by Cheryl Kerr
"They slept in the bow area, usually in hammocks that were taken down during the day. Their baggage was here." She indicated the square area under the stern.
It was hard to imagine forty or fifty people in a space so small for three months.
Lea closed her eyes. It was dark and small and long ago, she told herself. The only light came from the open hatchway they had come down a moment before. How must it have felt with forty people traveling together in such a confined space. If anyone was sick where did they put them? If children cried?
"It must have been awful if there was a storm and the hatches were closed," Aunt Meg said quietly. Lea opened her eyes and waited for the guide's answer.
"Yes, I imagine it was terrifying. They could see nothing. Candles weren't allowed in a storm of course, because the ships were wooden, and fire was too dangerous. So, they rode in the dark, trusting a captain and sailors they did not know."
"They must have really wanted to come to go through that," Lea said.
"I think they did," the guide nodded. "Now, if you're ready, we'll go outside." She led them out a door and down a ramp to the deck of another ship. "This is the Elissa. She is a reproduction that actually sails with a crew to different ports. She was one of the tall ships that helped celebrate America's birthday a few years ago."
A man in old-fashioned clothes was spraying down the deck with seawater.
"The salt in the water helps preserve the wood." Their guide smiled. "We do it to keep rot at bay. Salt helped keep your ship together."
This time a small white placard announced the computer was reserved for research for Lea McKinney. Lea felt a thrill run through her at seeing her name down for research.
"Now, type in the ship's name," the guide said. "The Colombine was to call in or near several ports along the coast. They were probably carrying mail and supplies for people sending things to the new settlers.
"How do we find out where she might have gone?"
"The museum has recently put the names of passengers and ships that called into the Port of Galveston for people to come and research." She motioned to a chair in front of the screen. "Go ahead," she told Lea. Lea slid into the chair and rolled up to the computer. For a moment, her fingers froze. This was it, was she going to find her ghost? It had been so much fun to imagine and to find the bits and pieces. How would she feel if there wasn't a girl? Did she really want to know that?
She took a deep breath and typed Colombine.
She hit Enter. The machine clicked and hummed as a list of dates flashed onto the screen.
"Okay, those are the voyages we have records of for that ship," the woman told her.
"I know that whoever wrote the journal came from Mannheim. Can we use that?"
"Yes, we can. We can make a separate request for starting points. The computer can search for that and see if anything matches. It will look and see if any of the town records show who undertook to make the voyage to America." She reached past Lea and typed the message quickly out.
"The trip was very hard. Several shiploads of people stayed on the beach for months because no one came to meet them. The companies that went around talking people into traveling to America sometimes were not there to meet them when they landed. There was a lot of illness and death," she went on.
"Death?" The girls exchanged uneasy glances.
"Yes. Many people were buried along the coast."
"Oh." The two girls shivered. What if it was a grave they had found?
"What if there isn't a headstone? What if that is why she is a ghost?" Lea whispered to Teri.
"Now, are you ready?"
Lea nodded. Her mouth was too dry to speak. The woman pressed a button and the computer hummed. Then a title flashed on the screen, Ship's List, Colombine, May 1, 1848.
From left to right the columns read, in French; Noms, Père/Mère, Masculine ou Feminine (Sexes), Age, Profession, Avoir, and Obs. She translated in her head, finding a first time to use the languages she had been taught. Names, Father/Mother, Male or Female (Sex), Age, Profession, Paid, Owed.
"Why are the records in French?"
"Most of the ships the settlers came on were owned by people from more than one country. This one probably had a French origin."
Lea nodded and looked further.
She moved the cursor from column to column.
The guide said gently beside her. "Try using the age column to help you find the name."
"Okay." Lea nodded. It wasn't on the first page. Then halfway down the second page was Age - douze ans. Lea moved the cursor over. In the origin column was Mannheim.
The guide reached forward. "The dates match," she said.
"Her name was Greta Ingalls." Lea read off the screen. "Her parents and brother were on board."
Lea looked at the name glowing on the screen. She reached out a fingertip and traced the year gently. One hundred and fifty years ago, in this very place. She sat, finger still on the screen, feeling the blinking green letters as though in touching them she could touch Greta’s world.
"It makes 1848 seem..." She paused, looking for a word. "Not so long ago."
"I know what you mean." The museum guide laughed and nodded in agreement. "Working in the midst of all these things, I forget that some of them are so old. You did a very thorough job and you took notes on how you did it. That’s how good research is done."
Lea felt a rush of pleasure at the praise. She picked up her notebook and riffled through the pages. They were bent at the corners and soft from being thumbed and carried in her backpack and being read at the beach. She had written all her steps and questions in it.
"We found her." She turned and beamed at Aunt Meg, who had walked up behind them to watch.
"What happened to them?" Aunt Meg asked curiously.
The guide shrugged. "The ship was recorded as being lost. I don't know more than that."
"Now what?" Aunt Meg asked Lea.
"Tomorrow is July 1," Lea said. "The last date she made an entry in the diary. We have to be on the beach. I have to be there." She looked pleadingly at Aunt Meg.
Aunt Meg, who two days ago would have said no, nodded. "Let's get home then. If we plan what we want to take, we can stay as long as it takes," she said.
They flew into the Coastal Plains airport at three in the afternoon. It was five before they got home.
The beach was deserted. The tents had all been taken down and the last truck was starting down Shell Ridge Road when Aunt Meg pulled to a stop. Dark clouds were rolling in. The wind whistled over the dunes as Teri and Lea jumped out. Lea ran down onto the sand. The only sign that people had been there recently was the damp sand that had been used to fill in the hole where the nightly fires had been. The first large raindrops splattered around Lea. She ran to the small dune and stood, waiting. She thought hard and, in answer, a shimmer seemed to hang in the air after a wave hit the beach. Slowly the shimmer became more solid until the outline of a girl in a long blue dress shone just solid enough to see, her blue dress still in the ocean breeze that did not blow around her.
The waves were coming high up across the sand. The sky got darker as if a curtain had suddenly been pulled across the sun. The girl stood there looking at Lea. Silence hung for a moment. The air seemed to quiver, and Lea was aware of a hush within the hush. She didn’t take her eyes off the girl. Out of the corners of her eyes, she could still see waves lashing the beach. There was no sound though. It was as if she were in a soundproof booth like on a magician's show she and Laura had once watched.
"I know who you are," Lea said slowly. "We've been trying to find out for weeks. You’re Greta Ingalls?"
For a moment the sky grew even darker and the girl looked at Lea.
"Ja. Yes," she said. “I felt your struggle in the sand. I, too, want to go home.” She looked out to sea. “We cannot always choose.”
Lea looked at her. The two girls smiled hesitantly at each other across both lifetimes and one hundred and fifty years. "You want
me to know that you are lonesome, don't you?" Lea asked. "You came first when I felt lonesome. You came back when I knew that for sure. But you don't just come when I am lonely. You've come when others have, too."
The air shimmered around Greta. A single word came to Lea. "Yes. At times there have been believers. But they are few."
Greta reappeared. “The difference is you believed me, Lea. You found out about my life. You did something that has found who I am. You did that for me.”
“I did it for me, too,” Lea answered. “I was lonely, too, and I had to learn that choosing sometimes means what you do to handle something instead of just wishing it was different.”
“Exactly so.” Greta nodded. She looked beyond Lea and said, “Soon I will go.”
Lea felt tears gather. “You only just got here.”
Greta smiled. “No, I have been here a very long time. And I am ready to go home. And, thanks to you, I will do so now.”
She looked at Lea. “Thank you, think of me and I will think of you. I believe somehow we will continue to know each other.”
The image rippled as though a strong breeze were blowing through the branches of a tree. "Don't go," Lea said. But she knew the girl would. A moment later the wind blew her hair again. One last word filled her mind. "Julia."
Lea felt sweat begin to prickle on her scalp. The girl looked down and, with her hand, motioned. A flurry of sand kicked up. Lea and Teri covered their eyes as the grains filled the air but, strangely enough, nothing touched them.
When they looked again, the girl was gone. Where she had been standing were tiny figures. Next to one was a silver disk, faded and blurred from the wash of the ocean.
Lea looked up. The beach was empty. She knew she wouldn’t see Greta again, here.
The sun broke through the clouds low of the water just then, and a path lit across the water all the way to the beach. The tiny sand people were lit golden yellow, just for a moment, in the last rays of sunset.
"Wow," Aunt Meg and Paul said together, staring at the spot on the sand.
"Sand People," Lea said softly. Aunt Meg and Paul stood silent. "You have to believe she made them now. They weren't there before she was standing there. Now they are."
She looked at Paul.
Lea looked up and down the beach. Long trailing tufts of clouds moved overhead.
"What do you think she wanted?" Teri asked, sinking down onto the sand next to Lea and wiping the rain off her cheeks.
"For someone to know what happened to her," Lea answered. "Imagine if you never saw your home or family again. She wanted someone to know."
"We never did find out who Julia was," Teri said.
"But you did find out about the ship and a girl who sailed on her. I think you've done a wonderful job," Paul Taylor said from behind them. "You stuck to what you wanted to know and worked until you got an answer."
The little group on the beach stood huddled in silence. It began to rain in earnest now.
"Are you ready to go?" Teri asked Lea.
Lea nodded. "Yes," she said, looking at her aunt. "I'd like to go home."
Her aunt smiled. "Home it is," she said.
Chapter 10
Two weeks later a party was held at the cabin. The deck was crowded with people, Teri, Mrs. Simon, Paul Taylor. He wore a striped apron and was turning hotdogs and hamburgers on the grill.
Aunt Meg backed through the screen door with a tray of glasses in her hands. Lea smiled at her from her perch next to the phone.
"Wow, Lea, a shipwreck," T.J. said, "Are you going to get to keep any of it?"
"Not that I know of," she said.
"That's okay, it wouldn't be the same," T.J. said, with that funny grownup way he had that always bugged her so badly. She grinned; she had missed it. "I better go," she told him and hung up thinking that missing T.J. was something she hadn't expected to do.
A car swung into the driveway and Teri came to the door. "Surprise time," she said and waved for Lea to come outside.
Lea walked outside and stopped short. Next to Aunt Meg was someone she knew very well, had missed a lot.
"Mom!" Lea flew into her mother's arms.
"Lea! You're so brown I almost didn't recognize you." Her mother laughed and hugged her back. "Let me look at you." She held Lea at arm's length and studied her. "I think you've grown an inch you're so tall."
"I got my hair cut again," Lea touched her shoulder-length bob. "It got too long."
Her mother smiled. "Short hair looks good on you."
Lea looked at her mother. The lines were gone from around her eyes. She looked happy and rested. The trip must have been a good one, Lea thought.
They went up onto the porch arm-in-arm. Lea introduced her mother to everyone. Inside the screen door, Aunt Meg was waiting. "Evie, you have a really neat daughter," she said.
Mom settled in. "What went on this summer?"
Lea and Aunt Meg grinned at each other and Lea started to fill her mother in about the trip to Galveston and finding the diary.
"Goodness," Mom laughed when Lea finally stopped for breath much later. "Meg, I hope it hasn't been too much of a distraction for you."
Aunt Meg smiled, "No, it was good for me. The girls reminded me how much you can learn from watching other people." She motioned to a new bunch of pottery along the back wall. The pieces were rich in deep wine colors and a buttery, golden yellow.
"That's not all I did this summer. With a smile, Aunt Meg went and came back with a canvas wrapped in old, soft toweling. She handed it to Lea's mom.
"Look," she urged.
Mom smiled at Lea and undid the string. The soft covering fell away.
"Oh, my," Mom said with a catch in her voice.
Lea walked around behind her and looked. It wasn't the portrait of her on a stool she had expected. It was a picture of Lea on top of a sand dune. She sat with one foot drawn up and her arms around her knees. Her hair was blown back by the wind. Her eyes were looking toward the horizon where a ship was just visible in the haze where the ocean met the sky. The fingers of sand reached into the water between which the blue water went from deep blue to pale aquamarine as it got more and more shallow. Around it, clockwise, in the washed of color of sand and sky were three other views of Lea. Each was set on its own circle of colors that then faded out to blend with the big picture.
"Oh," said Mom.
The upper left, where sunlight streamed from the sky held Lea standing looking up at the cabin with her duffel bag in her hand. Even the tiny face looked worried. The top right picture, against a bank of grey clouds, was she and Teri looking at what seemed to be an old map. The bottom right was the best. Inside a curl of blue-green wave, Aunt Meg had done a cameo of night at the abandoned mission church. Lea sat next to a small fire whose golden glow lit her face. She was wearing the deep pink dress Mrs. Simon had lent her. The fire's glow touched the pale flower she had worn in her hair a delicate golden hue. Her eyes looked enormous.
"That is lovely," Mom said softly. "You are growing up so fast." She hugged Lea tight.
"I didn't know you saw me like that," Lea turned to Aunt Meg, feeling pleased and grownup.
"Lea posed for me here," Aunt Meg said. "She wasn't sure about doing it. " She nodded at the picture. "All of these are sides of you that I saw. Each one is a part of you.
"Look here," Aunt Meg said gently. She took the picture and turned it upside down. Lea looked at the distorted figures for a minute, confused. But as she looked a pattern began to emerge from the shades. Turned this way, the fingers of water on the beach formed the edges of a series of sandy figures, roughly made and looking like they were leaning into the wind.
"The Sand People. You put them in," Lea said, pleased.
Her aunt nodded. "I'm not sure that you will see them anymore now that you found out Greta's name. I wanted them to be somewhere to be in case they aren't seen again.
"Lea is quite a looker," Aunt Meg told Mom. "She didn't give up on finding out about this
wreck even when I discouraged her."
Just then Lea caught sight of something else that made her smile. "You put earrings in, but I don't have any. " She smiled at her aunt. "When did you do that?"
"You will, and last night, late, after you went to bed." Her aunt smiled back at her. "I heard you and Teri talking about getting your ears pierced so I figured I'd go on and put them in. You're growing up fast, Lea."
"I'm glad you're back." She hugged her mother tightly.
Mom smiled and held her close. "I'm glad to see you, too. What made you so determined to keep looking into this?" she asked Lea.
Lea thought. "Missing home," she said honestly. "When I read her writing, it was like I knew her. I knew how she felt. That made me want to find her. I mean, I know how important home is to me. Then I wanted to know who she was."
"She did a good job," Aunt Meg said. Lea flushed, it was good to have people say that about her.
"Are you disappointed?" Aunt Meg touched the single doubloon.
"No," Lea shook her head. She nodded toward the diary. "I think she wanted someone to find her diary, to know she survived. I guess no one ever looked before." She would always feel that the best part of finding out who Greta was the looking.
Mom looked from one to the other of them. "I wasn't sure how you two would work out for a while," she said.
"We did fine," Aunt Meg smiled. "Both of us grew some."
Lea smiled back at her. Tomorrow she and Mom would go home. She would miss the cabin, and Teri, and the beach. She had learned that if you gave it a chance often things turn out pretty good.
She yawned suddenly, so hard her eyes watered. She fell asleep to the sound of the waves. On the deck, Mom and Aunt Meg's voices followed the swell and shush of the ocean. Paul Taylor had told her tonight that the search for the Colombine was going to be continued, after all.
Lea dreamed, wondering what the search would bring. Over the murmur of the waves, Mom and Aunt Meg's voices sounded far into the night. Lea woke once and listened contentedly to the sounds that belonged together before falling back asleep.
