Anna's Crossing

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  “To join her husband. Felix’s father. Jacob Bauer. Our bishop.”

  A painful light flared behind his eyes. He looked . . . stricken. For a long time, he stared at the companionway, his face like a thunderstorm brewing. “Jacob Bauer is not dead?”

  “Goodness, no.” She took a step toward him. “Why?”

  She began to see that all the color had left his face and his eyes had gone stark and hard. She tugged at his coat sleeve. “Bairn, what is it?”

  He seized her hands and backed away from her, a fierce tension in his gray eyes. “Leave me be, Anna.” He spun on his heels and left the upper deck, left her, without another word.

  Felix’s eyes were swollen and aching. He wiped the tears off his face with the backs of his hands as he returned the kettle to the galley for Cook to find in the morning.

  He couldn’t get the image of Lizzie wrapped up in that cloth out of his mind. And then the worst sight of all—the sharks that snapped and tugged at her shroud, pulling it into the deep water.

  He wondered how Johann would have handled that sight, if it would have bothered him as much as it bothered Felix. He expected to have nightmares over Lizzie’s funeral for a long, long time, like he did about Johann’s. He often woke up with a start, sure he could still hear the clods of dirt that filled his brother’s grave, shovel by shovel.

  When he saw the baby being put in Lizzie’s arms, he panicked. He flew down to the lower deck to find his mother and told her to get upstairs, fast, to save that little baby boy from being tossed overboard.

  She was sitting at the little opening by the cannon, that awful blank look in her eyes.

  “Now, Mem! Now! Get up and get upstairs. They’re tossing the baby overboard to the sharks. That baby needs you!”

  And to his astonishment, she did get up. She moved faster than he had seen her move in months. She took those stairs two at a time, and then she grabbed that baby just as Christian started to cover it with the sheet. She yelled at Christian. Yelled! His mother yelled at the minister.

  What if that little baby had not been rescued by his mother?

  Felix choked at the image, and his breath came in ragged gasps. His mouth was dry, his belly sour. He set down the kettle on a barrel and heaved into Cook’s sink. It was the first time he’d been sick on the Charming Nancy.

  21

  September 11th, 1737

  Anna’s thoughts continued to whir as she climbed into the hammock. For long minutes she laid there, locked in prayer, her petitions a muddle of joy and disbelief. And terrible fear.

  She gave thanks for the new life in the lower decks, nestled in Dorothea’s arms tonight. She was grateful for the spark in Dorothea’s eyes and begged God to let the child live, for both their sakes. She was glad, too, that she hadn’t crossed paths with Georg Schultz all day.

  But she felt a dread as she thought of the look of horror on Bairn’s face. What was troubling him? What did he know about the Bauer family that gave him such a fright?

  Her eyes lifted to the beams above her head. She recognized the sound of Bairn’s footfalls pacing the deck above. She knew his gait, the sound of his boot heels on the wooden planks. Finally, she slipped out of the hammock, grabbed a woolen shawl off the top of her chest, and tiptoed through the lower deck to the companionway.

  She found Bairn leaning on the railing, slumped forward with his head on his crossed arms.

  “Sometimes it helps to talk about what’s troubling you.”

  He startled at the sound of her voice and half turned toward her. “Not this. Not now. I’ve got to sort it all out meself.” His dark eyes looked like two bruises in the paleness of his face, and she wondered what could be the cause of such turmoil within him. He tore his gaze away and stared past her to the vast, black ocean. He had vanished into that endless sea.

  She moved her hand a fraction of an inch closer to his, wanting to comfort him as she comforted a child, but awkwardness crept over her and nearly closed her throat. The wind lifted the fringe of her shawl and slapped it across her face, biting at her exposed skin. “I just thought I’d see if you were all right.”

  He glanced at her. “Yer shivering.” Suddenly he flung his arm around her shawl-wrapped shoulders, drawing her close to his side. “I cannae get warm. I was beside the galley fire for a full turn of the hourglass. Aye, a full half of an hour, and I couldn’t get warm. ’Tis a chill deep in me bones.”

  The temptation to lay her head against his shoulder ran deep, to give him what comfort she could. But she resisted that urge and rubbed her hands together to warm them. “Bairn, isn’t there some way I can help?”

  “Tell me everythin’ you know about Jacob Bauer and his family. Leave nothin’ out.”

  “But why?”

  He slanted an aggrieved look at her. “Please, Anna. Just tell me.”

  “Jacob Bauer is the bishop for our church.”

  “When did he go t’America?”

  “A year ago, last May.”

  “What else do you know?”

  “He is a fine man, I know that. A bit impulsive and headstrong, perhaps, but a man of convictions. He leads our church well.”

  “What about his family? What do you know of them?”

  “There’s Felix, of course, and Dorothea.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “There was Johann, Felix’s brother.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He died, right before we left for Rotterdam.”

  Something cold seemed to shiver across Bairn’s face. She had the notion that he’d just seen something, or thought something, that hurt him terribly. She wanted to touch him, just touch him. Just lay her hand against his cheek. Instead she gripped her elbows tighter and held her breath.

  “How—?” His voice cracked and he had to start over. “How did he die?” he rasped, a strange roughness to his voice. “Why did he die?”

  “He was . . . trespassing, I guess you could say, onto the Baron of Ixheim’s property.” A sadness welled up inside her, choking off the words. She shut her eyes and pressed her fingers to her lips. She covered her face with her hands, but for just a moment. Then she let them fall to the railing where they made a single, gripping fist. She’d never spoken aloud of the beating, nor had anyone else. The Lord had taken Johann home, they all acknowledged. No one ever spoke of how.

  But Bairn was waiting for her to continue. She swallowed and drew in a deep breath. “The baron was so angry with him, he had him beaten. Not just a little, either, but enough to teach him a lesson and to send a message back to Jacob Bauer.”

  “Why? What ill will did he have toward Jacob Bauer?”

  “A year ago, maybe a little longer now, Jacob witnessed the baron’s two sons as they brutally murdered a man. They ended up convicted of the crime and were hung.”

  “But a Peculiar would nae have testified against them.”

  She was always surprised by what he knew of their people, and what he didn’t know. “No, he wouldn’t testify. But he did tell the truth to the authorities. The baron’s sons were quite wicked. They went too far.” She paused. “Yet the baron blamed Jacob for his son’s deaths. That’s why Jacob left for the New World when he did—to escape the wrath of the baron. I don’t think it occurred to him that the baron would seek revenge on his sons. And he certainly didn’t know that Johann had been borrowing books from the baron’s library. To be perfectly fair, I don’t know if the baron intended to kill Johann with those beatings, or to frighten him and send a message to his father. The trouble was, Johann wasn’t . . .”

  “Strong.”

  “No. He wasn’t strong. He had already lived longer than anyone expected. He had a weak heart.” She tilted her head back, and it seemed she was falling into a big black bowl of a sky dotted with stars. “Yet he had a very big heart.”

  “So . . . there were two boys?”

  Anna lowered her gaze to a star on the dark sea’s horizon. “There was an older boy. He’s gone.”

 
“What happened to him?”

  “His name was Hans. Years ago, when Jacob had first gone to America to seek land, he had taken Hans with him, but they both became very ill on the ship. Hans died. When Jacob recovered and learned that his son had died, he was heartbroken. He returned to Ixheim on the next ship.” She told him more, about how Dorothea had slipped into melancholy, and it wasn’t until Felix was born that she began to recover.

  Anna grew quiet, although she didn’t raise her head. Her gaze fell to her lap. She put a pleat in her apron with her fingers, then smoothed it out with her palm. “Nearly everyone died on the ship, Jacob said. Even the captain. The carpenter sailed the ship into harbor.”

  Bairn was shuddering and she suddenly realized it was not from the weather. With a sudden horror that almost made her heart stop, it occurred to her that he must have been on that ship. He had told her he was once a cabin boy.

  “You knew them? Jacob and Hans?”

  His harsh breathing made his words come out as a gasp. “Aye.”

  “It must have been horrific, watching so many people die.”

  “Aye.”

  She picked up his free hand and wrapped her own hands around it as if she cradled a wounded bird. He tried to pull free, but she tightened her grip. “Is that why you don’t sleep well? Why you’re always pacing in the night?”

  He pulled his hand away from her. “My dreams won’t leave me be.”

  She put an arm around his waist. She had to touch him, to comfort him. “God can heal memories, Bairn. You can do that with God’s help.”

  “God left me long ago!” he flung back. “And I kinnae blame Him fer that. I’ve done things . . . I’m not a man God should pay any mind to.” His shudders continued beneath her arm.

  “I don’t believe that, Bairn. I believe that nothing is outside of God’s ultimate purpose.”

  He raised his head, and ran his hands over his face in a weary gesture that broke her heart. With a shaky sigh he stepped back from the railing to face her, and she along with him. “You’d best go below. The ship’s bell will ring soon. It would nae do for you to be seen up here with the likes of me.”

  She started to turn toward the companionway, but his voice stopped her.

  “Felix said that you pray for me.” Wonder warmed his voice. “That must take some effort.”

  She gave him a gentle smile. “I ask God to bless you and keep you.”

  “Save me, you mean.” Then he looked at her again, with that same odd sadness welling in his eyes.

  She watched him walk down the deck, head hung low, until he disappeared from view, and dismay filled her.

  Despite her best intentions, despite all her precautions to the contrary, one thing had become clear to her. Somewhere along this sea journey, perhaps when he adjusted the heel of her shoe or thrust his flask in her hands to make her drink or burst into the galley to protect her from Georg Schultz, or just now, when he’d revealed some vulnerable part of himself to her . . . she’d fallen in love with Bairn.

  September 12th, 1737

  As soon as Anna dismissed Catrina and Felix from English lessons for lunch, Maria sat down across from her and rubbed her big red hands together. “Anna, you have inherited your grandfather’s ability to teach.”

  Anna shifted uncomfortably on her seat—an upturned nail keg that Bairn had given her to use as a stool. It wasn’t like Maria to flatter. Anna much preferred her plain speaking, even her criticism.

  “I believe I have found an ideal solution to Peter’s dilemma.” Maria rested her eyes on Anna. “Peter needs a wife, to care for him and the babe. You need a husband.”

  Anna’s hands curled into a tight ball in her lap. “Peter is but a child still.” Unfinished and rough-hewn, a man still waiting to happen.

  Maria’s brows seemed in danger of disappearing into her prayer cap. “He’s quite fond of you.” She lowered her voice and added, “Dorothea, tell her.”

  Dorothea was passing by them as she walked the baby around the lower deck to rock him to sleep. “I think our Anna knows her own mind.”

  “Peter wants to wed again, for his child’s sake.” And it should be to you, Maria’s tone seemed to say.

  “But I don’t love Peter.”

  “Love?” she replied, a pinched expression about her mouth. “You’ve lost that luxury after dallying with the carpenter.”

  What good would it do to defend herself? Anna said nothing, only got stiffly to her feet. She pushed past Maria, but the woman grabbed her arm to pin her in place.

  Maria leaned close to her ear. “The purity of a soul can be corroded by exposure to the world, the same way a shovel grows rusty if it’s left out in the rain.”

  Anna stopped and turned to face her straight on. “I will not marry Peter, even for the sake of the baby.”

  She left Maria stuttering disapproval in her wake.

  The last time Felix had gotten caught in a lie, his mother had cried over his sin. He had hated that most of all. He would almost rather she’d have given him a whipping, but she wasn’t the type to pick up a switch. Which was why he had decided to avoid Georg Schultz like the pox and hope he’d give up trying to find the thief with the gold watch.

  Felix wondered if the baron would have dared to hurt Johann if his father were still around. It was his father the baron was riled up with. He remembered his father and his mother talking together one night, in quiet voices he probably wasn’t supposed to be hearing, and his father said that he needed to get his family away from Ixheim before it was too late.

  And then it was too late.

  He tried to swallow down the wad of tears that were building in his throat. He hoped Johann could pull back the curtain of heaven now and then and see that they were all right. That Mem was finally better, laughing and smiling and cooing over that little baby, and soon they would be with Papa in the New World.

  He wondered what his father would think about having a new son. Last evening, Peter had asked his mother if she would take the baby for him, to raise him like her own. He had Christian’s blessing, he told her. “I can’t take care of him, not like you could.”

  “I’ll need to ask Jacob,” his mother replied, but Felix already knew the answer. The baby, if he lived, and it seemed like he would by the way he was squalling, would be his new brother.

  Bairn angled his face in his mirror to shave his chin and nicked himself. He flung the straight-edged razor into a porcelain bowl with such disgust that soapy water splashed over the rim of the bowl and onto the floor.

  He needed something to occupy his head and hands every moment, because when his hands were idle they started to shake, and he was too full of feelings to think. Each time he saw Georg Schultz, his belly clenched with a sick dread. He felt as he did before a storm, when there was an absence of wind but the horizon looked terrifyingly gray.

  He dropped to the floor of the officer’s cabin, his head in his hands. He couldn’t take in all that he had discovered in the last twenty-four hours. He could hardly take in a deep breath. “Is this Yer deign on my life, this agonizing subtraction? Please, God, there must be some way.”

  He didn’t know why he prayed. He expected no answer. Indeed, he had not received any answers to his petitions during that awful time, years ago.

  He couldn’t help it. Something deep inside him was asking for help. His chest ached with a longing—no, a need—to make things right. Me sin’s much greater than the laddie’s. Please, God, dinnae let him suffer. There must be some other way.

  With those words, he felt an unexpected peace come over him; it seemed to enter the cabin like an unseen guest.

  Bairn jumped to his feet, started pacing, working out the details in his mind. He felt his whole world shift and give way.

  The next morning, he walked toward the galley to see what Cook was doing about supper. Mr. Pocock sought him out to tell him the captain wanted to see him in the Great Cabin and a knot of alarm tightened in his gut.

  Here it was. He p
ut on his frock coat and went to face the storm.

  The captain had Bairn sit in the chair at the table while he paced up and down in the narrow cabin. “Georg Schultz said he found the thief who stole that baron’s gold watch.”

  “Did he tell you that the thief is an eight-year-old laddie?”

  “Aye. He did. And it sickens me, but there’s naught I can do. A thief is a thief.” The captain averted his eyes. “He says he will return to Rotterdam on the next ship and plans to take the lad with him.”

  “And yer in agreement with him?” Bairn was incredulous. “A mere laddie?”

  The captain ran a hand across his whiskered jaw and groped for a sensible solution. “His mother may accompany him back.” He waved a hand in a grand manner. “I’ll see to it that she won’t be charged full passage.”

  Bairn rose to his feet, towering over the captain. “Nay.”

  The captain looked up at him, surprised. He wasn’t accustomed to anyone disagreeing with him, especially not Bairn. “This isn’t our affair. We are merely the transporters for these people. We have plenty of work ahead of us to get the Charming Nancy shipshape for next summer’s passage.”

  “Nay,” Bairn said more emphatically.

  “Bairn, I don’t like Schultz any more than you do, but the law is the law. And mayhap this scare will keep the lad from a life of thievery.”

  Bairn raked a hand over his hair. “Sir, I was a laddie meself when yer brother took me under his wings. And then you did, yerself. You both gave me a chance.”

  “That’s different. You were an orphan, all alone in the world. And you showed promise. Real promise.” The captain strode to the window. “This boy has parents, a family, and yet he stole something of great value.”

  “Without meaning t’sound disrespectful, this isn’t about the laddie, Captain. This is about money. Schultz wants the reward. You want plenty of passengers t’fill the lower deck.”

  Their eyes locked.

  A knock on the door interrupted the standoff. Mr. Pocock stuck his head in the door and asked for the captain to come to the fo’c’sle deck for a moment.