The Brightest Star in the North

by Meredith Rusu

  “There are?” Carina asked, dismayed. She hadn’t been aware of that.

  “Indeed.” Lady Devonshire nodded. “But none of them have suggested how to find the map. It seems Galileo was alone in that. Tell me, what do you think he meant?”

  “I believe he meant the map is hidden in the stars,” Carina answered.

  “But how does one see it, then?” Lady Devonshire asked.

  Carina shook her head. “I do not know.”

  Her Ladyship sighed. “It has been a long time since I have conversed about the heavens.” Then she frowned. “Tell me, child, what do you want for your future?”

  “I wish to study the stars,” Carina said confidently.

  “So you have not changed your mind?” Lady Devonshire asked.

  At that, Carina paused. “Changed my mind? What do you mean?”

  “I have told you that studying the stars is a fool’s effort,” Lady Devonshire stated. “I thought the opportunity of continued employment might have brought you to your senses.”

  Carina frowned. She didn’t like where this was going. “Forgive me, my lady, but I thought you summoned me because of the notes….”

  “Yes, yes, they were quite persistent,” Lady Devonshire replied. “And from them I gathered you would not let the matter drop. Tell me, if you will not see reason regarding your future, what do you suppose your father wanted?”

  “That I should study the stars,” Carina repeated. “And that I should find the Map No Man Can Read, which will lead to a great treasure. That is why he left me the book.”

  “Are you certain?” asked Lady Devonshire. “Perhaps he wanted to grant you some ease of life. The ruby on this book is valuable, after all.”

  Carina shook her head. “I am positive, my lady, he wanted me to study the stars.”

  Lady Devonshire closed the book. “I admire your persistence, but you are incorrect. Your father wanted something better for you. Lord Willoughby saw it, as well, and thought I could be of help. That is why I have made arrangements for you to train as a governess in London.”

  “A governess?” cried Carina, taken aback. “But, Your Ladyship—”

  “There will be no argument,” Lady Devonshire said matter-of-factly. “I am offering you a position in life that will be far more advanced than mere service work can ever allow. Surely you must be grateful?”

  “It is not a matter of being grateful.” Carina could not hold her tongue any longer. “It is not my destiny to be a governess. I am meant to study the stars. Your Ladyship must see that.”

  “I do not,” Lady Devonshire replied.

  “But you did!” Carina said accusingly. “You studied the stars—you still can if you want! What happened here to make you turn away from it?”

  Lady Devonshire’s face grew cold. “That is not your concern.”

  “But it is!” exclaimed Carina. “I saw the observatory. You like having someone to discuss the heavens with. Why can’t I be your student? You can teach me.”

  “Because you are young and foolish and do not know what you are asking,” Lady Devonshire snapped.

  “Then tell me!” Carina cried. “Tell me what it is that I am asking, because clearly you have done it, and I see no reason why I cannot do the same.”

  Anger flashed across Lady Devonshire’s face. Carina knew she had far overstepped her bounds—again. She half expected Her Ladyship to dismiss her on the spot—again.

  After a very, very long moment, Lady Devonshire stood.

  “You will follow me,” she said through tight lips. “And I will show you firsthand the ruin your life will become through such foolishness.”

  THE CANDELABRA FLICKERED EERILY on the stone walls as Carina followed Lady Devonshire up the winding staircase to the observatory. The lady produced a large metal key ring from her pocket and opened the door with a heavy thunk.

  Carina felt her heart quicken as they entered the observatory. It still seemed to her that the room held the answer to everything she had longed for her whole life. If she had the choice, she would never leave.

  Lady Devonshire walked to a tall bookcase piled high with books, parchments, and charts. She ran her hand over the spines and papers as though choosing. Still holding the candelabra, she selected an overstuffed book filled with loose astronomical diagrams.

  Lady Devonshire turned, and Carina held out her hands, expecting Her Ladyship to hand it to her.

  Abruptly, Lady Devonshire threw it violently on the ground.

  Papers scattered everywhere; charts fluttered about the legs of the observatory table and telescope.

  Without a word, Lady Devonshire turned back to the bookcase and selected another collection of papers. She hurled them to the ground as well.

  “What are you doing?” Carina exclaimed.

  But Her Ladyship didn’t respond. She turned back to the shelf over and over again, ripping books and papers from where they rested under thick layers of dust and strewing them about the observatory floor.

  “Stop it!” Carina cried. “You’ll ruin them!”

  “They are already ruined!” yelled Lady Devonshire. Her wild look from that first evening had returned. “From the moment he died!”

  She pointed to a painting on the wall Carina had not noticed. In the glow of the candelabra, Carina saw the portrait of an esteemed-looking man. He bore a striking resemblance to Lady Devonshire.

  “My brother!” Lady Devonshire exclaimed. “Lord Devonshire. The finest astronomer to set foot upon English soil. For years we worked side by side, minding the heavens each night until the sun rose. Charting comets—cataloging countless stars. We made discoveries even the professors at the university had not. Saw things they had only dreamed of!”

  With a violent heft, Lady Devonshire swiped away everything on the observatory table—loose charts, instruments, and inkwells. Debris scattered everywhere.

  Carina involuntarily clutched her head. “You’re breaking it all!”

  But Lady Devonshire was a woman possessed. “Together, we stepped beyond what mankind thought possible!”

  Crash. Lady Devonshire stormed across the room and swung at an astrolabe, which plummeted to the floor.

  “We opened up the heavens!”

  Smash. An armillary sphere splintered across the floor.

  “They named stars after my brother. Awarded him the university’s highest honor.”

  Smash, smash, smash. Compasses and quadrants flew to the ground.

  “I knew that they would never recognize my contributions, that I would always be in the shadows. But as long as we worked together, it didn’t seem to matter.”

  Lady Devonshire moved toward the telescope. Carina’s eyes grew wide.

  “Please, don’t!” she cried, grabbing Lady Devonshire’s sleeve.

  The woman tried mightily to heave the candelabra at the telescope, but Carina used all her strength to hold her back. Finally, Lady Devonshire relented.

  “And then he died,” she said, her voice breaking. “And this—all of it—was suddenly out of reach.”

  Lady Devonshire seemed to shrink inward. Carina guided her to the table, and the woman sat down, burying her face in her hands.

  “The university would no longer accept my contributions,” Lady Devonshire continued. “They wouldn’t even acknowledge that I had held any part in the discoveries my brother and I made together. Had he not left me everything, they would have tried to take away the instruments, too.”

  She dug her fingers into her hair. “I was not even allowed to mourn him at the memorial they held at the university. I was told by everyone it was not a woman’s place.”

  Lady Devonshire grew quiet. Carina couldn’t tell if she was crying.

  Finally, the woman lifted her head to look at Carina. Her eyes were red, her expression haunted. “So you see, girl, this is what awaits you. Isolation. Ruin. The hand of God revealed to you in the stars only to be snatched away while you are told it was never yours to begin with.”

 
Carina knelt down by the table. “Your Ladyship,” she began hesitantly. “It is not gone. It is still there. I have been told all my life not to look to the stars, but they are there all the same. Just because people tell you that you can’t study them doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.”

  Lady Devonshire shook her head. “I had everything, every possible means available to me, and it was all taken away because I am not a man. What more could you, as an orphan, ever hope to do? The world is not ours to control.”

  “But we don’t need to control the world,” Carina said. “Just the heavens.”

  Lady Devonshire looked at Carina, and then her gaze shifted down.

  “This all means something,” Carina continued, pointing to the charts scattered around the floor. “Something great. My father knew it, and though he left me nothing else in life, he left me this. You say it cannot offer me a life. This is all I have to live for. Please, you are the only one who can teach me to study the stars. I want to learn from you. We can work together, and you can study the stars once more.” She paused. “Will you teach me?”

  Lady Devonshire stayed still and silent. Carina wondered if the woman would begin shouting at her again. After a long while, she began to wonder if Lady Devonshire had even heard her question.

  But then a faint glimmer came to Lady Devonshire’s eye. She looked out the window, up at the stars, and remained like that for a long, long time.

  “LONGITUDE TWO DEGREES NORTH.” Carina stared intently through the telescope eyepiece.

  “Two degrees north seems two too much,” Lady Devonshire replied. She wrote down the adjustment on a chart in front of her.

  “No, it is correct.” Carina smiled. “It is only too much if we do not get the two we are looking for.”

  Carina adjusted the telescope and returned to the eyepiece.

  “There, there it is!” she cried. “Twin stars! I told you!”

  Lady Devonshire stepped forward and gazed through the eyepiece herself.

  “Upon my word,” she said. “This is extraordinary.”

  “Another entry for the catalog?” Carina asked excitedly.

  Lady Devonshire nodded. “It would appear so. That brings us to”—she did a quick calculation—“over two hundred, does it not?”

  Carina beamed.

  She had been studying astronomy with Lady Devonshire for the past four years. Since that night in the observatory, everything had changed. Carina had become a sort of ward of Her Ladyship, with her own room at the estate.

  It hadn’t been an easy adjustment at first. Lady Devonshire had her own way of observing the stars—a precise method that involved her doing the observing and Carina’s doing the recording. Carina wouldn’t have minded if she had been given responsibilities other than simply being Lady Devonshire’s scribe. She yearned for the opportunity to gaze through the telescope herself.

  It was only when Lady Devonshire fell slightly ill during one especially cold winter that things had turned around. Her Ladyship had felt too weak to climb up to the observatory, giving Carina the opportunity to “mind the heavens” alone, observing and recording late into the night. And when Carina had discovered a comet passing by in close orbit to Earth, Lady Devonshire had been in such disbelief that she’d dragged herself from her sickbed to see it in person. Though the woman never admitted it, Carina could tell that from that moment on, Her Ladyship had a newfound respect for Carina’s abilities. She’d even agreed to teach Carina horology, the study of time. It was more than Carina could have dared to hope for.

  Naturally, things had been tense with the servants at first. Celia would curtsy awkwardly if she passed Carina in the halls, and Mrs. Rossi refused to look at her altogether. But after a while, Celia started to feel comfortable responding to Carina’s warm greetings, and most of the others either moved on to new positions or stopped talking about how Carina had once been a servant at the estate. The truth was now that Her Ladyship was happier, everyone was happier. Light had been restored to Hanover Hall.

  Carina’s nineteenth birthday was approaching, and she had to imagine she was one of the youngest astronomers in the country to have cataloged so many new stars. Perhaps one of the youngest in the world.

  “Who do you suppose the university will attribute this discovery to?” Carina asked as she blotted the freshly inked chart and prepared an envelope for the morning delivery.

  “Who can say?” Lady Devonshire leaned back, rubbing her eyes. “It seems to be someone different each time. But they know it is us.”

  “Does it ever bother you?” Carina asked. “That we do all the work and they get all the credit?”

  Lady Devonshire smiled. “Perhaps it should. But as a very wise pupil once told me, we need not control the world.” She patted the telescope. “Just the heavens.”

  * * *

  The next morning, Carina took the carriage from Hanover Hall to the nearby university. One of the students waited outside for the usual Monday-morning delivery.

  “What news from the stars?” he asked brightly as Carina hopped down from the carriage.

  “You’ll need to read to find out,” she said, handing him the chart in the envelope.

  The student shook his head. “When will you and Lady Devonshire ever claim ownership of all the work you do?”

  “When the world stops referring to women of science as witches,” she said.

  “Well, for the record, they know where these charts come from.” The student tapped the envelope on his head for emphasis. “They are simply too stubborn to admit it.”

  “Then thank heavens for messengers like you.” Carina smiled. “Besides, the real treasure lies not in single stars, but in the patterns that can be derived from them.”

  “What do you mean?” the student asked, curiosity piqued.

  “That is a mystery for another time,” Carina said, heading back toward the carriage. “One hopefully soon to be solved. Take care. There will be more next week!”

  Carina waved as the carriage pulled away. But a commotion at the corner of the university caught her attention.

  “Driver, please hold for a moment,” she called.

  Carina looked out the window. A group of young men, all students at the university, were gathered around a sign attached to the wall.

  “Please wait for me. I will be right back,” Carina instructed the driver.

  Quickly, she hopped back down and hurried to where the crowd was gathered.

  Carina tried to peer over the students’ heads, but there were too many of them blocking her view for her to read the sign properly.

  “What is this all about?” Carina asked.

  A tall student stared down at her. “Nothing to concern yourself with, girl,” he said. “Move along.”

  Carina huffed and stood up a little straighter. “You dare speak to the daughter of the university dean in that manner?”

  “The daughter of the—I’m—I’m so sorry, miss. I didn’t realize the dean had a daughter,” the tall student stammered.

  “Tell me your name,” Carina demanded.

  The student sputtered. “I’m—I’m no one of importance.”

  “On that we can agree,” she said. “Now help me get a look at that sign before I change my mind and report you to my father.”

  “Of course, miss,” the student said. “Stand back! Stand back, everyone! The dean’s daughter wishes to see!”

  The sea of students parted and Carina stepped forward to read the sign.

  LEGENDS OF THE HEAVENS

  A DISCOURSE ON MYTHS, MAPS, AND BLOOD MOONS

  FROM STUDIES PERFORMED IN THE CARIBBEAN

  CHARLES SWIFT, SON OF GEORGE SWIFT, ESQ.,

  TO PRESENT SATURDAY AFTERNOON

  “Myths, maps, and blood moons…” Carina mouthed to herself. She and Lady Devonshire had recently been charting blood moons. There were indicators in the diary that pointed to their being significant in locating the map.

  “Where is this talk to be presented?” she ask
ed a short student nearby.

  “At the university, miss,” he said. “In the great hall.”

  “Indeed,” Carina said quietly as the student moved along. She studied the sign with keen interest. “Then I suppose that is where I must be.”

  “ABSOLUTELY NOT.”

  Lady Devonshire paced angrily as Carina stood pleading her case in the observatory.

  “But the man presenting this discourse has traveled all the way from the islands,” Carina insisted. “Perhaps there is something in his lecture we can learn from. Something we have overlooked.”

  “Carina Smyth, we have discussed this before,” Lady Devonshire said sharply. “I am not your mother—I will not pretend to be. But how many times must we have this argument? As a woman, you are not allowed at the university discourses. I nearly risked my estate to rescue you the last foolhardy time you snuck in dressed as a boy. And you nearly risked the stockade. I will not put my life’s work on the line every time you want to go off and hear a lecture.”

  Carina knew what Lady Devonshire was referring to. The previous year, she had desperately wanted to attend a university discourse about newly discovered planetary satellites. Naturally, women were forbidden to attend. But that hadn’t stopped Carina. All she’d needed was a jacket. And pants. And a strategically combed wig. She would have made it to the end of the lecture without getting spotted, too, if she hadn’t been compelled to raise her hand and ask a question. (And really, who could blame her? The professor giving the lecture had made a clear misstatement regarding the Galilean moons.) But the ensuing riot had involved guards in pursuit, a trampled wig, and many, many stern lectures from Lady Devonshire, complete with threats of sending Carina away.

  Still, this discourse was different. This one could help them find the map!

  “Lady Devonshire, please,” Carina begged. “We have spoon-fed the university over two hundred stars. Surely they owe us a favor.”

  “My dear child, by now you should know life offers us no favors.” Lady Devonshire frowned. “Much less the university faculty.”