Margaret put Celia to bed. I heard her singing:
On wings of the wind o'er the dark rolling deep,
angels are coming to watch o'er thy sleep.
Angels are coming to watch over thee,
so list to the wind coming over the sea.
Hear the wind blow, love, hear the wind blow.
Lean your head over and hear the wind blow.
I wandered back down to the kitchen. Margaret joined me and we sat, not speaking, listening to the tick-tick-tick of the clock, and the wind, but I was listening more for the creak of Papa's oarlocks, and the sound of the skiff scraping against the rocks. Sleep tugged at my eyelids. My head nodded, once, twice, and then Papa was in the room, smelling of salt and the sea, and even though I was fourteen and almost as tall as he, I ran into his arms and buried my face against his chest.
“The light guided me home,” he said. “I knew I could count on you, Quila.”
“We were worried about you, Franklin,” Margaret said. I couldn't remember her using his first name before.
“No need,” Papa said. “I brought you something.” He stepped outside and came back carrying a pail. Papa tipped the pail onto Margaret's lap, and blueberries tumbled out, filling her apron.
“I wish they were emeralds,” he said. Margaret looked dazed.
“You went to pick blueberries?” she said.
“That,” Papa said, “and to work up the nerve to ask you to be my wife.”
It took a moment for his words to sink in, for both Margaret and me.
“It's as hard as that, is it?” Margaret said.
“Thinking of a life with me?” Papa shook his head.
“What's hard is the life you'd be agreeing to. I'm more married to this light than to any woman, with nothing to offer but long hours and loneliness, little pay and even less place to spend it.”
“Sure, and you've given me plenty of reasons to say no,” Margaret said. “Can you give me one reason to say yes?”
Papa was quiet so long I didn't think he was going to answer her. Then he took her hand, and she rose to follow him. I trailed along behind. Papa led Margaret out to the cliffs, where the moonlight spilled onto the sea.
“That Land of Light where the fairies live,” Papa said. “What did it take to keep the door open?”
“Metal,” Margaret said. “A piece of metal formed by human hands.”
“Like this?” Papa said, and moonlight glinted off the ring he held in his hand. Above him, the tower flashed its light far out into the darkness.
“The Land of Light,” he said. “I'm hoping you've found it right here.”
apa and Margaret were married a week later, on a day when the weather was fine enough for us to row over to the mainland to find a minister.
Before the ceremony, Margaret gave Celia a small mother-of-pearl comb.
“This was your mother's, when she was little,” she said. “Someday I'll tell you all about her.”
To me, she gave a jar of sea glass, bits of red and blue and green.
“When I first came to Devils Rock, I could tell you liked sea glass by the pieces I found on the windowsill in your room. I've been collecting them for you ever since.”
I held it up to the light, and the colors sparkled like jewels, one shade of blue like Mama's eyes, another like Margaret's.
Mr. and Mrs. Richardson came to the wedding. Mrs. Richardson clasped Margaret's hand.
“You make sure that husband of yours brings you by to visit now and then,” Mrs. Richardson said. “It can get pretty lonely out there.”
I felt Margaret's other hand tighten around my waist.
“Oh, I shan't be lonely, Mrs. Richardson,” she said. “I've got my family now.”
After the wedding, Papa hired a horse and buggy and we drove into the highlands of Maine. Everything was new to Celia and me, and we squealed at each new sight—mountains and rivers, deer and rabbit and moose—and I felt my heart pound to see the trees, especially the maples. They were every shade of orange and yellow and red, even more beautiful than Mama had promised. Papa pointed out spruce and fir and hemlock, and we ate our picnic lunch under trees with white bark that curled and peeled. Papa said they were birches.
While Celia napped, I slipped away into the woods and lay under a golden canopy of leaves.
In my whole life, I'd never been where I couldn't hear the sea; it was like a second heartbeat to me. Here, under the trees, there was no wind, no pounding surf, only the soft chitter of songbirds.
Using my hands and a stick, I dug up two small spruce trees and brought them back to the picnic spot.
“What are those for?” Margaret asked.
“One for Mama's grave,” I said. “And one for your sister.” As soon as I'd said it, I was sorry because Margaret began to cry.
“They're tears of happiness, silly,” Margaret said, hugging me. “Oh, how did I ever get so lucky to find the three of you?” But I think we're the lucky ones.
The sea brought us Celia and it brought us Margaret. We're a family, and there's no greater treasure than that.
his book was inspired by a true story that happened off Hendricks Head Lighthouse near Boothbay Harbor, Maine. In the mid-1800s, following a terrible storm, a lighthouse keeper did see a bundle floating in the water and found a baby girl inside. The keeper and his wife adopted the girl and raised her as their own.
I was sitting at my desk one day, working on another book, when the first sentence of this book came into my head. I wrote it down, set it aside, and continued to work on the other story. But a girl's voice came to me, Aquila's voice, and said, “Tell my story. Now.”
I have tried to do just that.
NATALIE KINSEY-WARNOCK is the author of several books for young readers, including The Canada Geese Quilt, which was an ALA Notable Book, a Booklist Editors' Choice, and an NCSS-CBC Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies. Her deep love of the natural world is evident in all of her writing and was formed early on while growing up in Vermont, where she still lives with her husband and their many dogs, cats, and horses. To learn more about Natalie, visit her Web site at www.kinsey-warnock.com.
Published by Yearling, an imprint of Random House Children's Books
a division of Random House, Inc., New York
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the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
Text copyright © 2003 by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock
Illustrations copyright © 2003 by Judy Pedersen
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eISBN: 978-0-307-52795-0
Reprinted by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers
June 2005
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