The Movement of Stars (24 page)

If you get this before we return,
Edward had written in an uncharacteristically serious postscript, underscoring the last line,
Please Stay Here.
Hannah sighed and dropped the note in the tinderbox, wondering what Edward would say about the day’s events. She couldn’t imagine he’d find much to laugh about.
As she unlaced her boots and went upstairs, she kept seeing Dr. Hall standing at the head of the classroom. His zest for knowledge; his passion for unraveling the mysteries of the Heavens; his devotion to Truth—all of it had been real, as far as she could ascertain, and equal to her own. How could he have succumbed to such base behavior?
The answer was obvious but ugly. It was because he desired her, and believed he had the right to acquire and display her like a stuffed pheasant. Hannah splashed cold water on her face, glad for the bracing shock, and pressed a clean cloth to her nose, inhaling the lingering smell of summer air.
Dazed, she wandered back down into the kitchen and found a plate of sausage and potatoes Mary had left for her. Grateful, she slumped into a chair, suddenly more tired than she’d ever been in her life. It was unbelievable that the first stars had only just winked into visibility.
She heard the front door open and close as she picked at the cold remains of her dinner, and though she heard Edward calling, she had no strength to answer.
He burst into the kitchen and stopped short.
“You’re here! Why didn’t you answer?”
Hannah shrugged, and he slid onto the bench beside her, propping one elbow on the table and resting his head on his hand, studying her.
“You need not stare,” she snapped. “I’ve had enough scrutiny for one day.”
The words stung even as they left her mouth, but Edward didn’t seem offended. Instead, he sighed.
“I feel partly responsible for what happened today. I ought to have— I mean, had I been here, maybe I could have. I don’t know.” His face was mournful. “I’m not the watchdog type, but I might have saved you the indignity of being clawed at like that by a bunch of righteous prigs.”
“What could you have done? Ordered me to stop giving lessons to Isaac? And in any case, it doesn’t matter. You weren’t here then and you won’t be here next time, will you? Not that there will be a next time. Since I’m leaving.”
She dropped her fork on the plate so that it gave a satisfying clatter, then swept up the dish and took it to the sink so she could turn her back to him. Her simmering anger threatened to boil over, but another confrontation would only bring her more pain.
Edward rose, too, and came over to the sink. His voice had none of its usual swagger. Rather, he seemed like he might cry. He put a hand on her shoulder.
“I’ve thought on it all evening,” he stammered. “And I’ve decided— well, Mary and I—that if you want us to stay, we will.” He swallowed. “I won’t draw this out, but I ask you—as my sister, my twin, my much better half—to consider, before you give your answer, whether staying here is what you truly wish for. Ask what this Island holds for you—for any of us—and whether you might be happy here after all that’s happened.” He paused, sighing deeply. The sound seemed to come from a place in him Hannah didn’t recognize.
She couldn’t look at him. Instead, she kept her hands in the basin of soapy water, as if hiding them would somehow shield her from the confusion already swirling through her.
“Don’t answer now,” he said, stepping away. “Think on it. If we are to stay, I’ll have to alert Captain Johnson as soon as possible. But that’s not your concern,” he added. “You decide as your heart dictates.”
Hannah finished washing and drying her plate and fork, then dragged herself up to the garret and out onto the walk. She didn’t want to observe. Not tonight. What she wanted was to sit under the familiar blanket of stars and be comforted by their steadfast light, orderly and unchanging.
Edward’s offer was what she’d hoped and wished for all this time. A way to stay on Nantucket that required nothing of her. She could go on with her observations, maybe go back to teaching. Surely the African School would have her. Why didn’t she feel relieved?
His question hovered in the warm night air like the drone of an insect. Could she be happy here now? Knowing that her neighbors had betrayed her, that their judgment would be as eternal as the stars themselves? The life she had wanted to continue here would be no more. What a new life would be like was an unworkable equation.
Not one of us can intuit the future,
her father had said months ago, when she had wept over the idea that she would have to leave. How right he had been.
Especially now, when the Island itself and her life on it were bound inextricably to Isaac. No matter what she chose to do, he would not be here. There would be no more lessons, no more excursions, no more conversations. She would not feel his body beside her again, hear the deep thrum of his voice. Even if she stayed, it wasn’t likely he’d return, for what did this Island hold for him? She leaned heavily on the wooden rail. Perhaps sometimes Isaac would think of her as he took a distance or calculated his ship’s position. At that dismal thought, her heart lurched in her chest. The thought of separating from him was painful enough to contemplate on its own; the idea that he might not feel the same sense of loss made it unbearable.
Squinting at the sky, she watched the cloud cover, wondering if it would thicken or diminish. She could look for Albireo, in the Swan, if it cleared. She ought to at least set up the telescope. But she remained fixed in place, heavy with uncertainty, and, after a few minutes, stretched out in her usual spot and closed her eyes.

Isaac climbed the tree soundlessly as a cat. When he whispered her name, Hannah bolted upright and choked back a shriek. “Shhhhhh
.
”
He put a finger to his lips, clinging to the stout branch just below the walk.
“What are you doing?” Her heart was pounding so hard, she clapped a hand to her chest to try and calm it.
“Watching you sleep.”
“There’s a door.” Her legs felt like they were in irons. Standing up was an enormous effort.
Isaac didn’t answer but shimmied closer to the walk and sprang easily over the railing, dropping lightly to his feet.
“I did not wish to be seen.”
He looked around the walk.
“You’re not observing
.
”
Hannah shook her head.
“I had no heart for it.”
She sat down at the edge of the walk, and he did the same. They watched black clouds scudding across the dark canvas of the sky. Here and there a star blinked through, and then was gone. It wasn’t worth trying to identify them. They came and went at will, like the men in her life. Dr. Hall and her father, Edward and Isaac, beloved, despised, betrayer, supporter—it mattered not: they had freedom of movement while she had none. They could bask in their desires, where she was shamed by hers.
“I am not knowing what to say,” Isaac said, glancing at Hannah. She kept her eyes on the sky, resentment twisting her gut.
“There is nothing to say. You will go, and be a good navigator.”
“Tell me what you have been observing,” Isaac said. “I wish to remember the sound of your voice.”
“I’ve been trying to study double stars.”
Hannah’s voice shook, then steadied. Being so close to him was making it hard to speak.
“Double stars?”
“Stars that share a common gravitational force. They move about the Universe together.”
A gust of hot wind blew loose more of Hannah’s hair, and she slapped at it when it brushed her face, enjoying the sting of her palm. Isaac reached over and moved a lock gently aside. Her forehead burned where he touched it, and she resisted the urge to seize his hand and press it to her cheek, to her neck. Her breath was shallow and quick.
“But why are they together?” He seemed genuinely puzzled.
“They are bound by gravity.”
Like me.
Though she was constrained not by some Heavenly force but by her Sex. Hannah swallowed, tried to regain her thoughts so she could explain.
“We don’t know,” she whispered. “One star is nearly always brighter than the other. But they change positions relative to the other; sometimes they eclipse each other as they make their orbits. Sometimes we can only see one or the other.”
In the dark, Isaac leaned close to her ear.
“But they are always together, moving through the Heavens.” “Yes,” she said, or thought she did. Gooseflesh on her arms made the fine hairs stand up like sentinels.
Isaac bowed his head so that his mouth was beside her ear. “I wish I can speak to you in my language,” he said. He turned his head so that his forehead brushed the soft dent of flesh at her temple. “Speak,” she whispered.
The music of his voice, then. What was he saying? She could not imagine, did not care. His lips at her ear made her shiver, though her body in its wool dress felt like it was boiling.
When he kissed her, she disappeared. There was only sensation: his breath, warm, pungent; his lips sweet and wet. The sensation was like falling in a dream. She fell, but there was no landing.
Instead, she was suspended in the fall itself, the warmth of his hands on her cheeks steadying her. She allowed the seconds to unfurl. But she counted, as she had when she was a child, upon this very roof. Ten, nine, eight . . . Tendrils of heat snaked through her body like fuses. She put her hands on his arms, shocked by the softness of his skin and the strength beneath. Six, five, four . . . His mouth moved to her cheek, her jaw, her neck. She gasped, a shiver buzzing down her spine and landing in her belly.
Three, two, one. Isaac’s fingers moved to the buttons at her collar, and the pulse of desire hardened into a thud of fear. His mouth found the hollow at her throat, and she gasped with pleasure. But when he unhooked one button, then the next, panic seized her chest. Her legs felt like jelly, and her hands fluttered like wings too weak to beat him away. She did not try to stop him; the pleasure of his mouth on her skin was so great, she could not form words. He unhooked another, then another, exposing her to the top of her slip, and only then did she find her voice, and her strength.
“Stop.”
She broke away, inhaled as if she’d been drowning. Air rushed in. She welcomed it. Air was pure; air was the matter of the Universe.
Her desire was as terrifying as a huge wave, propelling her toward and away from something she only understood in shadowy, unexamined glimpses. A vision of something bestial, a naked coupling, violent and dark, descended on Hannah like a swarm of locusts, and though her body commanded her to go back to him, she could not make herself do it. The combination of lust and sorrow and fear made her feel sick.
She shook her head and grasped the railing, blood pounding like an ocean in her ears.
“I cannot,” she said. The words gave her power. She backed away another step. Now there was space between them. Enough room for a wagon wheel, or a cradle. Control of her limbs returned and Hannah took another step, her throat constricted with shame.
Isaac stared at her, confusion woven across his face. He, too, gripped the railing and slowly straightened his body, then wrapped his arms around himself. When he spoke, his voice was low and hard, cracking at the edges.
“I am a savage? This is how you are seeing me?”
Sav-ahj,
she heard. Even an ugly word sounded like a song in his throat. Hannah shook her head. Isaac’s eyes darted around the walk as though he were seeking an escape, then they returned to her face. Her cheeks burned, and her throat felt dry as bone. She wasn’t sure if she was more ashamed of her desire or her fear of it.
Overwhelmed, she did the only thing she knew how to do: clamp her jaw shut and reset her features, cutting off all traces of emotion. It was like drawing the shutters in a house that was on fire. But it worked. He recoiled as if slapped.
Isaac reached into the pocket of his shirt and drew out a small square parcel wrapped in crumpled brown paper and tied with a bit of string.
He held it out to her like an accusation.
“What is this?” she whispered. She wanted to look at him, fly to him, but could not move. Her palms were damp, as if she’d just woken from an awful dream.
“It’s your money,” he said. A hissing ugliness in his voice. As if she’d betrayed him. It wasn’t what she wanted. Could he not see her wounds?
“That’s not necessary,” she said. Why had she not said his name?
He dropped the package on the ground like a hot coal. The
thwat
of paper on wood made her jump.
Help him understand,
she told herself.
Stop hiding.
But by the time Hannah opened her mouth to try to make the words, he was already gone.

annah woke up in the garret, in her chair, in her dress. Something had jolted her from her dream, in which she was walking barefoot along an unfamiliar trail, in a green and tropical place; she had been lost in the dream, and wandering. It came again: a bell, clanging. Then voices.

She bolted upright and almost cracked her head on the doorjamb rushing down the stair. In the hallway she collided with Mary, who was tying on a dressing gown.

“Where’s Edward?”
“He ran out at the first bell. We should go.”
“Yes! Get dressed. Wait! No.” Hannah shook her head, clearing the

last of sleep from her brain. “You should stay here and wet down the outside walls. Put whatever things you can in the wheelbarrow— in case.” Mary nodded.
“All right. Be careful!”
“You, too.” Hannah rushed down the steps, grabbing the fire bucket from the peg by the door.
“Take these!”
Mary thrust a handful of wadded linen into Hannah’s hand and nodded toward the kitchen. Her voice shook.
“Wet them so you can cover your face if the smoke is bad.”
Hannah obeyed, grateful, and then stuffed the damp cloths into her apron and went out into the street.
In the moonlight, it was easy to see that everyone had heard the call. Doors were open up and down her street, neighbors rushing in the direction of Main. The tang of smoke permeated the air, and there was an orange glow flickering under the silvery cloud cover, but Hannah couldn’t tell where it was coming from. As she joined the flow of people rushing toward Town, she caught a man’s arm.
“Where?”
Whoever it was didn’t turn or stop.
“By the wharves, I think.”
Hannah let go of the stranger’s arm and turned onto Main. It was thronged like a parade, loud and thick with bodies. The bells of the Methodist church were ringing, and the clatter of carts and shrieks of the alarms collided with the calls of the fire wardens in distant streets so that nothing was clear. The air was smoky, and amid the press of bodies and the clank of buckets and boots, Hannah couldn’t make out anything but the bright sparks hissing into the air from rooftops not far ahead.
The crowd surged toward the water, the smoke intensifying as they passed Gardner, Winter, Pine. Now Hannah could feel the heat, and as she bumped up against a group of women, the crowd seemed to break apart. She stepped to one side and peered down a side street. Men and women of every hue and persuasion, from every part of the Island, were calling to each other, rushing about with wheelbarrows and carts, buckets and carpets. Over the heads of the crowd, she caught a glimpse of orange flames shooting from the roof of Geary’s hat shop and Washington Hall next to it.
“It’s going to jump,” someone cried. “Everyone back! Back!”
As a wave, the crowd retreated. Then people were moving and dividing, parting like the Red Sea to allow a volunteer company through. In their heavy coats the men were grim-faced and determined, shoving their pumper and coils of hoses as fast as the wheels would allow over the uneven sidewalk.
Clutching her bucket, Hannah looked around in the chaos for something to do, and spotted Miss Norton, her hands wrapped around her own bucket, rushing toward the corner of Centre Street.
“Miss Norton!”
“Oh, Hannah!” The older woman looked terrified; Hannah could see the orange of the flames licking at the buildings on either side of the Hall reflected in the woman’s wide eyes. “Good, you’re here. Come on.”
She turned to follow but both women froze as a great cry went up. The crowd turned like a flock of birds as a spark found a home atop a building across Main. In less than a moment, flames shot from its landing place, devouring the dry wood.
“Miss Norton!” Hannah thought she was whispering, but really she was yelling. It was so loud, she couldn’t hear the difference. “Can it— could it reach the Atheneum?”
“It will reach everything if it’s not stopped!”
Miss Norton seized her arm and yanked her along, and Hannah allowed herself to be pulled into Petticoat Lane. A crowd was gathering in front of Mrs. Johnson’s dry goods shop, and seeing how many of the women were wrapping damp cloths around their noses and mouths, Hannah fumbled for hers, and did the same. Every woman on the Row had been drawn to this spot, it seemed, to try and protect their shops. She could make out Ruth Edwards and Mrs. Rotch and Margaret Granger; in the crowd she spotted Constance Early, the tavern owner, and Eunice and Sarah, the milliners; Peg Ramsey; and even Phoebe Fuller.
“Every carpet you can find, then, and we’ll work in teams!” Mrs. Johnson yelled from the porch over the heads of the women. “This half—”
She split the crowd by pointing one thick arm at it.
“Collect carpets. Take every cart you can find. Five or six gather and load, while the others bring ’em back.”
With the ease of an officer, she commanded the women.
“You all stay here and form a bucket line from the nearest pump. We’ll need to wet down every wall between here and the fire. Tie up your hair well and mind your skirts!” She squinted, then coughed.
“Go, go!”
The women rushed off in two directions, and Hannah fell in line with those forming a squadron between the nearest pump and the surrounding buildings, shoving her hair down into her collar. The women moved from house to house, passing and hurling the water as it came, dropping back as the company moved out of the way of the flames. They came quicker than Hannah could have imagined.
They passed buckets, from hand to hand, as the smoke thickened. From the corner of Federal they fell back to Cambridge, to India, to Oak. Hannah could see nothing but the hands in front of her, the hands behind her. Her shoulders burned and her knuckles ached, but she held her place. She could hear, as if through a haze, the calls of the fire brigades, the thunder of footfalls around them as people ran to and fro, the clatter of carts as the women dumped piles of carpets in front of Mrs. Johnson’s store, and then, as that building erupted, in front of Mrs. Chase’s, and then the cobbler’s; and then, instead of a street of familiar buildings, there was only a bonfire of enormous proportions, mountains of roaring fire that hissed and shrieked like attractions at a nightmare carnival. Hannah was mesmerized as the flames shifted shape, roofs and walls collapsing, the structures of the buildings themselves disappearing. Sparks flew in every direction as a flaming wall fell toward their fire line, and the women retreated, backing toward Broad as the fire company swooped in with the pumper.
Dazed, Hannah was rooted in place by the fantastic sight of the next building collapsing in on itself like a toy house made of matchsticks and paper; when someone took her by the elbow and drew her out of line, she went, stumbling without seeing who led her, for the woman was covered in soot, her head wrapped in wet cloth.
“The Atheneum.”
She didn’t think, but clasped the woman’s outstretched hand. They ran, heads down, holding on until they reached the steps of the great white building, which glowed with reflected firelight like a garish sunrise, illuminating everything bright as day. Hannah clutched the cloth to her face and fumbled for the key, then realized that she no longer had one. She shook her head, mute with despair.
“Watch out.” The other woman pushed Hannah aside, raised a boot, and kicked out the glass window beside the door. It shattered easily, the sound tinkling like raindrops amid the thunderous roar of the fire.
Kicking out the remaining glass, Hannah led her companion into the dim space, her wet boots slipping on the slick floor, rushing for the side door, only to find it already propped open: a few souls were hauling books and collectibles out the door with no clear order, only trying desperately to keep them from the flames.
“Wait! Wait!” Hannah yelled, waving frantically. “Start with these. Here! Here!” She grabbed a volunteer by the shoulders, wheeled him around, and pointed to the shelves behind Miss Norton’s beautiful desk, the rare books and special volumes. He nodded and redirected himself.
Hannah dragged her chair closer to the bookcases, throwing precious volumes down from the shelves as fast as she could gather them, barely seeing whether anyone was there to save them. Minutes went by, or seconds: she wasn’t sure. She squinted at the reading room, which was strangely bright. Was it dawn, then? Then she felt the heat. She climbed down from her perch, fumbling over the books at her feet, and skidded across the floor to the door.
She could see the fire line working like a beast with a hundred hands, the silhouettes of men on neighboring rooftops, women watering down the walls. The blaze was not a hundred yards away.
“Hannah!”
She squinted into the smoke.
“Edward!” They reached for each other’s arms as if they were drowning.
“You shouldn’t be here! The whole block may go at any moment.” Edward’s eyes were wide, frightened O’s in his soot-covered face.
Hannah shook her head, yelling over the din.
“We must try to save the building! Or at least what’s in it. Can you get help?”
“Half the company’s down at the docks, trying to move the oil!” he yelled back. “The other half ’s split between the bank vaults and the line.”
He bent over, coughing, and she held his shoulders. When he rose, tears were streaming down his cheeks.
“I’ll bring who I can,” he said. “But you cannot remain.”
Whirling around, Hannah ran back into the building and nearly collided with the other woman who had an armful of books.
Both woman flinched as a series of explosions rocked nearby buildings.
“You should go!” Hannah yelled into her ear. “It’s not safe.”
The woman pushed past her and dumped the books in her arms into a wheelbarrow, then pulled the wrap from her head and ran her hands over her pale forehead and golden hair, leaving twin trails of black soot across them.
“Be safe, Hannah,” Mary said, covering her hands with her apron before picking up the handles of the wheelbarrow and shoving it toward Broad Street, away from the fire.
“You as well,” Hannah whispered. Then, in the chaos of men and books and objects she had acquired and catalogued, cleaned, and stored, wrapped and unwrapped, as if the future of civilization depended upon it, Hannah forgot everything but salvaging what she could, until she stepped outside and a spark landed on her apron, and another on her arm. The air was so hot, it seared her nose and throat, and the flames, now on both sides of the building, threatened to engulf her if she lingered another moment.
Another explosion, then another, almost knocked her off her feet. It felt as if the Island itself was under bombardment by the fleets of all Europe. Hannah hesitated, unsure which way was safe.
Edward shoved her in the right direction.
“It’s the warehouses. The oil, the candle-houses. Go! Now!”
Then she was running through a narrow channel amid the burning buildings, swerving around fire wardens and citizens. Every building on Broad Street was either on fire or blown away entirely. She ran, unsure of which direction to go. South Water, North Beach, Broad, Chestnut, Oak—fire in every direction, people running, some with buckets, some with children.
At Centre Street she was turned back by a member of the fire brigade, his face and hands coated in soot, his eyes narrowed against the smoke.
“You’ll have to go round. Go round!” he bellowed to the swell of people.
Hannah ran. Gay Street, Westminster, Huffey, Liberty: here, the houses were untouched but the occupants were carting goods away from their homes or into them like barn animals set loose, trying to predict whether the wind would blow in the direction of fortune or calamity. Hannah pushed her way through the street until she arrived, breathless, at the Bank building, which stood like a brick sentinel at its corner. A lone figure emerging in a rush nearly knocked her over.
It was Josiah Smyth, the Bank director.
“Mr. Smyth!”
Relieved to see someone she knew well, Hannah clutched the man’s shoulder with her soot-blackened hand, and he put a comforting hand over her own, misinterpreting her gesture as worry about the money inside.
“The vaults have been cleared, Miss Price. All cleared.”
The man had a wildish look; he scanned the air in front of him as if a swarm of bees were coming for him.
He patted her on the arm and scuttled down the street. Hannah leaned against the brick building, grateful for something solid to steady her.
The corner was eerily silent, though she could still hear the distant cries of the firemen and the crowds, the occasional reverberation from an explosion shivering the earth underfoot. As if in a dream, she watched something float by, carried on an invisible wind, then another, then another, a peaceful drift of airborne parchments.
Hannah rubbed her eyes, struggled to her feet, and saw that the whole street was littered with such pages, drifting on gusts and swirling into piles like autumn leaves, unmoored. She snatched one from the air.
Dearest Martha,
Hannah read, and scanned quickly down the page: