The Voyage of Lucy P. Simmons

by Barbara Mariconda

“Courage is not about being unafraid,” she said. “Courage has to do with moving forward in the face of fear. Do you understand?”

  I nodded. I understood. I just hadn’t accepted it. Not yet, anyway. She gave my hands one last squeeze and sent me off toward my room. I heard Annie skittering away from the door and diving under her covers. I undressed in the darkness and slipped into bed—a bed that felt nothing like my own bed back home.

  What would happen to me out there on the water? I swallowed back my tears, fighting to stifle my crying. The bed shook with my silent sobs.

  I became aware of something soft against my cheek. I caught my breath and reached out.

  “Mr. Pugsley?” I whispered.

  “No,” came a voice. “It’s me, Annie.” Her small hand patted my face.

  “Everything will be all right, Lucy,” she whispered. The moonlight streaming in the window illuminated the top of her head, encircling her blond curls like a halo.

  I sat up in bed, torn between surprise and embarrassment, touched and amazed that a child so young could recognize the quiet sounds of despair.

  “Marni makes everything all right. You’ll see.” She sat on the edge of my bed and put her face right up next to mine, her eyes huge and round.

  “You’ll come on the boat with us,” she said, nodding her head up and down, confirming the plan. “Yes, you will.”

  I nodded. “I’ll go,” I said, the sound of my own words making me tremble. I knew I was only pacifying her, masking my shame and my terror. “I’ll go,” I said again, desperately willing her to get off to bed.

  “Do you promise?” she asked.

  I swallowed and took a deep breath.

  “Promise,” I whispered, doubting even as I made the vow that I would actually be capable of carrying it out.

  14

  I spent a near sleepless night, tossing about in my unfamiliar bed, with thoughts of running off, stealing away home to Addie, where I could continue my quest to find Aunt Pru. Thoughts of escape and my fears tumbled together with the kind of wild, unrealistic plans that only seem reasonable in the darkest hours of the night. By morning I was thoroughly exhausted.

  I lay still in bed, hoping against hope that they might leave me behind. Even the aroma of strong coffee, toasted brown bread, and sizzling eggs could not draw me from the cocoon of my bed.

  “Breakfast!” Annie called brightly from the doorway. “Come on! Get up!”

  I turned my back to her and drew the covers over my head. Mr. Pugsley jumped up and pawed at the lump of my shrouded body. He snuffled, snorted, and scratched with great enthusiasm, thinking my avoidance a new kind of game.

  “She isn’t gettin’ up!” Annie called. I heard her steps retreat to the kitchen, felt Mr. Pugsley jump from the bed. The diminishing sound of his nails clicking on the floor, the snippets of breakfast conversation, and the clink of spoons and forks against plates left me feeling alone and bereft.

  I pulled the blanket from my head, rolled over on my back, and stared at the ceiling. The cracks and peeling paint could have been a map—there a peninsula, there a continent, there an ocean. Somewhere out there, my aunt Pru.

  A thought poked at the edges of my brain. I closed my eyes, tried to ignore it. But there it was. How could I ever find my aunt Pru out there in this great big world if I refused to sail?

  My stomach turned over, recoiled, rumbled. Perhaps it was fear. Terror even. Or, I thought hopefully, perhaps the feeling of my stomach turning inside out was only hunger?

  I willed myself out of bed, felt my feet hit the floor, pulled my overalls up under my nightgown and threw the white garment off over my head. Quickly—my shirt! Quickly—my socks! Quickly, I headed toward the kitchen before this burst of courage left me. I turned back and grabbed Father’s spyglass, hung it around my neck, and stopped once again. My flute! I swept it up from the dresser and placed it in the large pocket at my chest. I was rewarded with a flutter and tickle of air, a wisp of melody. A la dee dah dah....

  At the table there was no mention of my reluctance, no mention of my unkempt appearance due to my hasty preparation and lack of grooming. Marni slid a plate of eggs, sunny-side up, before me, followed by a stack of brown bread with butter and a cup of steaming coffee with cream. She nodded and smiled, gave my shoulder a squeeze. “A sailor needs a hearty breakfast!” she said.

  Still, I pushed my breakfast around my plate until the dishes were cleared and stacked by the basin. At the last moment Marni scooped up a scone and an apple, which she pressed me to eat as we filed out the door. Georgie and Annie chattered all the way to the dock, their words buzzing around me like indecipherable bees. I was there and not there, half of me in the present, the other half desperately trying not to slide into the past.

  “Lucy,” Walter called. “You climb aboard with the others and help me with this line.” He nodded to the rope anchoring the boat to the dock. “As I unwrap this end, you pull in the line, and I’ll jump on.”

  There was no time to think about it. They were already ushering me aboard. As soon as he uncoiled the rope from the large brass cleat affixed to the dock, the boat began to move. I pulled in the line, forming large, neat loops as I’d seen Mother do. Oh, how I fought the image of Mother holding the line, the Brute yanking, and then …

  Walter jumped aboard, grinning as he took the rope from my hands. “Good job, First Mate!” He thumped me on the back, and I blinked myself back into the present just in time to lower my head as the boom swung across.

  From my seat at the stern I watched Walter approach the mainsail and Georgie grab the wheel, all under Marni’s watchful eye. Mr. Pugsley hunkered down beside me with a resigned hmpff and lowered his head to his paws, surely remembering our previous trauma at sea. I managed to pull one white-knuckled hand from the side of the boat to pat his head, his resolute loyalty fortifying me. My eyes began to follow our little crew, anticipating each step in the process, the same practiced moves Father had so skillfully executed time and again. There, they cleated off the halyard and pulled it taut. The bowline, secured. The luff, fed.

  Walter coaxed me into helping with the jib, and as I pulled the canvas from the bag, I heard Father’s voice, pointing out the head, the tack, and the clew. By the time the sails were hoisted, I was struck with a curious realization: never, since the day of the accident, had Father been more present to me than here on this boat, doing the things he loved to do.

  “Ooh!” Georgie yelled, interrupting my daydream. “Look at that crazy bird!” He pointed to a cormorant doing acrobatics in the water. Annie squealed in delight at the sight of a playful seal poking its puppylike whiskered face out of the waves in greeting. Mr. Pugsley sat up and stared, perhaps mistaking the sea creature for a canine companion. His tail twitched and then tentatively wagged.

  Before long Walter had me assisting him with the mainsail, and I let my hands automatically do the job Father had taught me so well. Walter nodded approvingly.

  “Not bad.... Now I can see why they let you join the boat club,” he teased.

  I said nothing, not yet fully trusting my voice.

  “How are you faring, Lucy P?” called Marni. “Have you got your sea legs back?”

  I nodded, determined, and my determination brought about an eventual calm. Walter seemed to sense it and smiled. Georgie took over, tacking this way and that, and Walter sat beside me.

  “So,” I asked, “how long have you stayed with Marni?”

  He bent and stroked Mr. Pugsley’s head. “We’ve been with her since last February.”

  Annie pushed between us.

  “That was when we ran away,” she said, “from our poppy.”

  I was aware of Marni in the background, listening but, it seemed to me, purposely staying out of the conversation. I looked back to Walter and noticed the edges of his lips twitch, saw his Adam’s apple bob up and down. He glanced at me and then turned to his sister.

  “We needed to find a new place to live, so we came here; right, Annie?�
�

  Annie nodded, her dainty pink lips pursed like a small flower. “Uh-huh,” she whispered. She looked at me with huge, solemn eyes. “Walter took us away so Poppy wouldn’t hurt us anymore.”

  “He hurt you?” My heart leaped into my throat at the thought of a grown man hurting a little girl like Annie.

  Walter stared out over the water. “Only when he had too much to drink,” he said quietly. “But after Ma died, that was more often than not.” He glanced at his sister. “Poppy couldn’t help it, Annie; remember how I explained?”

  She nodded and turned to me. “And it wasn’t my fault, neither,” she said in a soft voice. “Walter told me that, lots of times, and so did Marni. Right, Walter?”

  “You’re right about that,” Walter said. “It wasn’t your fault.” Annie sat there nodding her head, trying, it seemed to me, to convince herself that her brother’s words were true.

  Walter looked at me, his face serious. “So, I ran off with them, and came here looking for work. Marni took us in. She’d lost her own son, years and years ago—she told us that. I like to think I fill his shoes, at least a little. That I can help her like she helps us. Our pop has been trying to snatch us back ever since, but we’re not going back.”

  I almost told him again that I was sorry, but the dark shadow that had crept across his face, steeling his features, warned against it. I simply nodded, thinking what an odd bunch we were: Marni, the philanthropist who had lost a son (How? I wondered), and us—the Perkins kids and me, a peculiar group of misfits that she had somehow decided to save.

  “Does your father know where you are?” I asked.

  “He’s seen us a couple of times,” said Walter, “with Marni by the shore.”

  I saw Georgie stiffen, and watched Walter lay a hand on his shoulder. Georgie looked off across the bay, as if scanning the sea for any sign of his poppy. Apparently satisfied, he looked at me, his eyes wide. “He doesn’t know where we live,” he said, seemingly as much to convince himself as to convince me. Georgie turned to his brother. “He won’t find us, right, Walter?”

  “No,” said Walter, with more conviction than I believe he felt, “he won’t find us.” I could see the tension slide off the little boy’s face, a sight that endeared Walter to me then.

  Marni took us out into the bay, along the whole inner rim of the oxhead horns in a southerly direction, almost to the opposite point where my own house sat. I watched it there—the house, that is—perched at the edge of the land, looking out to the east to the open sea. I wondered what Addie was doing at the moment, wondered if perhaps she was gazing on the water, thinking of me. Visions of squirrely Uncle Victor foraging around Father’s desk and of Aunt Margaret’s chubby fingers caressing Mother’s fine china came to mind as well, but these I resolutely pushed aside.

  We took turns using Father’s spyglass. This enabled me to bring the house in more closely, to examine the shore that ran along the back side of the property.

  It was while scanning the shoreline that I spotted something—just a slight motion at first, but enough to draw my eye back to the spot. I slowly turned the spyglass in a careful sweep, taking in again the area I’d just glimpsed. My heart raced, and I felt the color drain from my face. Sensing my distress, Mr. Pugsley bristled.

  “What is it?” Walter asked. My mouth felt dry, the sight on the shore conjuring up the very memories I had fought hard to bury.

  “What do you see?” he asked again.

  I swallowed. “Just someone I recognize on the shore,” I said, my voice sounding peculiar and hollow.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Walter said, gently taking the spyglass from my hand, placing it against his eye, and squinting into the lens.

  I felt a shadow fall across the two of us—not an actual shadow—more of a dark mood that descended as soon as Walter looked into the glass. He lowered the glass slowly and turned to Marni.

  “Time to bring her around,” he said, his voice tight. Something in his tone immediately altered the atmosphere on the boat, the air around us charged with a nervous energy that almost tingled. Mr. Pugsley growled. The hair along his back stood up.

  I watched Marni raise an eyebrow in Walter’s direction, and without so much as a word, she changed course. In an effort that seemed well rehearsed, Walter and Georgie helped her, and before I knew it, the boat was sailing back due north, taking us away from my house, away from the shore, and away from the Brute.

  Once our course was set, Walter glanced my way.

  “How did you know it was him?” he asked.

  “I remember him, of course,” I replied, “since the day of the accid—” I paused, confused. “How do you know him?” I asked.

  Walter looked at me as though I was rather dim-witted.

  “How do I know him?” he repeated, his voice wrapped in a laugh that held no humor whatever. “That man on the shore is my father!”

  “Your father?”

  I was incredulous. The Brute was their poppy, the man who had hurt them, the very same man who was responsible for the accident!

  It all made sense now. No wonder the Brute had been chasing after Marni—he knew she had his children. And Mr. Pugsley—that explained why Annie claimed he was her dog; he had, after all, belonged to the Brute to begin with. I had just never imagined him, with his wild hair and unshaven face, having a family, never dreamed he had children. All of this I took in as I slumped, my back against the side of the boat.

  “Lucy,” said Walter, impatience sneaking into his voice, “I still don’t understand how you recognized him.”

  I shook my head, not feeling quite able to put it all into words. I glanced at Annie, who upon overhearing us began clinging to Marni’s trousers, her thumb in her mouth.

  “George,” Marni called, “George, take over here, would you?”

  He nodded, and in an instant Marni lifted Annie in her arms.

  “It’s all right, Annie,” Marni said. “No one’s going to hurt you. You’re safe here. I won’t let him take you.” Annie wrapped her legs around Marni’s waist and buried her head in her shoulder. Marni rubbed her back and glanced over at us.

  “So, now you see that it was more than simple coincidence that brought you all together. Your lives have been intertwined by fate.”

  “But I still don’t understand,” Walter said again. Georgie looked from one of us to the other, the worried crease forming between his brows giving him the look of a little old man.

  “You see,” Marni said to Walter, “your father was stranded out on the water this past spring during a fierce squall. He was not … well … in good condition at the time. Captain Simmons, being a seasoned waterman, managed to rescue your father. But, in the process, the Simmonses’ boat capsized. Lucy and Mr. Pugsley managed to escape. The Simmonses—the captain and his wife—were not so lucky.”

  Walter hung his head for a moment and then looked up at me. “Your father and mother drowned trying to save Poppy?”

  I nodded. He looked away for a moment and when he looked back at me, his face was clouded.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Your father must have been a great man.”

  I nodded again, not only in response to the words he spoke, but to the unspoken words as well—acknowledging that the better man had certainly not won out.

  We sailed on in silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts. Marni did not interfere, but rather focused her energies on overseeing the workings of the sails, thus giving us time to let the peculiar circumstances of our relationship sink in.

  It occurred to me that my joining the group had put us all at a disadvantage. It would be critical that the Brute never see us together, the Perkins children and me, for all it would take for him to recapture his children would be to spot me at home on a weekend visit and follow me back to Marni’s cottage.

  Still, he hadn’t seen me with them yet, and I longed for a visit home to see what progress Addie might have made. Although I was grateful to Marni for many
things, the weekend, I thought, couldn’t come quickly enough.

  15

  The days that passed between our small voyage and my weekend visit home did not inch by as I had expected they would. The fact is our days fairly dashed by, filled with study—although study unlike any I had ever undertaken back in school with Miss Randolph.

  No, this was a much more lively education: mornings spent immersed in ancient leather-bound books, the dry powdery pages smelling faintly of salt and cedar, filled with the lore and legends of the sea.

  It was the tales of piracy that captured Georgie’s attention, and I must admit, mine as well. A far cry from the days when the Perkins brothers were relegated to the back of the country schoolhouse, Georgie had become something of an orator, with a gift for dramatic reading.

  “Grace O’Malley,” he boomed, gesturing with one hand and holding open the book with the other, “was a pirate, a warrior, and a gambler, feared by the men of her day! The first in a line of fearsome Irish women pirates,” he proclaimed, “she left home at a tender age, returning with her abundant mane of red curls shorn into a masculine style. She captained many a ship along the western shores of Ireland, wreaking havoc wherever she sailed!”

  Annie and I applauded. “I’ll bet she looked like you!” Annie chirped, scooping up my curls and tucking them behind my head. Grace O’Malley, I thought, a woman with roots in the seafaring life. With that thought, something rose and thrilled inside of me. With my curls tucked neatly, I hopped up onto a chair and assumed the role. On my perch I launched into my hardy repertoire of sea chanteys, with Georgie and Annie jumping in on the refrains. For my finale I played Father’s flute with many a flourish, ending, as always, with “Ah la dee dah dah, a la dee dah dee!” Even Walter clapped vigorously and whistled in a rowdy manner. I bowed deeply. “To Grace O’Malley!” I shouted, raising a fist in the air.

  Only Marni sat, stock-still, her features turned to stone.

  “What is it?” I asked. The room fell silent.

  “It may be great fun to glorify piracy,” she said. “But the lawlessness and brutality they practice has affected generations of decent people! This I know firsthand!” She fingered the silver locket at her throat.