kingdom had mandated colored signal lamps aboard ship. We were along a major shipping route, after all; the steamship puffing away south and east of our position was not the only other ship we’d see today.
I lurched into motion, my legs like wood, fetching the lamps we’d removed for our trip to Calcutta—too modern for that era—the red and green glass for port and starboard sides, as well as the clear white lamps for the top of the mainmast and the tip of the bowsprit.
I handed three of the four off to Kash, who climbed the mast and ran the lanterns out to the ends of the yards. I took the one for the prow, clipped it to the rope, and hoisted it out over the water, where it led the way to the island where I was born . . . or would be born, or would have been born, depending, of course, on the map.