Page 107 of When the Sky Breaks

“Change,” Ansel instructed.

Guinevere glared at us from across the room all through breakfast while Ansel somehow managed an entirely factually inaccurate monologue about goat’s milk importing with an elderly couple at our table.

“How many more days of this?” I asked Neal quietly, gripping my teacup like a life preserver.

“Thirteen.” He clearly noted the look of abject horror that flitted involuntarily across my face. Since he then added, “Stay. Drink. I’ll go figure something out.”

“Ansel,” I said as I pulled him away from our tablemates, “the fish all left last night.”

“Excuse me, lass?” Ansel replied, raising an eyebrow.

“So there’s usually a background hum in my magic,” I explained. “In Santa Fe it was lizards and birds, in Washington it was rats mostly, and out here it’s fish—so many fish. But last night? Three o’clock about. It was gone. Everything left. Fled from the ship.”

“Ever felt anything like that before?” Ansel asked.

I shrugged. “Hard to say. Not like that, in the middle of the night with no distractions.”

“Tell me if it happens again,” Ansel said. “If it does I’ll start taking walks at night. See if we can correlate it.”

“You think it could be something dangerous?” I asked.

“It’s my job to think everything could be something dangerous, lass,” Ansel replied as Neal returned with his arms full of books and a flask slung across his shoulders.

“I checked our course, the wind patterns, everything,” Neal said, “and there is a spot that will be both in shade and leeward of the smokestacks for the next six hours. I bribed a porter to move some deck chairs and blankets. I have peppermint tea and a bunch of weird transcendentalist philosophy from the library. And I think maybe this will make the next thirteen days tolerable.”

We sat on the deck until noon, ate as quickly as the formal service allowed, and then went back out into the cold, breezy sea air. The cats continued multiplying, and more than a dozen were clustered around the deck chairs when Neal and I returned after lunch. It was nearing two o’clock when the repetitive thrum of the engines, call of gulls, and lap of water against the hull was broken by the sharp, animated chatter of children.

A harried young woman rounded the corner, surrounded by a gaggle of at least a dozen school-aged kids. She stopped short when she saw Neal and me, scrambling in her pockets and grabbing a map of the ship.

“Are we in the wrong place?” she asked, voice almost cracking. Neal stopped reading. I set down my tea. One of the children picked up one of the cats.

“Excuse me?” I asked, looking to Neal.

“They said we could come here from two until dinner,” the young woman said quickly, “But you’re . . .”

She gestured vaguely at Neal and me—in our expensive traveling clothes, reading philosophy.

“And we’re . . .” She now gestured at herself, the group of kids—all of them notably thin, notably grubby, and in notably mismatched clothes. “I don’t want to get in trouble.”

The young woman’s face crumpled. She couldn’t have been much more than twenty and looked like she hadn’t slept in days.

“You’re not going to get in trouble,” Neal said quickly. “It’s not first-class only. We just like the view. It’s fine. You’re not disturbing us at all.”

“Oh thank heavens.” The young woman slumped against the ship’s railing, watching as the kids ran, played with the cats, shouted, and wrestled.

“I’m Sorcha and this is Neal,” I said, then gestured at the cats. “I um . . . seem to have attracted some friends. The kids are welcome to play with them as long as they want.”

“I’m Prudence,” the young woman replied then gestured at the kids. “They’s all got name tags pinned on. I don’t remember half of them right yet.”

“What happened?” I asked, pulling Neal beside me and patting the other deck chair for Prudence to sit down.

“Big mill fire,” Prudence said, “in Boston. Forty-seven died. Most of the kids had family to take them somewhere in the country. These fourteen didn’t. So we’re shipping them back to family in Britain.”

Prudence and the children stayed for two hours. The kids played with the cats and chased each other around the deck. The eldest, a girl around twelve named Maude, stumbled through asking me when my baby was due then promptly burst into tears.

“Her baby brother died in the fire,” Prudence explained. “Awful thing, wasn’t it?”

Neal nodded solemnly. I just wound my arms around my belly protectively.