She nodded. She could be magnanimous now that he was leaving. He picked up his suitcase and stopped by the front door. Night had fallen while they had their tea. Amelia noted his uncertainty as clearly as if he’d spoken it—how to get back to town?
He must not stay at the cottage. The only thing that protected Amelia from the cruelty of wagging tongues was her status as a virtuous widow. The vaguest of improprieties would destroy her.
“If you go west from here,” she said, pointing behind the cottage and away from the sea, “you’ll find a dirt road. This time of evening all the fishermen go down to the village for their evening ale. Some of them have carts and I’m sure would be happy to take you for a coin or two.”
He looked doubtful. “It’s very dark. I doubt I could find my own nose.”
“The moon is rising,” she said, and opened the door.
Sure enough, the white moon was breaking over the edge of the sea. Soon all the land would be lit by its cold eye. Amelia felt the pull of the ocean, the longing to disappear under the waves and then crash through into the air, into the moonlight.
She led Levi Lyman around the cottage and pointed to the track that led to the road. It was just faintly visible now, but it would become clearer as he walked and the moon rose higher.
“Good-bye, Mr. Lyman,” she said firmly. He was leaving whether he liked it or not.
“Good-bye, Mrs. Douglas,” he said, and lifted his hat to her.
She turned and left him there, not looking back to see what he chose to do. It was entirely possible, she admitted, that he might curl up there in the snow and she would find him in the morning, blank-eyed and frozen.
Amelia paused just before she reentered the cottage and listened. His footsteps crunched in the snow, moving away. Good, she thought. That was good. He was leaving.
She shut the cottage door behind her, trying to shut out the confusing tangle of thoughts stirred up by the stranger.
New York. He came from New York. It was a city, a city with hundreds and hundreds of people. You could get lost in a place like that and nobody would know who you were. You could say you were anybody you liked and no one would know different and you wouldn’t be trailing around stories about dancing with the devil or swimming in the moonlight.
And oh, to have something new to see, someone new to talk to! Hadn’t she promised herself that she would see all the wonders on land? There were wonders to be had in New York, she was sure.
(But what about the sea? How will you return to the sea?)
Amelia didn’t know anything about New York except that it was large. But it must have ports, she reasoned. She’d heard the shopkeepers talk about ships traveling from New York to Boston. A place with ships meant she could find the ocean anytime she wished.
(But what about Jack? If you go away, if you’re not here waiting, how will Jack find you when he comes back?)
That thought, the speaking of her secret heart, made her gasp in pain she’d thought long-forgotten.
He’s not coming back. He’s not coming back.
“He’s not coming back,” she said, and the words chased the dust out of the empty corners and settled there.
“He’s not coming back,” she said again, and the words crawled into her cold bed and hid beneath her pillow.
“He’s not coming back,” she said.
The third time was the breaking of the storm, the breaking of the spell that had kept her on the rocks staring out to sea, believing that if she only looked hard enough he would appear.
This was the secret she kept beneath her tongue, the wish she never spoke, for to speak it would make its magic disappear.
But now she’d spoken it, and the curse would drown her wish in unshed tears. He wasn’t coming back. He was never, never, never coming back to her.
She’d fallen to her hands and knees, gasping for air, her fingers curled into the rough wood of the floor.
Amelia rose and opened the door and went out into the night. Only the ocean could soothe her now, the terrible ocean that kept her heart beating even as it tried to crush her beneath the weight of sorrow.
CHAPTER 3
The next day Levi Lyman left the village forever.
It was much easier to hire a carriage to leave the place—everyone had been so helpful, so eager to hurry him away.
The night before he’d managed to find a stone-faced local on the road driving a small cart hitched to an ancient horse. The horse clopped along slower than a baby’s crawl and the cart wheels struck every rock and hole in their path, but Levi didn’t care. His feet were sore, and he was tired of feeling his case bang against his leg.
The man told Levi (in what seemed to be as few words as possible) that he could find a meal at the Green Goose and that the proprietor also had beds for the night. This was the very place that had refused Levi’s custom earlier in the day, so he doubted the owner would provide for him.
However, upon entering with said stone-faced local and enduring several withering glances from others, he discovered that, miraculously, his money was good again. This might have been because he mentioned that he was leaving in the morning. The proprietor seemed much cheerier after that.
The next morning he discovered another local man out front with a wagon pulled by two strong-looking horses. This individual, though not interested in conversation of any sort (Levi tried several times and was rebuffed with the all-purpose “ayuh” on each occasion), was perfectly willing to accept a half dollar in exchange for a ride to the next, larger town. At this larger town Levi would be able to procure a coach ticket to Boston (and why Barnum hadn’t done this in the first place instead of sending him on that miserable sea voyage was beyond him).
Levi did not think on his failure—though he knew Barnum would grumble at the wasted expense—but only of reaching a larger place, where the beds were comfortable and the townspeople less forbidding.
He was a friendly person by nature—it was one of the reasons Barnum sent Levi out to “do the talking,” as he called it. The chill that emanated from the Mermaid’s Village (as Levi referred to it) could freeze the most pleasant nature.
As for the woman herself—well, it was a shame she hadn’t been interested in his offer. She was beautiful, sure, but beauty could be found anywhere. What she really had was an otherworldliness, an alien quality that couldn’t be duplicated.
It was her eyes, he thought. Not just the color, but the something deep down that said she’d seen things seen by no man. Yes, Levi could well believe that people thought her a mermaid. It was too bad she didn’t want to play one for Mr. Barnum. Well, they would sort something out. Levi reckoned he could sell Moses Kimball’s monkey-mummy if they only set it up right.
The journey to the next town took half a day. By the time Levi checked into an inn—staffed by a cheery innkeeper who was more than happy to provide a bath and whiskey—the whole encounter had taken on the quality of a dream.
Still, when he slept that night, he dreamed of a mermaid with black hair and grey eyes following him down the coast. The next morning he paid for his coach ticket to Boston and resigned himself to delivering bad news to Barnum. The showman, he knew, would not be best pleased.
Amelia stood on the street corner, staring up at the words written on the side of the massive building.
BARNUM’S AMERICAN MUSEUM, it said.