The Movement of Stars: A Novel

by Amy Brill

  But the crowd was moving again, this time parting for a familiar ruddy face with hair and beard the color of a new penny atop a barrel- like body.

  “Captain Smith,” Hannah called.

  “Miss Price! Didn’t recognize ye. Back from the travels, then? Magnificent. Excellent and good!” He beamed at her for a second before snatching up her valise as if it were a thimble, taking her elbow with his other hand and steering her though the throng toward the boat. His arm was as thick as a leg of lamb; she remembered him as a boy of fourteen or fifteen years, poring over diagrams of ships and riggings at the Atheneum. He looked much the same, only bigger.

  “Coming through, let the lady astronomer through, move it, you there! Out of her way, get!” His voice rang out as they moved toward the boat, and the sound of it made her smile even as she blushed. She’d heard it spoken, whispered, and announced in French, Italian, Spanish, and even German over the preceding months, but the sound of lady astron- o mer belted out in a New England port twang made her giddy with excitement.

  To her surprise, the throng parted peacefully, edging their satchels and parasols and picnic baskets dutifully out of the way. Most of them stared as if she’d fallen from the moon. It couldn’t be her attire, since none of these people knew just how different she looked from the woman who’d embarked from this same pier last year. But she felt a flutter of panic when she wondered what the people who did know her would think of her appearance. From hat to shoes, she resembled nothing so little as a member of the Society of Friends; and though she had no desire to rejoin Meeting or adhere to a Discipline she didn’t accept, the idea that she had now crossed completely into the realm of outsider left her feeling sad and a bit hollow. The way she felt when she’d heard a haunting melody wafting from a Parisian café and learned that it was being played in what was known as the minor scale.

  As the boat crossed Buzzards Bay and rounded the mainland past Falmouth, Hannah stood at the railing, facing east. The vessel dipped and rose, cold spray fizzing across her face. She squinted into the humid wind. The faint outline of Nantucket was just visible in the distance. Her heart ticked faster.

  A minute later, she could see the new lighthouse on Sankaty Head.

  The women gather on the headland and the harbor and stare at the light as if it will draw their men home faster, Mary had written.

  By my reckoning, she who waits for love’s return is shackled enough by her longing without a beacon with which to chart it, Hannah had responded.

  The watery, distant light reminded her of Isaac’s vision of his island, curled in the Atlantic Ocean like a green jewel in a velvet box. Staring into the opaque waters of the Bay, Hannah imagined him striding along the jungle paths amid his thousand shades of green.

  Isaac could literally be anywhere on Earth, yet she felt that he was near, that he would return to this place. It was unreasonable. Every time she thought of him the same throb of sorrow passed through her like rain. The kind of disappointment she’d always imagined attended those bags of outgoing mail had its own vibration, she’d learned. An ache that reverberated in her bones each time she felt it. But she was used to it. She supposed it would be with her forever, like an extra heart thumping quietly in the background.

  And here was the faint outline of rooftops, and the steeple of the Catholic church; here were the masts bobbing in the outer harbor, many fewer than she remembered, but familiar still; here was the crescent of Town and the sliver of beach below it; the storehouses and spindly outbuildings of the wharves; the browning green of summer sawgrass. Hannah was overtaken by a rush of love for her Island, and she gripped the railing as they drifted into the harbor, suddenly wide awake.

  She was first in line as they tied in, and the moment they’d secured the ramp she strode down, pausing at the bottom. The wharves that were once as intimidating as canyons seemed much smaller than she remembered, the docks and oily waters and storehouses miniaturized. It was like standing in a diorama of a tiny grey town framed by cool sky.

  Home. She turned the word around in her mouth like a marble. It was hers, to be sure. But as she stepped from the boat onto the creaking dock, and the footfalls of her fellow passengers fell away, she wondered at its newness.

  As she approached Main Street, Hannah slowed down, then stopped altogether, turning in a circle at the corner of Federal. How could she be lost in her own backyard? She’d been away less than a year. Where was John Darling’s Maps & c? Miller’s outfitters? The rope and sail shop? Why were gaudy flags and bunting hanging from the veranda of the Hussey house?

  Hannah took two steps back so she could read the street name. It was etched in stone, deep as ever: Federal. Then she noticed the new shingle, lettered shiny blue on yellow: nantucket inn. Along the porch, young men and women sat on benches, with no apparent occupation besides conversation. Music tinkled inside, drifting out like smoke.

  All around, women in pale, gauzy dresses, and men in summer suits passed arm in arm, strangers at leisure. Hannah resumed walking, staring at the row of new storefronts selling nautical trinkets, scrimshaw, and the like. One entire store seemed to hold only things shaped like whales. Bold advertisements pasted in every window touted new inns and hotels. Hannah felt as if she’d bought a ticket to the opera but landed at the circus.

  “Miss. Miss! Come inside and have a look. A souvenir? Something for a special someone at home?” It took Hannah several seconds to realize that the shopkeeper, a stout young woman in a garish cotton summer dress the blinding color of pink hydrangeas, was addressing her.

  She thinks I’m a tourist, Hannah realized. She shook her head, trying not to frown at the woman, who was only trolling for business. And Hannah was a tourist, in a sense. She was seeing the Island anew, just like the people on holiday around her; in comparison to the grand cities of Europe, the wide avenues and huge parks, the towering cathedrals and marble monuments, Nantucket Town looked as quaint as a dollhouse.

  Just before she turned off Main, she caught a glimpse of a lone figure in a long, dark dress, moving slowly among the crowds. A bonnet in the style Hannah wore as a girl shielded her face. It was like looking at a living relic of a past that felt further distant than it should; Hannah had gone about wearing similar garments but a year earlier. People moved aside as if for a spirit as the woman glided through, turning to watch her pass with open curiosity, then closing rank again. Hannah watched until she lost sight of the woman in the crowd, then turned toward home.

  At her gate, she stopped short, looking left and right to be sure she had the right house. Neat rows of summer squash, tomatoes, and wispy, fern-like carrot greens edged the east side of the house, along with squat cabbages and even a row of scraggly corn. Someone had coaxed the perennially droopy wisteria back to life, and it draped over a new arbor on the other side. It smelled like manure and sawdust, neither of which she associated with home. The porch had been swept clean of old rods and spars, the broken plank mended. It was tidy, but Hannah felt wistful for the lumpy detritus of the past. Even the door knocker’s bird had a shiny, sharp new beak.

  Just as she reached for it, the door swung open, and there was her family. Her father, his thinning swoop of grey hair, long earlobes poking out, a benevolent smile breaking the hard planes of his face; Edward’s lean, angular jaw, so similar to Nathaniel’s, but with a two-day beard newly peppered with silver, eyes permanently crinkled from laughing and squinting; Mary’s bright golden braids, her sun- and wind-bronzed skin. She’d widened into a woman. In her arms was Hannah’s nephew, Moses, three months old. He had a gummy grin and Mary’s bright blue eyes under a fuzzy halo of shimmery hair.

  Everyone’s words tumbled out at once.

  “Look at him,” Hannah cried, leaning in close to the baby, inhaling his sour-sweet essence.

  “Look at you! Your hat . . . and the dress. You look beautiful,” Mary said.

  “I’d hardly have recognized you. What have you done with my sister?” Edward held out the baby to Hannah, and w
hen she took him in her arms, her brother stepped back to get a better look and Nathaniel stepped forward, putting a hand on each of Hannah’s shoulders and squeezing gently.

  “Thy absence was much felt,” he said, his voice gravelly with emotion.

  Hannah reached one hand up to draw off her hat, and the baby promptly grabbed a long braid that she’d unhinged by accident, and yanked, giving her an excuse to swallow the lump in her throat.

  “I wish you could have seen it with me, Father.” The familiar address had slipped out, and Hannah opened her mouth to rephrase in a more proper way, then closed it again. Her father knew as well as anyone that she had severed her ties with Meeting. Continuing to address him as she had before felt more fraudulent than respectful. Instead, she went on, too excited to share what she’d seen in her travels to ponder the issue. “The instruments—Greenwich—and Liverpool! Did I not write to you about it?”

  “No astronomy before dinner, please,” Edward said, reaching over to unlock the baby’s chubby grip.

  She smiled at Edward, nearly overcome by emotion.

  “I can’t believe you’re a father,” Hannah whispered.

  “I know. I should barely be allowed to guide another human being to the general store, much less through life itself.” Moses wiggled and kicked his legs with all his tiny might. “Probably a good thing that he has your stubborn streak, Hannah.”

  Hannah buried her nose in the soft flesh of the baby’s neck, feeling herself expand everywhere—cheeks, heart, lungs. Giddy, she kissed his tiny nose, his ears. Edward and Mary stepped in and engulfed her, and everything dissolved in their embrace, the baby in the middle. She quickened to his warmth, which tugged at the core of her body. Moses screeched his delight and displeasure. Hannah stepped back and turned him so he faced his parents.

  Mary sniffed loudly.

  “Oh, don’t cry. You’ll only make me do the same,” Hannah said.

  “Heartless Hannah about to cry?” Edward asked. “Europe must be transformational indeed.”

  “Let’s not hover here like sheep,” Mary said, rustling them all into the hall. “There’s chicken, and a pie.”

  As Hannah stepped through the door, her father put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed, and Hannah looked up at him. He looked more robust than when she’d last seen him. The planes of his face seemed fuller, less pinched. Marriage suited him, then.

  “Where is Lucinda?” Hannah asked. “I’d been hoping to meet her.”

  “She was called to her sister’s confinement, but is inestimably sorry she couldn’t be here. She had all manner of plans for thy homecoming.”

  Hannah smiled, and was rewarded with one in return. It was so rare that Nathaniel showed affection—and so long since she’d seen him at all—that Hannah felt as if she were physically basking in its glow, like sunlight after a long, dark winter.

  The smell of food made her empty stomach roar. She hadn’t eaten in nearly twelve hours, and as she followed her family into her house, pausing to drop her hat on her old peg, she passed the parlor without looking for the water globe or glancing at the lines of the upright chairs. The kitchen was still the kitchen she remembered, and she plunked down at the long, worn table and dug into the plate Mary slid before her, letting the conversation eddy around her.

  When she’d mopped up the last bit of gravy from the plate, Hannah looked up. Three faces stared at her, loving, expectant.

  Hannah sat back in her chair and sighed with pleasure. She had longed for her family so often over the long winter she’d spent with the Hatters, and while she was abroad, that being seated among them—plus Moses—was as comforting as a warm bath.

  “Your letters were wonderful,” Mary said, offering more pie, which Hannah declined. “Though we got them out of order, so you were in Florence before you were in London. And I’m certain we missed a few.”

  “Did you not get the ones I posted from Greenwich?”

  Edward and Nathaniel shook their heads at the same time, and with the same staccato motion. Time had brought them closer in demeanor; Hannah wondered if they recognized it or would even acknowledge it.

  “It was extraordinary,” she said, wondering how to even begin to share everything she’d seen. “Charles II had enormous foresight, building such a place. The original octagonal room is used for storage now—”

  “I’d heard as much,” Nathaniel offered, his eyes bright.

  “—but the instruments themselves are impressive, and of course the Park is a beautiful setting for Professor Airy’s work. Though he looks unfavorably upon the sprouting of new observatories of late. He thinks they contribute to inferior observations. Did you know that?”

  Nathaniel nodded.

  “William has told me that the Professor is quite outspoken on the matter. And yet, imagine if thee hadn’t had access to thy telescope, daughter! The world would be less a true astronomer.”

  Hannah felt a blush creep up her cheek at the unexpected praise from her father.

  Edward smiled widely, as did Mary. Hannah reached across the table and grasped her father’s hand.

  “It was your telescope to begin with. Without your teaching and encouragement, no instrument on Earth could have brought me my comet.” Now tears really did spring to Hannah’s eyes.

  Her father squeezed her hand in answer, and Edward cleared his throat.

  “On the subject of Greenwich, and Time, your friend George Bond is obsessed of late with the application of the telegraph.”

  “Have you become enamored of scientific progress in my absence? That would truly be shocking. Though with all the changes I noted between the ferry dock and our front door, I shouldn’t be surprised if you tell me you’re to be appointed Astronomer Royal.”

  “Things have changed greatly,” Mary chimed in, saving Edward from answering. “After you left there was a rash of property sales: the Hussey house was the first, and there were some half-dozen more, all of which were operating as hotels by the time the first bulbs came up.” Nathaniel nodded.

  “It’s been a financial boon for the Island, though perhaps not to the liking of all its residents.”

  Edward shot Hannah a look she could read easily: To say the least.

  Hannah sighed, allowing fatigue to settle in her body, the warmth of the room, the company of her loved ones to soothe her.

  “I hope we can visit the Continent soon,” Mary was saying. “We’re looking into another expedition. Though of course it won’t be as easy next time.” Her hand fluttered to the top of Moses’ head.

  Hannah felt her head nod. The voices of her family engulfed her like soft wings, and her eyes fluttered as Edward helped her from her seat.

  “I can help clean up,” she muttered, but she was going up the stairs with Mary at her elbow, and here was her old room, and her bed, and before Mary had even unlaced her boots, Hannah was sound asleep.

  . 31 . Old news

  When she woke up it was dark, and when she lit the candle she found that her trunk, which had arrived two days earlier, had already been unpacked in a freshly whitewashed room with a newstuffed mattress and a soft quilt—a hundred squares of fabric in various shades of rose, from dusky sunset to blazing summer bloom. Hannah wondered if Mary, too, had reached the end of her tolerance for Discipline, or whether the quilt had been placed there strictly for Hannah’s benefit. The floors were so clean, they shone. Sighing, Hannah changed into a pale blue dress, enjoying the sensation of the fabric on her legs and the round hooked rug under her bare feet. Then she laid out the carefully wrapped gifts she’d brought home: a pair of German binoculars for Edward, a delicate Florentine teacup for Mary, an iridium- tipped steelnib pen and India ink for her father.

  She picked her way along the hall with the ease she’d always had in

  the dark. At the foot of the stairs to the garret, she paused. A candle was lit above. Someone was working. Hannah padded up, soft as a cat. Two voices murmured within, and she pushed the door open a crack.

 
Her father and Edward sat side by side before her wide desk, their heads bent over a logbook. Hannah couldn’t hear what they were saying. The light from the candle showed her the books and charts repopulating their corner of the room, as if they’d never been hidden away in crates, ready to ship; the glint of the Dollond on its stand caught her eye, and though it was as comforting as an old friend, it looked like a relic compared to the instruments she’d seen and used in Europe.

  There were other changes: a leather armchair took up a whole corner of the room, and three new shelves held an array of objects she couldn’t make out or recognize. Edward’s old coat and woolen hat were back on the pegs near the stairs; a pile of Hannah’s boxes were stacked in a far corner where the rocking horse used to be. Her gaze traveled to the stairway to the walk.

  She imagined the depth of sky she could sweep with the telescopes she’d peered through in her travels. How the old star patterns of the sky over Nantucket—so familiar, she could draw them from memory— would reveal new aspects, things she couldn’t even imagine. It would be like looking at a different sky altogether. A different world, Isaac had called it. She wished again that she might have shared it with him. That he could be part of her homecoming now.

  Edward looked up.

  “There you are,” he said, sliding his chair back. “Come join us.” Hannah hesitated.

  “I don’t want to intrude,” she whispered, hesitant to break the pleasant spell that seemed to bind them.

  “Intrude? This is your room,” Edward said, and snapped his fingers as if to free her from an enchantment. “We’ve only just managed to keep up without your help.”

  Hannah smiled at his exaggeration, and pulled up the little stool between them. Her father scraped over a few inches to make room, and Hannah studied his form. He was wearing a suit of what seemed like very fine lightweight wool. It was a dark grey, and cut in a familiar style, but it had a light sheen. That’s why he looked different, she realized: she’d never seen him in anything but the white shirt, dark pants, and buttoned coat that all the Friends wore. Hannah reached out two fingers and, taking the sleeve between them, marveled at its texture and weight, the array of tiny, perfect stitches.