CHAPTER NINETEEN

“Can you not take her now, Father?”

Who … Da?

God Almighty?

Someone’s cool hands touch my side, feel my forehead.

“I’m sorry, son,” the deep voice near me answers. The accent is foreign to me. Not Irish. Not Da. “Grosse Isle, she is already overflowing with patients.”

“But she’ll die here.”

So I’m not dead. Not yet, anyway.

A thumb draws a cross on my forehead. “Through this holy anointing may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit ...”

The whisper of Latin prayers mingles with the scent of holy oil. The Last Rites. The sacrament for the dying.

A priest, then.

’Twould be so easy to let go. A part of me wants to. No pain. No sorrow. Nothing. I want to sleep forever. But something in me screams out.

I don’t want to die!

He anoints my eyes, ears, nostrils, lips, hands, and feet. “Through this holy unction and His own most tender mercy may the Lord pardon thee whatever sins or faults thou hast committed.”

Forgiveness?

No! Pray that I survive. Pray that I find my family.

The thought of them rushes through me like a bolt of lightning, grounding me in my body. I gasp. With all I have left in me, I will my eyes open. My head throbs and I moan.

“Kit!” Mick is at my side, stroking my hair. “You’re awake. Praise the Lord, ’tis a miracle.” He looks to the priest, but he has already turned to the people lying next to me on the deck.

“Lynch,” I croak, lying there as vulnerable as a chick from its shell. Surely he’d be swooping in for me any second. I try to sit up but everything spins.

“Lie still. Tom has the fever and the captain has quarantined them to their room. You’re safe for now.”

I swallow, though it makes my throat burn. Mick puts a cup of water to my lips. “We made it, Kit,” Mick says, tilting the cup. “Canada. We’re here.”

“Let me see,” I mumble.

“Rest, now. You’ll see—”

“Let me see!”

He wraps my rash-covered arm around his shoulder. The sight of it shocks me. I can only imagine how the rest of me looks. Mick carries me the few steps to the railing where he settles me on my feet. I have no strength. My legs shudder and buckle beneath me, but Mick holds me up. Every joint in my body aches. My head pounds. But I have to see. I can’t believe him until I see it with my own eyes.

After weeks of nothing but unbroken horizons and the ship’s darkness, my eyes feast on this rugged shore. I gorge myself on it from one end to the other. Up the rocky bluff on the far left, along weathered tree tops, and past the tall pole laden with colored flags. Passengers load on the steamer at the dock straight ahead. Behind the dock, a path winds through the small village of tents. Houses. A church. Green grass. On the right, a few more buildings, three cannons, and more rocky inlets. A flock of seagulls lands on the wet stones and they settle their wings. The island’s only a mile or so across, if that. But ’tis beautiful. I can’t take my eyes off it.

Land.

A few people mill around the water’s edge, washing perhaps. Knowing Mam, that would be the first thing she’d want to do. My heart rushes at the thought of seeing them again. I’m so close now. As soon as we get ashore, I know I’ll find them. Mam, Jack, Annie. They have to be there. They just have to.

But the Erin sits motionless a half mile from the shore. We aren’t disembarking. We aren’t even moving. I glance at the water around the island and catch my breath. So many ships. Thirty, maybe forty more, as well as ours, anchored at bay.

“Why are we waiting ...” The words snag on my dry throat like coarse wool on a briar.

“We’re in quarantine, Kit,” Mick says. He points at the bright yellow flag atop our mainmast and nods at the other ships. “We all are.”

I see them then. The yellow flags, fluttering above the silent ships. Even if every ship had only a hundred passengers, that would mean … thousands. Thousands of Irish who traveled that Godforsaken journey, forty days or more, only to be left waiting, dying at the shore’s edge.

My family. Where is my family?

I search the forest of masts for the Dunbrody. But there’s no sign.

Are they on the island?

Did they make it?

I look back towards the ocean, not wanting to consider the thought that they were lost at sea. Worry blazes through my mind, burning away what little energy I have, and I close my eyes for a moment, trying to gather my strength. Gently, Mick lowers me to the deck.

“Father Robson,” cries Mrs. Ryan; she’s lying beside me. “Please, don’t leave me!”

“The other passengers in the hold, they wait for me, too,” he says, prying Mrs. Ryan’s bony fist from his black sleeve before he stands. “Do not worry, Madame. Rest now. I am no doctor, but I say you have not the ship fever.”

“And I’m no doctor, neither, Father. But I’d say with sick and sound together, ’twon’t be long before we all have it.”

Father Robson kneels again beside her; he seems so large beside her frail frame as he takes her hand and pats it.

“Wait for death, Father?” Mrs. Ryan asks. “Is that all I can do?”

He reaches in his cassock and, pulling out his black rosary beads, places them in Mrs. Ryan’s twisted fingers. “You can pray. Pray for me and I will pray for you. Dr. Douglas is coming soon. He’s on the Royalist right now. After he inspects your ship, you will come to the island. And when you come to Grosse Isle, you can give me back my rosary beads.”

He smiles at her and then at me as I lie back on the deck. I notice the dark circles under his eyes. He turns and walks to the hold steps. He’s a big man, Father Robson. Solid. Strong. A farmer’s son, perhaps.

I wonder how many tired souls he carries on those broad shoulders.