Wonder at the Edge of the World

by Nicole Helget

  Lopez watches over us all night, so I try to sleep because I know once I get to New Bedford, I’ll have a lot of work to do. But I keep seeing Lopez standing up to Captain Greeney, coming up with that clever tale, and saving me and the Medicine Head. I think about Eustace, who was promised his freedom in exchange for me but chose to stay with me on this journey instead. I even think about Fob, who barked and snapped at Captain Greeney, when he’s usually timid as a mouse. What have I done to deserve such brave, smart, and loyal friends?

  I can’t think of much.

  CHAPTER 20

  For days, we lurch forward in the train car. Every minute of the ride, I worry that Captain Greeney will come back. I worry that the Medicine Head will call to him so loudly that we’ll be found. But it doesn’t.

  Then, on the fifth day, I smell a new scent that’s old at the same time, a smell that fills my head with hope. It’s the ocean. We’ve made it to New Bedford, Massachusetts. The most beautiful city in the entire United States. My home.

  The cool breeze off the ocean lifts the haze of the train car. It feels lighter in here, as though a thick veil has been blown away. The Medicine Head remains quiet. Maybe it’s because of the cold wind. When the train squeals to a stop, I’m ready to hop out and get moving. “We’ve got to get to the port. I’ve got to find Captain Abbot and his whaling ship.”

  “I’m hungry,” says Eustace.

  “Yes,” I say. “We can find something to eat.”

  Lopez says to us, “Good luck, amigos.” He has watery eyes and pulls us into a hug. He goes on in stilted English. “Good luck of secret science in box. Good luck of Fob. Good luck of Eustace. Good luck of Hallelujah Wonder.” Those two words, “good luck,” have meaning that bests any others. Even though Lopez can’t say them, I think I know all the words he wants them to mean.

  He kneels down and grabs Fob, scratches behind his ears until Fob groans with pleasure. Then Lopez stands and reaches into the pocket of his porter’s coat.

  He says something to Eustace.

  Eustace nods, then shakes Lopez’s hand. “He says to find him when our journey’s complete. He says he’ll get you back to Kansas safely.”

  I usually like to think that I can do everything myself. But it sure is nice when a girl’s got some reliable friends to help her.

  Lopez wraps his arms around me and hugs me tight. He lifts me off the floor. I hug him back. “Gracias, Lopez.” And then it’s time to go.

  Eustace, Fob, and I step out of the train car and jump down onto the ground of New Bedford, where I took my first breaths and my first steps as a babe. I’ve got my satchel and crate, and Eustace has Fob. My legs shake. The ground beneath me seems unsteady, but I know it’s only because I’ve been on a moving train for so long.

  Eustace, on the other hand, walks sure-footed as I’ve ever seen him. His eyes are wide at the swarms of people. “You could get lost in a crowd here,” he says. “I’ve never seen so many people in one place before.”

  He’s right about that. Old people, young people, children—all bustle back and forth. Trains steam in and out. I know Greeney will soon be on my trail, but I feel somehow protected here. There are tall buildings and lots of alleyways and backstreets. There are lots of places to hide. Not at all like Kansas, where everyone knows everyone else, knows when and if people go to church or school, knows if they sleep with their lamps lit or windows open, knows if they sneeze or blow their nose.

  “What if this captain won’t let us on his ship?” Eustace asks.

  “Why wouldn’t he let us on?” I say. “Ships always need crew. There are signs up about it all the time. Everywhere.”

  “Yes,” he says. “But I’m a Negro, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  “You’re more ruddy-colored,” I say. “But don’t worry. Lots of Negro men work on the whaling ships. Lots.” I’m fairly certain this is true, but not absolutely. I can’t see why it wouldn’t be true. “And I’m good at tying knots,” I say. “They’ll hire me for that. And Father knew this man. He’ll understand. He’ll want to help us.”

  Eustace raises an eyebrow at me, and Fob seems to do the same.

  “I’ve never heard of a woman, much less a girl, on a whaling ship,” he says.

  I worry a little that I might not be able to get on the ship. But I’ve come so far already. I have to. I have to get the Medicine Head to Antarctica. I’ll do whatever it takes. I’m not turning back now. I’m not giving up.

  “You could just give the darn thing to me,” Eustace says. “If what you say about Negro men is true, then Captain Abbot will hire me on. I’m strong. I’m a good worker.” He bites his lip. “I could take the Medicine Head to Antarctica, and you could go home to your family. You could go home and help take care of Ma.”

  I watch him. Is he sincere? I think he is. But maybe he wants the Medicine Head for himself. I shake my head to get that thought out of my mind, and I also shake it to tell him no. “Thanks, Eustace. But I’ve got to do this. The entire way. The whole journey.”

  He nods. “I thought you’d say that. But I would do it for you, Lu. I would.”

  “I know, Eustace.” I look away so he doesn’t see my lip quiver. Sometimes Eustace and his goodness make me want to cry.

  I take a deep breath and exhale slowly. “But I promise when this is all over, I’ll go home and tend to Ruby. I promise you that, Eustace.” I stare off toward the ocean and don’t look at him. I don’t want him to see that my eyes might be watery.

  CHAPTER 21

  New Bedford isn’t quite the same as I remember it. For instance, I don’t remember quite as much smoke hovering in the air or soot blackening every building as there is now. I don’t remember so many grimy people walking around with moldy coats and missing teeth. I certainly don’t remember this many untended dogs with matted hair and missing limbs. The fish smell seems familiar, but it was more appetizing than the scent now wafting from the crates of rotting fish carcasses sitting in the middle of the lanes. My stomach flips again.

  Eustace puts his hand in front of his nose to block out the smells. “This is the New Bedford you’ve been crowing about all these years?” he says.

  I don’t say anything. I keep walking, holding the Medicine Head’s crate close to my heart, looking for places I remember and moving toward the port.

  “Smells bad here,” Eustace says. “Like everything’s been dumped on with old kitchen water and then left to fester in a chicken coop.”

  He might be right, but I tell him, “That is not true, Eustace!” I walk and clutch the Medicine Head to my chest. I wish New Bedford looked and smelled a little better. “You’re not used to it yet,” I say. “Kansas smells bad, too. Like smoke all the time!”

  Eustace pauses in his walking, which causes Fob to nearly trip him. When Eustace steadies his footing, he says, “That’s only recent. Because of the fighting.”

  I know he’s right about that, too. One good thing about Kansas is that even if it was the most boring place in the world, you could always get a good-smelling breath of clean air, before the fires started. I don’t tell Eustace I think that, though.

  Eustace points to the sky. “Look at those,” he says. Seagulls are circling and cawing. “What are they?” he says.

  I can hardly believe Eustace has never seen a seagull. I laugh. I can’t help it. “Don’t you know a seagull when you see one?” I say. “They’re everywhere. The sailors always know they’re close to home when they see a seagull.”

  “Kinda look like the pigeons we got back in Kansas,” Eustace says.

  “They do not,” I say. “A seagull is a much more dignified animal than a silly old pigeon. Seagulls are a hundred times more interesting than those dumb old Kansas birds.”

  As we walk, Fob runs ahead of us, and he scatters a flock of seagulls, which were fighting over the carcass of a stinking black eel.

  “Don’t seem more dignified to me,” Eustace says.

  I don’t say anything. Fob comes back to us. The e
el was too smelly for him to investigate.

  Men of every kind—black, Indian, Japanese, and Portuguese—clog the lanes. The whaling ships aren’t particular when hiring people to sign on to be at sea for months and years at a time. They need people who are strong and courageous. They don’t care what color you are. No one gives a second glance at me, who must look like a scrubby piece of riff-raff, or at Eustace, who is a runaway slave from a burned-up town in Kansas.

  Eustace is walking funny. He moves through the lanes of New Bedford with a confidence I never saw in him at home. Sometimes in Tolerone, when I was walking with Eustace, some white people would say to us that it wasn’t proper “for a white girl to be consorting with a darkie,” or something like that. I never cared what those Kansas people thought, but I know Eustace sometimes got his feelings hurt. I bet if he lived here, he’d never have to walk crouched over or ashamed ever again. And here, he’d get a whole lot of eager listeners who like to hear about abolition.

  On the corner stands a man reading aloud from a newspaper. He reads to a group of people, white, black, men, and women. “We must act on this blow to liberty!” he shouts. “We must stand with our Negro brothers in the Kansas Territory, which is now burning with the wrath of God!”

  I nudge Eustace. “He’s talking about Tolerone,” I say.

  “Shh,” says Eustace. “I want to hear.”

  The reader goes on. “The North must not cower under the yoke of the slave masters of the South. The North must now take a stand for the freedom outlined in the Declaration of Independence. Let the fires of Tolerone be a call to action against tyranny and injustice.”

  I pull on Eustace’s arm. “Let’s go,” I say.

  He shuffles along with me but looks back now and again.

  New Bedford has churches on every corner, and many of the congregations are involved in the movement to free the slaves. I see a familiar lane, the one that leads to the church we used to go to when I was small. “Let’s go up here,” I say to Eustace. “I want to show you something.” We walk up the cobblestones to a simple white chapel. “I remember this place,” I tell him. I think back to the times when I was small, when Mother, Priss, and sometimes even Father would come here and sit together.

  “Do you want to go in?” Eustace asks. He stares up at the spire going into the sky. Then he points to the sign above the door. “What’s that say?” he asks.

  “Seaman’s Bethel,” I tell him. I sigh.

  Mother was a member of Seaman’s Bethel Chapel, and the members there wrote letters to all the country’s newspapers about the evils of slavery. They collected money to donate to free black men to help them get places to live. They helped them find employment.

  Practically every member of this church was connected to the whaling industry in some way. Sailors and sailors’ wives. Captains and captains’ wives. It was the sailors’ and captains’ wives who started the abolitionist movement at this church.

  Father didn’t come with us to services often. He didn’t give much clout to religion. Superstition, he called it. “Science is where the real truth lies,” he would say. And Mother would shake her head and warn him not to make “such conceited and hasty pronouncements.” You might find it difficult to believe that Mother once spoke articulate and beautiful words, but she did. She was considered, in her time, to be quite a catch, smart and well bred. As well as beautiful, like I already said.

  While Father rarely attended services at Seaman’s Bethel, Captain Greeney attended all the time. Even though I was little, I remember seeing him here, before everything went so bad. Sometimes he delivered lectures from the pulpit. Before my father swept my mother off her feet, Captain Greeney even courted her and wanted to marry her. Lots of men did, her being the Beauty of New Bedford and all. Sometimes I wonder if all Captain Greeney’s plotting to destroy my father comes from an old grudge over Mother. People sometimes lose their heads over what they think is love.

  “Yes,” I say. “Let’s go in.”

  We go to the door, and I open it to let Eustace step in. He hesitates, as though he’s not sure he’s allowed. “Go on,” I tell him. “Things are different here in New Bedford.”

  Eustace points to Fob. “What about him?” he asks.

  “Oh, he can come, too,” I say. “These people aren’t particular about dogs going to church.”

  Then Eustace nods to the Medicine Head’s crate. “That thing, too? You think it’s right bringing it inside a church?”

  I clutch it to me. “Well, I’m not leaving it. All this religion stuff is just superstition, anyway.” The truth is, I don’t know about that. But Father said it was, so I’ll believe him until I find out for myself what I think about the matter.

  We step in. The chapel is bright white and cool. Every window is open. The breeze blows in off the ocean. Somehow, all the bad smells have been filtered out, so nothing but sweet, salty air blesses my nose. I breathe in deep and exhale slowly. I spy an open pew in the back and lead Eustace and Fob to it. Fob’s nails clack on the floorboards. A few heads turn around to look at us, but none of the faces gives us a second look. We look as welcome and normal here as everyone else. There are women dressed in the black garb of the widow. There are young women surrounded by small children, the families of sailors, probably. There are old seamen, white-bearded and red-faced. There’s a whole row of Wampanoag whalers up front. Maybe you didn’t know this, but before Europeans ever got to the Americas, Indian people lived here first. And they were whaling before any Europeans thought it up.

  Eustace twists his head one way and then another, taking in all the sights of the chapel. I don’t tell him to sit still. I let him look around. I imagine it makes him happy to see white folks, black folks, brown folks, red folks, young folks, old folks, tattooed folks, scarred folks, scantily clad folks, and rich-looking folks all in one place. He relaxes and eases into the pew.

  Then the pastor takes his place at the pulpit, which is interesting and unusual because it’s shaped like the bow of a ship.

  “For them that don’t know me,” he begins, “I am Father Captain Mahogany.” He gestures with his right hand to his missing left arm. The coat sleeve on that side is pinned up. Then he gestures to his peg leg, which he lifts for the congregation to view. His head is massive, and he’s fully bearded. “‘Aye,’ says them everywhere’s I goes. ‘Aye, Father Cap’n Mahogany, ’tis true the sea monster took yeer left-side appendages, but yeer faith makes you full strong as any man about.’”

  Eustace elbows me. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he whispers. “What’s he saying?”

  I shrug. I don’t know.

  Eustace says, “Huh?”

  “Shh,” I tell him. Eustace has never gone to school, so I guess he doesn’t know that sometimes a kid is supposed to listen and be quiet when a grown-up is talking even if the kid has no idea what the grown-up is talking about.

  “You talk funny, too, to them,” I whisper. “Now be quiet.”

  Father Captain Mahogany goes on. “‘Aye,’ says I. ‘Me arm and leg been scuppered clean off by a mighty fish, ’tis true, endin’ me days prematurely as a nautical man. But dids this sink me spirit? Dids it keelhaul me heart? Nay. Nay.” He wipes his face with a handkerchief, then stuffs it inside his tattered vest, the buttons of which strain to hold the vest together. He’s so big, he looks like he’s swallowed a whale.

  “And now I shall stir the congregation with a whopper of a tale from the gospels.” Father Captain Mahogany clears his throat. He uses his coat sleeve to wipe his nose. “Followin’ a lengthy bit of sermonizin’ one mornin’ into the late afternoon,” he says, “Jesus the Christ escapes the throngs by takin’ onto a boat for a bit of a rest. Now, not many of ye likely consider Jesus the Christ much of a seafarin’ chap, but I likes to imagine Jesus the Christ supremely squared away afloat on a vessel.”

  “Oh,” says Eustace. “I know this story!”

  I elbow him in the gut hard. I clench my lips together until it hurts my teeth
. Fob whimpers.

  Father Captain Mahogany continues like he doesn’t even hear Eustace interrupting all the time. “So when the men accepts Jesus the Christ onto their boat and asks him wherest he’d be happiest to venture, Jesus the Christ says, ‘Oh, hither and yon, my brothers. It matters not.’ For Jesus the Christ was weary to the bone and in need of the kind of respite only the cradling of the sea may provide.

  “So the nautical fellows takes up the oars as nautical fellows are wont to do, and no sooner have they dipped ten times than has their blessed passenger Jesus the Christ fallen into a mighty snooze. Bamboozled by sleep, he was, fairly awash in a great restorative slumber, rocked as he was by the tender roll of the sea. Imagine him now, if ye can, and let the smile play upon yeer own lips at the thought of his heavenly snooze. Holy calm.

  “But then a tyrant of a storm rips the peace to ribbons, and the boat is tossed like a seed on the swells. The sailors brace up and batten down the hatches, but it’s rogue wave left and right, and the sea has their vessel in her clutches.

  “So the storm has the paltry boat in her clutches, and what is Jesus the Christ up to? To the sailors’ disbelief, he sleeps. Aye, like a babe in his mother’s womb he sleeps. And the sailors, lashed by wind and walloped by wave, are in complete disbelief at the sight of the sleeping fellow. And try as they might to wake him, asleep he stays.

  “Finally the clattering reaches such an unholy din that Jesus the Christ awakens, rubbing sleep from his eyes with a princely yawn. And the careening sailors immediately accost his ears with fearful complaints, such as ‘What the blast’ll become of us?’ and ‘How the blaze’ll we avoid the deep slumber in this bluster?’ and ‘Today we’ll surely die! Help!’

  “And what does Jesus the Christ say? Peaceful as a fluff of cloud, he intonates, ‘O ye of little faith, be still.’ And at his voice’s command, the whirling sea goes calm, and the sailors follow suit.

  “What will ye glean from this tale? May it be the same gleaned I when me port side was in a whale jaw’s clench: faith. Faith so strong it can move a mountain. Faith. When your harpoon’s dashed and the ship’s on its ear and your friends are a-swim or bubbling under and your left side’s in the crunch—avast, worry! Avast, doubt! Avast, fear! Faith. Faith. Faith.” Father Captain Mahogany shakes his one good fist in the air and then pounds it down on the pulpit. He steps back and down the steps and disappears to the back of the chapel.