Read Online Maggie's Door by Patricia Reilly Giff - Free Book Online Page B

the man’s cabin?
    Thrown overboard with the garbage.
    “I’m really sorry,” he said, almost stuttering.
    The man looked up at him, his eyes large in back of eyeglasses. “You’ve covered King Herod with tea,” he said. The sound of his voice was different, almost like Lord Cunningham’s in Maidin Bay. English.
    “King Herod,” the man said again. “A terrible ruler from the biblical days.”
    “I don’t understand,” Sean began, and remembered quickly to add “Your honor.”
    The man ran his finger over the damp page. “See it? Herod.”
    Sean could hardly breathe. He did see it. It jumped off the page at him. The
H
of it, the
D
at the end. And then he did something he couldn’t believe. He reached out and touched the word:
Herod.
    “If you look beyond it,” the man said, “you’ll see the word
King.
”
    Sean nodded, then backed away from him, still holding the tray, and went into the hallway. It wasn’t until he reached the galley that he realized he had forgotten to give the man his tea.
    He thought about going back, but he couldn’t do that either. He’d take the chance that the man had forgotten too.
    And he knew those two words,
King
and
Herod
. He’d never forget them, never. And when he brought the tea next time, maybe he’d see another word.
    He wondered if Herod was an Englishman.
    And then he thought of Patch and his mam, and Nory still back in Maidin Bay. What would they think if they knew how happy he had been for a moment?

FIFTEEN
    NORY
    Nory lay on the straw mattress, her nose and cheek pressed against the rough wood of the berth, while above her a lamp swung on its hook, the flame so low it gave almost no light. But even that tiny bit of light was better than nothing. Most of the time the ship bobbed so much that they weren’t allowed any light, and the cabin was completely dark.
    She ran her hand over her stomach. Some of the others were still sick, but she was better now, much better, and Patch hadn’t been sick at all.
    Nearby a baby was crying. In the dim light Nory could see the mother holding the little one. Bits of cloth were strung on a string over their heads. Filthy cloths for the baby.
    Fuafar.
    The woman must have seen her looking at the cloths. “There is no place to wash them,” she called across the berths. “I can only let them dry and put them on her again.”
    Nory shook her head.
    “There’s not enough water,” the woman said, rocking the screaming baby, “and if I use salt water it will burn her. My poor baby. My poor Bridgie.”
    Nory leaned back. She had a memory of Patch as a baby, shrieking for Mam. Poor baby. Mam had died just after he was born. She remembered Maggie dipping her finger into a precious bit of sugar and then into Patch’s mouth. He had closed his eyes then, at last asleep.
    She looked down at Patch, his eyes closed now too, his thumb in his mouth. She ran her hand over his soft hair and pulled Lally’s old coat up over his thin shoulders.
    Suddenly the baby stopped crying, and everything seemed still for just that moment. But almost immediately came the sound of coughing, and Granda talking to Mr. Casey in the berth above, and a woman calling for her husband, and someone else being sick. And above it all was the endless roll of the ship with the timbers creaking and the planks groaning as it plowed its way through the ocean.
    In the midst of all those other noises was a voice she had heard before, a voice that cried out in pain. It took her a moment of thinking. Who was it?
    And then she realized. It was the girl with the plank, the girl who had stolen the money, she was sure of it.
    She sat up in the bunk and rolled over Lally, hesitating. She hated to put her feet on that bare floor. During the night someone nearby had been sick. She made sure the cut on her foot was covered as she stepped onto the slippery wood.
    Around her were bunks, one after another, so close she could have held out one arm to touch the person in the