Blue Birds (4 page)

Those weeks crossing,

belowdecks in the musty hold,

I learned

that of 117 journeying to Virginia

in three vessels,

I

was the

only

girl.

Twelve wives dared join their husbands;

many more stayed behind,

waiting for life to be easier in this new world.

Five brave women traveled alone.

Of the three ships,

the women and their families sailed together,

and I was stuck with young Tommy and Ambrose.

On another ship,

the seven older boys traveled freely with their fathers,

surely joking and frolicking all the day,

becoming fast friends,

while I had

no one.

With so many new faces,

I first kept track of noses—

pointed, bulbous, hooked, and pockmarked—

more so than names.

Before setting sail,

most of us were strangers,

but after months crammed together,

I knew who bickered with her husband,

which little one ignored his father's warnings,

that old Mr. Bailie,

with the lumpy, bumpy nose,

broke wind after mealtimes.

Though Mother held me

when the waves thrashed the ship

and Father's stories helped me to escape

the stink and dark and loneliness,

I still longed for Joan in London,

remembered her expression

when we last saw each other,

the tears on her cheeks.

I miss you, Joan.

I'm so lonely

for a friend.

It is good fortune to be part of a family here,

for those with children have settled in cottages.

The rest reside in barracks.

As one of the Governor's assistants,

Father has secured

a home bordering the square.

Some say the village is a rude establishment:

There are no pipes and fountains

as there are in London,

just water from a stream.

No fish and vegetables appear in market stalls,

just those we trap in swirling waters,

those coaxed from the withered garden.

But I'll take a bit of extra work

for the forest's wild beauty,

the open skies as fair trade

for the luxuries we've left behind.

I walk as fast as is proper through the settlement,

careful not to draw attention.

Everyone is busy with his own tasks

except the boy who gathered vines.

Suddenly,

he is next to me,

briskly moving.

I will not address him,

unless he's the first to speak.

“I saw her, too.”

His words are so surprising,

they mean nothing,

like those fluttering noises

Frenchmen make.

He stops.

His brown eyes pierce mine.

“The girl

in the forest

the day

we arrived.”

The shadow?

Was it the same

half-naked girl?

Did he also see me yesterday

as I picked flowers,

the girl nearby?

Her approach

was as silent as

the figure in the woods.

I never asked permission

to leave the settlement,

and if he was to tell

of my wandering—

“How do you know what I did and didn't see?”

My voice pounds like Father's hammer.

The shadow was the girl.

It had to be.

The boy says nothing.

I twist the edge of my apron

about my finger.

The girl,

and now this freckled boy.

Twice now

I've been caught

unaware.

My feet quicken;

he matches each step.

“I'm George,” he says.

I turn to him.

He is meddlesome,

impolite.

“How old are you, George?”

“Eleven,” he says.

His face is friendly.

So close to my own age.

Just as I'd longed for

all those months at sea.

But still I'm guarded.

“I know naught of a girl,” I say,

as I wonder where she might be.

George shrugs,

kicks at a shell

as he turns away.

I climb the embankment only

when I'm sure he's gone.

It is magic

here,

the trees arched above,

the sun-dappled earth below.

I want to run my hands over roughened bark,

feel the crush of leaves underfoot,

breathe deep the rich fragrance of living things.

How Uncle must have loved this forest.

Alone,

I wander,

at home

with velvet mosses,

beetles scuttling over decayed logs,

the sounds of a merry stream.

I dance her wooden bird

across my fingertips,

perch it on the back of my hand.

The girl is not welcome here.

Her hair,

so colorless,

her eyes,

pale pools of water.

I imagine her

cowering in her village

without her power.

I want to see

her weakness.

She comes

from brutal people,

yet is as loving

with her mother as we are.

Can both things be true?

The bird leads me

back to the forest,

where she picked the flowers,

dropped them,

and ran.

I move through the trees,

leaves soft against my feet,

near the place I saw her.

And stop.

For she is there.

Without her protection

she stands before me,

brave.

She comes,

as if she searches for me.

My thoughts jump

from tree to tree,

imagining all the spaces

an Indian might hide.

Her angry sounds,

I cannot make sense of them.

Are they meant for those in hiding,

signaling when to strike?

I cannot move fast enough,

cannot escape the feeling

of a presence right behind me.

How quickly her strength flees!

Did she think I would harm her,

a girl, alone?

I walk to the stream,

stoop to cleanse my feet,

wash off her strangeness

as an outsider does

before entering the village.

Yet I am not the stranger here.

How is it I'm behaving

as though I were the different one?

Mother's fingers

stop their weaving.

“You've left your work undone.”

She does not ask

where I have been.

Her silence

fills the space

between us.

I return to the village,

and in my haste,

slam into a figure,

land firmly on the ground.

A hand reaches for me.

I scramble back like a crab.

“Forgive me, Miss Harvie.

I did not see you.”

Like hers,

his words hold rolling sounds,

their pacing unfamiliar.

Manteo.

Since our arrival,

he's kept his head uncovered,

his long hair like a horse's mane.

Above each ear his head is bald,

and he means for it to be this way.

How odd it seems

with his fine clothing,

as peculiar as

the island's wind-tossed reeds.

But not displeasing.

This time,

when he holds his hand to me,

I let him help me to my feet.