The next morning, when Susan came down for breakfast, she heard low voices coming from the music room. It turned out to be Murray and Iacob. Their heads were bent close to each other, and the Greenland boy had a look of intense concentration on his face, as though he were trying to remember a chemical formula for a test. He looked up with a startled—and, Susan thought, slightly guilty—expression when she entered the room.
“Susan,” Murray said. “Good morning.”
“I hope I’m not interrupting.”
Murray shook his head. “No, no, we were just waiting for everyone to wake up. Coffee?”
“I don’t drink coffee,” Susan said.
Murray grinned. “You will,” he said, “before you know it.”
Iacob had walked to the window and pulled the curtain aside. Susan saw the coast of Greenland stretched out before them. It seemed familiar, as if it were a place she’d been to many times before. She was able to pick out the sharp roof of the church from the line of houses where Iussi and Gunnar and the remaining colonists lived.
Iacob turned back to the room. “I think I would like to try some coffee,” the Greenland boy said quietly. “It will be my first taste of… the future. But hopefully not my last.”
Within a few hours everything was hustle and bustle. In Susan and Charles’s absence, the Greenlanders had worked out a deal with Karl Olafson’s men on Leifsbudir, and the latter’s boats were tied to the stern of Drift House. All morning and afternoon the long dark ships rowed back and forth between the house and Osterbygd, bringing a dozen boatloads of colonists with them. Still, it took Susan a moment to realize what was going on. When she did, though, she pulled her uncle aside.
“Uncle Farley! Are they… leaving?”
Her uncle nodded. “I’ve agreed to take them to Iceland.”
“But… but isn’t that changing history?”
“History tells us the Greenland colony disappeared at the end of the fifteenth century. No one knows exactly how or why.” Her uncle shrugged. “Well, now we do.”
As the Greenlanders filed on board, they seemed too awed to be frightened. Most of them retreated to the third floor, or hid out in the solarium (the colonists had insisted on bringing their livestock, a small herd of sheep who immediately set to work decimating Drift House’s tropical plant collection). A few of the younger colonists walked through the house looking with fascination at this or that. To make everything just a little more confusing, the translation charms stopped working right in the middle of the transport operation: after three days in the real world, the Sea of Time water had fully deintensified. Murray spoke just enough Old Norse to direct the colonists, but that was all.
Susan, especially, felt the loss of their ability to communicate acutely. It seemed to her that Iacob was taking the abandonment of Greenland just a little too easily, and she wanted to know what had happened to change his mind about leaving. She felt sure it had something to do with the conversation she’d caught him having with Murray, but there was no way to ask him about it. Whenever they crossed paths, they could only smile and shrug and laugh weakly.
Last on board was Father Poulsen. No translation device was needed to render the epithets and spittle that flew from his gray-bearded mouth. He waved his cross at paintings and statues and side tables, yelling maniacally, until Iussi and Gunnar half guided, half dragged him up the stairs to the third floor. Occasionally his voice could be heard during the overnight voyage to Iceland, shrieking at this or that imagined sign of the devil.
They offloaded the colonists about a dozen miles from the modern city of Reykjavik. Last on, first off: Father Poulsen stormed down the stairs as soon as they started herding the animals into the first boat.
“The phragmipedium schlimii and laelia purpurata are beyond salvage,” President Wilson muttered, watching as the scrawny sheep milled down the front hall.
“There, there, President Wilson, we can always order more plants,” Uncle Farley said. “I’m more concerned about my—ah!” He rushed to chase a sheep away from an embroidered table runner. “Seventeenth-century Chinese silk,” he said as if the animal might understand him. “Shoo, shoo!”
Last off were Iussi, Gunnar, and Iacob. It was a strange goodbye, since no one could really understand anyone. Murray did his best to translate, but all he came up with was “Thank you,” and “Be well,” and, again, “Thank you.”
“Thank you, Charles,” Iacob said, his eyes half crossed in concentration. “You…are… strong.” They shook hands.
“Thank you, Iacob,” Charles said back to him. “You are strong too.”
Iacob looked to Murray. “Strongtu?”
Murray smiled, stuttered a few words.
“Ah!” Iacob said, nodding. “Strong!” He pointed at Charles. “You…me… strong!”
“Susan,” he said. “Thank you.”
Susan opened her mouth but nothing came out. She felt as if she knew less English than the Greenland boy. Surprising herself, she grabbed Iacob and pulled him close in a tight hug, then suddenly pushed him away. She had felt something press against her chest.
“Iacob,” she said, reaching for his neck, “did Murray give—”
Iacob stepped back, glancing at Murray nervously.
“Susan,” Murray said. She looked at her much older brother. He shook his head.
Susan sighed. She wanted to ask. But the look on Murray’s face was so severe that she didn’t dare. She turned back to Iacob.
“Goodbye,” she said, in the most level voice she could muster.
Iacob nodded. “We…meet… again?” There was a question in his voice. Susan wasn’t sure if he was wondering whether they would ever see each other again, or if he was merely wondering if he’d gotten the words right.
She smiled weakly. “Maybe.”
Iacob glanced at Murray, then back at Susan. He shook his head vehemently, took her hands in his. “We meet again,” he said emphatically. This time it was Susan who glanced at Murray, who shrugged, a small grin playing on his face.
And then they were gone. The crew of Drift House watched to see that the boat landed safely ashore, and then Uncle Farley turned them to open water. When they were out of sight of land, Uncle Farley pressed a few buttons on the little radio, and a moment later Susan and Charles felt the rolling subside considerably, and the light turned yellow and warm. They were back on the Sea of Time. They stayed only long enough to discharge Murray, who settled himself in the punt Mario had with him when he first showed up. No one asked him where he was going or when he would be back.
Before he went he hugged Susan and Charles. His embrace was warm but strange—grownup, slightly distant. Charles had met one of his mother’s aunts on a trip to London, and the hug she had given him felt like Murray’s: affectionate, but a little businesslike. As Susan said, “He might as well have shaken our hands.”
“Maybe it’s better though,” Charles said as the strange figure rowed out into the Sea of Time. “At least he doesn’t seem to miss us so much.”
“Yes,” Susan said. “I guess there’s that.” She turned to her brother. “He gave Iacob the locket, you know.”
Charles blinked his eyes in surprise. “The—amulet? Why would he do that? He needs it to get back to us.”
Uncle Farley put a hand on his niece and nephew’s shoulders. “I think the locket is only a piece of it, and perhaps not even the most important piece. I think there are things he has to do first. He will come back when he wants. When it’s the right time.”
A few days ago one or the other of the Oakenfeld children might have protested. What could be more important than family? But they had seen so much in such a short time, had come to realize how full and rich the world was, how much more than any one person, any one family. Still, Charles felt there was nowhere he’d rather be at that moment than with his sister and uncle. He only wished his brother—his little brother, the brother he knew—was there with them.
Apparently, Susan felt the same.
“Uncle Farley,” she said, “I think it’s time we went home, don’t you? A slice of pie,” she said with a small grin. “Then home.”
“A capital suggestion,” Uncle Farley said, rubbing his stomach. “And who knows what adventures are still in store for us. It’s only the beginning of the summer, after all.”
But Susan surprised him. “No,” she said. “I want to go home.” She looked at her uncle and her brother. “I think I’ve seen enough, at least for now.”
At his sister’s words, Charles thought of Tankort and all the other Wendat. He had looked them up in a book in Uncle Farley’s library and discovered that they had in fact perished in the French and Indian War—that even though a truce was declared, the Iroquois had tracked them down and killed all but a tiny party, who legend said had taken to their canoes and disappeared into the waves. He nodded.
“Yeah,” he said. “Me too.” He turned to Uncle Farley. “Let’s go home.”