Until We Reach Home (13 page)

But her heart slowed again and her fear dissolved as they gazed out at the sea together. The water churned in the wake of the ship’s propellers, the waves glowing in the light of the moon.

“The ocean is so beautiful,” she murmured. “I’m going to miss it.”

“And I’m going to miss you.” Eric’s voice sounded husky and breathless. “I’ve been wondering if you feel the same way I do.”

“I . . . um . . . I don’t know how I feel.” She wanted to explain about Tor and tell Eric that she was still in love with him, but her pride wouldn’t allow her to admit that Tor hadn’t loved her in return. “We’ve only known each other for two weeks, Eric,” she said instead.

His arm tightened around her shoulder. “It seems like much longer. I hate it that we might never see each other again.”

“Never? . . . Are the places where we’re going very far apart?”

Eric shifted his body around so that he could face her. His strong hands gripped her shoulders. “Come with me to Minnesota, Kirsten. You said you were tired of your bossy sister. You can tell her good-bye tomorrow and come with Hjelmer and me.”

“How can I come with you? I have a train ticket to my uncle’s house in Chicago.”

“I’ll bet the railroad company would let us trade it for a ticket to Minnesota.”

“But Elin has all of our tickets in her bag.”

“Wait until she’s asleep and take yours out. You would have a lot more fun if you came with us.”

“That’s true, but . . . I don’t know. Elin and I have our differences and I’m tired of Sofia’s gloomy moods . . . but they’re my only family, Eric. I don’t think I could leave them.”

“Come on, Kirsten. I can’t stand the thought of leaving you tomorrow.”

She looked at him and her heart speeded up. Tor hadn’t wanted her, but Eric did. His hair looked like it was spun from gold in the moonlight, and she couldn’t resist the urge to comb her fingers through it. The next thing she knew, Eric was kissing her. She closed her eyes and pretended that he was Tor.

But after a moment she realized that Eric’s kisses were very different from Tor’s. Eric held her too tightly and kissed her too possessively. She had known Tor all her life and Eric for only two weeks. She turned her face aside and pushed him away.

“We need to stop,” she told him. “This isn’t right.”

She had been down this path before with Tor—she had even gone too far with him once—and that romance had ended with a broken heart.

But Eric wouldn’t stop. He pulled Kirsten close again and crushed his lips against hers. She felt genuine fear. She pushed against his chest as hard as she could and twisted her face away from his, well aware that he could easily overpower her if he wanted to.

“Let me go,” she said, loud enough for anyone nearby to hear. Thankfully, he didn’t restrain her.

“Kirsten, what’s wrong?”

“I have to go.” She scrambled to her feet. He followed.

“Wait . . . What’s the matter? Did I do something wrong?”

“Yes. Kissing me was wrong.”

“I don’t understand. I thought we liked each other.”

“Is this all you wanted—to get me alone so we could kiss?”

It was what Tor had wanted, too, yet he obviously hadn’t loved her. Maybe all men were alike. She looked at Eric with his golden hair and pale blue eyes and silently vowed never to trust a man’s declarations of love again. He would have to prove his love with much more than words before she would believe him.

“Good-bye, Eric.” She whirled around and hurried away from him, hoping he wouldn’t follow, hoping she could find her way back to the steerage deck alone. She didn’t look back.

“Come on, Kirsten . . . don’t go.” Eric followed her most of the way, begging her to be reasonable. He gave up when she reached their crowded steerage deck and plowed a path through the mob. People were still dancing and laughing, the party in full swing.

Kirsten longed to stay and join the fun, but she hurried through the doorway and down the stairs, her footsteps echoing on the hollow metal treads. She held her breath as she parted the privacy curtain that separated the men’s sleeping area from the women’s, hoping that Elin and Sofia were already in bed so she wouldn’t have to talk to them. If Elin saw her face and noticed her tears, she would demand to know what was wrong.

Kirsten exhaled in relief when she saw that the lights had been extinguished and that her sisters both lay huddled beneath the covers. But she knew that Elin would never fall asleep until she returned.

“I’m back,” she whispered, touching Elin’s shoulder.

“Thanks for not staying too long,” she murmured.
“God natt.”

Kirsten undressed as quietly as she could and climbed up to the top bunk. Only then, with her sobs muffled by her blanket and pillow, did she dare to release her sorrow. She had fallen hopelessly in love with Tor Magnusson—she loved him still. But he had been lying to her all along.

Chapter Twelve

E
LIN LAY IN
bed listening to the excitement all around her. The ship would land in America today. She should get up, fix breakfast, and put on her nicest clothes, but she felt too tired to move, too sick to eat. Her head throbbed to the beat of the engines, and she wished only for peace and quiet. The dormitory in steerage was as dark and dingy as always, but her eyes hurt every time she opened them, as though someone were shining a bright light in her face. Her headache must be from all the excitement, she told herself. Or maybe a bad case of nerves.

She sat up and squinted at Sofia, surprised to see that she was already dressed and sitting on her bed with her hands folded in her lap. “How long have you been awake?” Elin asked her.

Sofia shrugged. “For awhile. I don’t know how anyone can sleep with all this noise.”

“I guess I was exhausted.” Elin exhaled and slowly swung her feet out of bed, groping for the satchel with their food in it. She ached all over.

“You’re not getting sick, are you?” Sofia asked as she watched Elin’s sluggish movements.

“No, I’m just tired this morning. And I have a very bad headache. Do you want something to eat, Kirsten?” She gave the lump on the top bunk a gentle shake.

“No!” Kirsten answered much too quickly, too emphatically, pulling the blanket over her head as if for emphasis. Her behavior seemed odd to Elin.

“I’m surprised you’re not the first one up today, Kirsten, ready for all the excitement. Are you feeling all right?” She stood on the bottom bunk and reached to feel Kirsten’s brow for signs of a fever. Kirsten pushed her hand away.

“Would you please stop doing that? I’m not sick!”

“Then why don’t you want any breakfast?”

“Because this place stinks worse than ever. Even a troll would lose his appetite down here.”

“Well, you should try to eat something anyway. I think this is going to be a very long day, and who knows when we’ll get a chance to eat again.”

Elin sat down on the bunk beside Sofia and smoothed the hair off her sister’s face, using the gesture as an excuse to feel her brow for fever. Sofia pushed her hand away, too.

“I wonder what happened to them,” Elin said, nodding toward their neighbors’ empty beds. “They never came back.”

“I hope they didn’t die,” Sofia said.

Elin’s stomach churned at the thought. She recalled how the woman had shielded her eyes with her hand as if the room had seemed too bright for her, too, and felt a ripple of fear. She could
not
get sick—not today of all days.

“Well, let’s eat some breakfast,” Elin said, attempting to be cheerful. “Then we’ll put on our Sunday best and go up in the fresh air for our first glimpse of America. Come on, Sofia. Help me spread out the food. Kirsten, you need to ‘eat for the hunger that’s coming,’ as Mama used to say.”

“We’re all going up on deck?” Sofia asked.

“Yes, I think we should, don’t you? This is one of the biggest days of our lives and we need to enjoy it.” Elin would fight this aching, dragging feeling. Nothing was going to keep her from landing in America today. And she would do everything she could to keep her sisters from getting sick, too. Fortifying them with food was a good start.

Elin did feel better once she was outside in the sunshine, breathing the fresh salty air. Kirsten and Sofia seemed to revive, as well. The sky was a clear, cloudless blue, and the ocean looked calm and serene for once. But so many excited passengers jammed the deck that Elin could barely move. Most of the other people crowded forward, trying to be the first ones to see America, stranding Elin and her sisters in the rear. They peered at the horizon over a multitude of bobbing heads. Elin kept her eyes fastened on the sky, not the endlessly churning waves. She felt tense with excitement as everyone waited for the first sign of land.

“Eric says we’ll be able to tell when we’re near land because we’ll start seeing birds,” Kirsten told them.

Elin glanced around, wondering where Eric and Hjelmer were this morning, and why Kirsten hadn’t gone in search of them as usual. But she decided not to mention them.

“I’ve missed hearing the birds sing every morning,” Elin said.

“I know what you mean,” Kirsten said. “I’ve even missed hearing our rooster crow in the morning. Do you suppose Uncle Lars and Aunt Hilma will have a rooster?”

“And I miss Sofia’s songs,” Elin said. “Why don’t you sing for us anymore, Sofia?”

She shrugged.

A murmur of excitement suddenly spread through the crowd. “Look!” Kirsten shouted, pointing to the sky. “I think those are birds!”

Elin shaded her eyes against the glare, her headache worsening as she focused on the bright western sky. “You’re right,” she said after a moment. “Look at them all! And the air feels different somehow, doesn’t it?”

Kirsten hopped up and down with excitement. “Isn’t this great? As soon as our feet touch the ground in America, it will be a new beginning for us.”

“It feels like the end, not the beginning,” Sofia said gloomily.

Elin wrapped her arm around her sister’s waist. “Come on, Sofia. Cheer up. Our journey is almost over. And to tell you the truth, I’ll be glad when it ends, too. By this afternoon we’ll be on the train to Chicago, where our new home is waiting for us.” Only then would Elin finally be able to relax and find true rest.

“We’ll never see Sweden again,” Sofia murmured.

Elin decided to ignore her moodiness. She looked away from the bright sunlit sky and saw the Swedish family they had met last night approaching them. “
God morgon
, Mr. and Mrs. Lindahl. This is going to be a big day for all of us, isn’t it?”

“
Ja
, it will be a very big day,” Mrs. Lindahl replied. Elin thought she detected more fear in the woman’s voice than excitement. She wondered if immigrating had been Mr. Lindahl’s idea and not hers.

“I’m so excited I can hardly stand still,” Kirsten said. “See those specks in the sky? They’re birds. That means we’re approaching land.”

Mr. Lindahl nodded without looking up. He didn’t seem to share Kirsten’s enthusiasm, either. “I will feel more excited once we have successfully passed through immigration,” he said.

“What do you mean?” Kirsten asked. “What do we have to do? Can’t we just get off the boat when we land?”

“
Nej.
We have to go through the immigration center on Ellis Island first and pass inspection before they will let us into America.”

“Inspection?” Kirsten echoed. “You’re making that up.”

“No, it’s true. My relatives who came earlier told me all about it. There are doctors on Ellis Island who check to see if you are well. They look at your eyes and at your scalp, and they watch to see if you are lame or have some other deformity or maybe a bad heart. They give everyone a medical inspection card, and if they find anything wrong with you—phutt!” He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. “You’re not allowed into America.”

“Well, we’re all healthy,” Elin said, “so I guess we have nothing to worry about.”

“After the medical inspection,” Mr. Lindahl continued, “you must wait in line to present your papers and be questioned by an immigration official. He will make you read something to see if you are literate.”

“Uncle Lars never told me any of this,” Elin said. “I hope we don’t have to read in English.”

“
Nej
, they will give us a passage in Swedish.”

“Well, that’s good. . . . What kinds of questions will they ask?”

“I’m not sure, but my friends say it’s important to convince them that you are able to work and to support yourselves. And if they ask how much money you have, tell them twenty-five dollars.”

“But—but we don’t have that much money,” Elin said. Mr. Lindahl’s fears were starting to rub off on her.

“It doesn’t matter. They won’t make you show them the money or anything. The best thing to say is that you have relatives waiting for you.”

“We do,” Elin said. “We’re going to our uncle’s house in Chicago. We have train tickets and everything.”

“Then as long as you pass the medical exam,” he said with a shrug, “you should be fine.”

“Thanks for the information.” Elin felt reassured. Her head still throbbed, but surely she wouldn’t fail the health exam because of a headache. How would they even know?

They stood out on the deck late into the morning, until Elin could no longer tolerate the pain of the sun’s glare. She moved beneath the deck’s overhang and shaded her eyes, but it still didn’t ease the pain.

“Does your head still hurt?” Kirsten asked.

“It’s so bright out here, I’m surprised we don’t all have headaches. I don’t know if I’ll be able to stay outdoors much longer.”

“Don’t tell the immigration people,” Mr. Lindahl warned. “Don’t give them any excuse to detain you.”

Elin decided to stay a little longer for her sisters’ sakes. Then, just when she was starting to feel nauseous from the unending pain, a cheer went up from the passengers on the other side of the deck. Land! Someone had spotted land. Everyone crowded forward, straining for a look. Elin saw a dark smudge on the horizon that might have been a bank of clouds.

“That’s it!” Kirsten cheered. “That’s America!”

Elin hugged both of her sisters. Everyone had tears in their eyes, but she suspected that Sofia’s were not tears of joy. As time passed, the smudge of land grew larger and clearer, sliding into focus and taking shape. More and more ships appeared on the horizon, too. The cheering grew louder, until Elin feared that her head would burst.