HANNAH SQUEEZED ELIZABETH'S arm as they leaned over the ship rail to view the harbor front of Anne Arundel Town. The place appeared to be little more than a village of around forty roughly constructed houses. Cows and sheep grazed in pens between the buildings. Her eyes anchored on the church where her sister and Gabriel had married.
"Oh, Hannah. Somewhere down there will be my Michael. I wonder if I'll recognize him after all these years."
Most of the people on the pier wore buckskin and rough homespun, except for the gentlemen planters in their linen and brocade. Everyone seemed in good cheer to see the ship. Yet something about the crowd troubled Hannah—there were no old people. She remembered Elizabeth's talk of contagion, the toll the brutal climate exacted.
"Of course, you will know your own husband," she told Elizabeth, hoping to chase away dark thoughts. She asked herself if she would be able to pick May out of a crowd when the time came. Her sister didn't know she was coming—there had been no chance to send a letter that would arrive before the ship did. Hannah would disembark at Banham's Landing, fifteen miles up the Sequose River from the Washbrook Plantation. She had heard it would take another two weeks before the ship reached the mouth of that river. But the Washbrooks would be there to deliver their tobacco harvest. Wouldn't May be surprised to see her? Wouldn't it be a dream to see her sister again?
"How do I look?" Elizabeth asked. "Clean and decent?"
The night before, they had moored at Jamestown, Virginia, where the crew had brought barrels of fresh water aboard. The captain would fetch better prices for the indentured servants if they washed before the auction. Hannah and Elizabeth had soaped and scrubbed themselves from their toes to their hair, then Elizabeth had given her boys a good sponging. Hannah dug to the bottom of her trunk for a fresh shift, but she was saving her good bodice and petticoat for her arrival at Banham's Landing.
"Look," said Elizabeth. "They're lowering the gangplank." Ned and Will edged away from their mother as she began to weep. "Oh, what if he hasn't come for me, Hannah?" She looked terrified. "What if he's forsaken me? What will I do?"
"Stop talking nonsense." Hannah took her hand. "Of course he'll be there."
"Come down to the pier with me," Elizabeth begged her. "Hannah, please. I don't want to stand alone down there like a servant waiting to be sold off."
They waited until it was their turn to file down the gangplank.
"Don't leave my sight!" Elizabeth shouted to her boys. "Stay close by me. We mustn't lose one another." She took each of her sons by the hand. Hannah watched her search the sea of faces for her husband.
There were few women in the crowd, but Hannah's heart surged when she saw a young mother with wide blue eyes who was struggling to quiet a squalling tot. Of course it couldn't be May. Yet the illusion was perfect. Hannah allowed herself to pretend that the moment of reunion was upon her. Then the strange woman turned her head, revealing a pockmarked cheek. No, it couldn't be her May. No pox had ever touched her May.
Elizabeth made a noise from deep in her throat as a man approached. Though he was scarred in the face and thin as a barber pole, his smile was enough to bring fresh tears to Elizabeth's eyes. "Is that my Betty?" he asked. "Is that my girl?"
Hannah looked away to give them their privacy. She heard her friend crying in his arms, heard him gently hushing her. Ned and Will hung close by Hannah and traded nervous glances. Eight-year-old Will had been in his mother's womb when his father sailed to the colony. Hannah reckoned that even ten-year-old Ned couldn't have much memory of him.
Their father called their names. "Are these my little men?" He threw his arms around them, drawing their heads to his bony chest.
Elizabeth took Hannah's elbow. "This is Hannah Powers. She read your letters to me on the ship."
Michael Sharpe bowed to her. "We live near Cambridge on the Eastern Shore," he said. "You are always welcome."
Hannah smiled. "You are kind, sir." It was comforting to know she already had friends in the New World.
"Look!" Little Will grabbed her hand and pointed.
The auction had begun. A girl she recognized from the ship stood on a barrel while planters in plumed hats pointed their walking sticks at her and placed their bids.
"Two hogsheads for that wench."
"You say two for a healthy girl of seventeen?" The first mate, presiding over the auction, lifted his eyebrows incredulously. "Young and pretty, no pox on her. Sure she'll make some lonely man a good wife."
Laughter shook the crowd. The girl on the barrel stood without flinching, her strong chin pointed toward the distant hills. The rumor on the ship was that she had been a kitchen girl made pregnant by her master's son. Her baby had been stillborn.
A man in homespun clothes with a hickory walking stick stepped forward. "I bid four."
A while later, Hannah heard Michael Sharpe tell his wife that their ferry for the Eastern Shore was about to sail. Elizabeth threw her arms around Hannah's neck. "If you ever need anything, write to my husband."
"I am happy for you," she whispered, holding Elizabeth tightly before letting her go.
"Can Hannah come with us?" Will asked.
"No," Hannah told him firmly. "I am to meet my sister and her family."
"Does she have little boys?" Will sounded jealous.
"She has a child I have never met." Hannah stooped so that her head was level with his. "I don't know if it's a boy or girl."
Elizabeth embraced her again while the boys waved goodbye. Michael Sharpe doffed his hat. "Good luck to you, Hannah Powers."
Hannah waved until she lost sight of them in the crowd. Suddenly alone, she wondered what to do with herself. The smell of roasting meat caused her empty stomach to growl. Beyond the pier, she made out the cookstalls. After twelve weeks of dry biscuit and weak beer, she couldn't imagine anything more delectable than freshly cooked food. Her fingers weighed the cloth purse that hung from her belt and contained her small hoard of coins. On her way to the stalls, a man stepped in her path and smiled, revealing a row of rotten teeth.
"I see, mistress, you are yet unclaimed. Let me tell you, I have two hundred acres and am looking for a wife. Timothy Sower is my name, and I am a widower with four boys in need of a stepmother."
"I am not seeking a husband." Hannah spoke sternly. "I am bound for Banham's Landing to join my sister."
"Banham's Landing, you say?" He grinned lewdly. "Is your sister one of Banham's whores?"
Hannah could only gape as he melted back into the throng.
"You must forgive him for his words," a voice behind her said.
She swung around to see an immense woman with a body like a proud galleon. Her skin was indigo-black. "The men come to sell their tobacco and buy a few nice things from the ship. There are so few Englishwomen here. When they see a girl like you, they act like fools."
Hannah could not think what to say. She had never stood face to face with an African before, but something in the woman's gaze reminded her so much of Joan that she ached.
"I am sure you are right," she said at last, dipping her head.
***
"What meat is this?" she asked the man at the cookstall while he ladled thick brown stew onto a wooden trencher.
"Venison," he said without ceremony, as though he were dishing out pigs' feet. Hannah shook her head in amazement. At home only the gentry were allowed to hunt deer and eat their meat.
After she had finished the stew and was wiping her trencher with a hunk of coarse bread made from Indian maize, she realized that every man within twenty feet was staring at her. This time she tried not to let it unnerve her. She reminded herself that she was brand-new to their world, still unmarked by this country. She was fresh from the land most of them would never see again. How could they help but stare?
***
As the sun crept toward the western hills, there seemed little point in remaining on shore. The auction had ended. The sailors had unloaded the goods for Anne Arundel Town and were ready to sail north up Chesapeake Bay at first light. How many days, she wondered, would it take them to reach Banham's Landing? Now that Elizabeth was gone, the ship was a lonely place. Crawling under the bedclothes, she couldn't wait for the voyage to be over.
She had just dozed off when a sailor carrying a lantern awakened her.
"Hannah Powers," he said, "two women have come to take Elizabeth Sharpe's place in your sleeping box." At that, he was gone, taking his light with him.
One of the women, however, held a guttering candle. Her face above the unsteady flame was black. Raising herself on one elbow, Hannah recognized the woman she had spoken to earlier that day.
"I am Lucy Mackett," said the candle bearer. "And this is Cassie." The face of a younger woman hovered over Lucy's broad shoulder. "We are free midwives bound for the Mearley Plantation."
"I am Hannah Powers," she replied, her voice hoarse with sleep. "Bound for Banham's Landing."
"You are the girl I saw before."
"Yes."
"Banham's Landing, you say? Your journey is longer than ours."
How long? Hannah wanted to ask when Lucy and Cassie turned their attention to moving their things into the narrow space and spreading their blankets on the shared pallet. Lucy set her candle in the tin sconce, then began to undress. Shadows flitted across the rough walls.
"You are midwives." It was too awkward to just lie there in silence as the two strange women prepared to bed down beside her. "Have you been to the Washbrook Plantation? It's upriver from the Banham Plantation. My sister bore a child ... almost two years ago. Her name is May."
"I have never heard of the Washbrook Plantation," Lucy replied. "Cassie, you ever heard of it?"
"No." Cassie's shadow was girlishly slender.
"Good night to you," said Lucy, lowering her heavy body on the pallet. The sleeping box filled with the scent of dried herbs. Cassie blew out the candle, then squeezed into the space between Lucy and Hannah.
Rolling over to face the wall, Hannah tried to ease herself to sleep, but Lucy Mackett's words hung heavy in her mind. Her journey was far from being over. The waters of the Chesapeake swayed and surged beneath the ship as though she were still—and would always be—at sea.