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

masts, as if they had no strength left in them. And the name? He spelled out the letters:
S,
the start of his own name,
A,
a pointed letter, an
M, S
for
Sean
again, a circle for
O,
ending with an
N
for
Nory.
    A good omen, their names together on the back of the ship. It was almost as if the letters would push him across the sea.
    “The
Samson,
” Garvey said. “It will take us to America.”

TWELVE
    NORY
    She wondered at herself that she could do this, leave the plank on the side of the road, put the weight of her foot on those hard stones, carry Patch, her bag slung over her shoulder, and keep going hour after hour. A day. Two days. But she did do it, and she knew she would reach the port.
    She thought of Mrs. Mallon taking that long walk back to Maidin Bay. Did she have the strength for it?
    It was almost dark now, and she sang for Patch as she walked, the sound in her throat dry at first, but gathering strength:
“Wee melodie man, the rumpty tumpty toddy man.”
    She wanted to cry for Sean, but something had happened to her eyes. They were dry and burning, and the tears that would have bathed them wouldn’t come. And always there were pictures in her mind of Mrs. Mallon handing her the papers for the ship, papers that were like the ones Da had sent her.
    Sometimes Patch spoke a few words in a rusty little voice, and she tried to question him. “You saw an Englishman?”
    “Yes, with boots,” he said. “And I too . . .” His voice trailed off.
    She finished it for him. “Yes, someday in America you will have boots.”
    What had Sean said?
“I will have fields and I will give you cabbage and a clove of garlic.”
    “And what did the Englishman tell you?” she asked.
    “He would give us food,” Patch said. “I think colcannon.”
    Nory closed her eyes, remembering her sister Maggie as she stirred milk and butter into soft white potatoes and cabbage.
    “Tell the rest of it,” she said as she tried to shift his weight.
    Patch grasped her shoulders with both hands. “No rest of it. No colcannon, and the cart turned over.”
    He was quiet then. His head went down against her back and she knew he was asleep. She went on, head bent, watching for rocks and stones in the road, telling herself she could take one step and another, just one more, just two more, climb the next hill, inch her way down the other side. Her shoulders ached from the weight of Patch, but the cut on her foot was healing, and in spite of everything she felt happy, glad that Patch was with her, glad that she had found him. But how sorry she was that Mrs. Mallon hadn’t come with them.
    Once she sank down at the side of the road and fed him the rest of the meat. The next day she pulled the stitches from her cape until the small coin that Anna had given her dropped into her fingers. From an old woman she exchanged it for a stale piece of brack, which she and Patch shared.
    On the third day he was awake again, pointing. “Look, Nory.”
    “Galway,” she breathed.
    Below them houses leaned together on the streets. More houses than she had ever seen before! Flickering flames from candles glowed in windows so that everything shimmered. And the tart smell of peat fires was everywhere.
    She stood there, Patch in her arms, wondering at the size of it all. Then she walked on until the road curved and the port was spread out in front of them. Da had told her about that port and the fishing ships he had sailed, wresting the great cod out of the water to bring in the rent money. But Da had made her imagine it in the light of day with the sun dancing on the water and white sails shimmering like the wings of that great seabird.
    Instead she stumbled onto the pier with Patch in the middle of the night to see water, ghostly in the fog, the hulks of ships anchored outside the harbor, and strange shapes everywhere like the
bean sídhe
who warned of death.
    But somewhere there, right in front of them perhaps, was her family: Celia with her turned-up nose,