With all the mutineers clustered near the railing, Katherine wouldn’t be able to reach the shallop without knocking a few of them out of her way. Anyhow, the shallop was being lowered on ropes, and it was far enough down that Katherine couldn’t jump in without knocking everything off-kilter.
Jonah could imagine Katherine trying to climb down one of the ropes, throwing the entire shallop off balance and pitching everyone—Jonah, Henry Hudson, John King, and five sick, dying sailors—into the icy water below.
“Don’t!” he said out loud. “You can’t!”
Who cared what the sailors around him thought he meant?
Katherine’s face twisted even more. Jonah didn’t need lip-reading or sign language to know what she was thinking: It’s bad enough to be stranded in 1611, expecting to starve to death, but to be stranded alone?
“You’ve got a better chance of surviving on the ship,” Jonah said, and this was meant as a parting gift to his sister, his best effort at a hopeful good-bye. He wasn’t sure if this was true or not. Sure, all the food was on the ship. And sure, Katherine was invisible, so she could sneak around eating whatever she wanted. But those mutineers seemed a little nutso—and they had weapons—and what if Katherine lost her invisibility again?
Jonah wondered if he should toss the Elucidator up to Katherine, so at least she’d have that, if it worked again. But how could he do that without everyone noticing?
Jonah had been staring so intently at his sister that he’d mostly ignored everything going on around her. But now he let his gaze slide over to the men clustered along the railing. One man in particular was watching Jonah very carefully. As soon as his eyes met Jonah’s, the man called out, “Aye, lad, I know you are only trying to protect me. But I know who I trust the most on water.”
The man evidently thought Jonah had been talking to him.
Jonah wanted to say, No, no, I’m talking to my sister. Who you can’t see because she’s invisible—or something that would sound a little more reasonable, but would convince the man that Jonah had nothing to do with him. But the man had already turned to the head mutineer.
“If ye must do this, then put me into the shallop too,” the man said.
“What? Staffe, have you lost your mind?” the head mutineer said. “You’ve disagreed with the master near as much as the rest of us! He’s punished you for nothing—nothing!”
“But I’d trust Henry Hudson in a shallop to sail me out of here before I’d trust the rest of you to navigate this ship,” the man—Staffe?—said. “Let me take my tools and I’ll go.”
“But the master doesn’t want to sail out of here,” some of the other mutineers mocked. “He’s just going to sail around in circles looking for the Northwest Passage.”
Jonah really did wish he could remember what that was. This time the men said the words as scornfully as they might say “fairyland” or “Shangri-la”—someplace nice but completely imaginary.
“Still,” Staffe said, setting his jaw firmly. “I’m going. In a mutiny doesn’t every man make his own choice?”
There was grumbling around him, but the men operating the pulleys began raising the shallop again.
Now it was Jonah’s turn to mouth words at Katherine: You come too! When he climbs into the shallop, you worm your way in too!
And she mouthed back, grinning, I know! I will! Don’t worry!
Staffe stood waiting at the railing while someone went back for his “tools”—whatever that meant. It turned out it was a wooden box. When Staffe turned around to take the box, Katherine brushed past him. Staffe startled slightly; maybe Katherine’s ponytail had slapped against his cheek. But he didn’t say anything, only straightened up and looked around, a baffled expression on his face.
“Go, then, if you’re leaving,” the lead mutineer said brusquely.
By then Katherine had scrambled into the boat. She hugged Jonah, doing her best to keep away from the sailors around them. Jonah thought that the last time he’d willingly let his sister hug him, he’d been about six years old. But there was something comforting about huddling together, even as the shallop dropped lower and lower.
They landed with enough force that icy water splashed up into the boat. Only a little of it hit Jonah and Katherine, but it was enough to make Katherine start shivering violently. Jonah didn’t care how strange he would look: He spread out his cloak so it draped over Katherine, too.
“Thanks,” she whispered. “That helps.”
Fortunately, everyone else in the boat was distracted, watching the man who’d wielded the sword—John King?—maneuvering a rope so that they were still tied onto the bigger ship.
“They’ll let us back on as soon as they search for food,” one of the skeletal sailors croaked in a raspy voice that sounded as if it took his last ounce of energy. Or maybe just his last ounce of hope. “Won’t they?”
Nobody answered. By craning his neck and looking up, Jonah could tell that some of the sailors on the larger ship were unfurling the sails.
But we’re still attached, with the rope, Jonah thought. They can’t sail away from us.
Just then someone from the larger ship bent down and slashed a knife through the rope. The end fell into the water, causing another icy splash. And then the ship sailed away into the fog.
“We’re adrift!” one of the sailors sitting near Jonah cried. “We’re all going to die!”
The despair in his voice was horrible, like a tidal wave washing over everyone. Jonah felt his own hopes begin to ebb away.
No, no, he thought. This is what has to happen. What happened in original time. It’s terrible if everyone cast out into the shallop dies, but … this means that once we’re out of sight of the ship, I can stop acting like John Hudson. Our job will be done. JB can pull us out of 1611 and everything will be okay. For us, anyway. And Andrea and Brendan and Antonio …
Katherine gasped beside him.
Jonah scowled at her. How could she draw such attention to herself? Then he realized that many of the others in the shallop had gasped as well. He turned, and saw what they were all so upset about.
A huge chunk of ice was floating right toward them. Now that Jonah was down on the same level as all the ice, he could see how massive the ice chunks were. They were practically icebergs. Even the ship probably would have been damaged if such a big ice chunk hit it.
But in the shallop …
We’re going to sink, Jonah thought. This is the end.
“JB!” he screamed. “Get us out of here! Now!”
Jonah kept his eyes wide open, eager for his first glimpse of a nice, safe, sterile time hollow or—better yet—his own home back in the twenty-first century. But the desolate, foggy view around him didn’t change, except that the ice slid closer and closer and closer. …
JB wasn’t going to rescue them. Maybe he couldn’t.
“Raise our sails!” Henry Hudson screamed. “Row toward starboard!”
Jonah felt a hand slam against the side of his head.
“I said, row!” Henry Hudson growled.
It was Katherine who thrust the handle of an oar into Jonah’s hand. Jonah glanced around and saw that John King, on the other side of the shallop, was already dipping an oar of his own into the water. And Henry Hudson and the man the others had called Staffe were setting up sails in the middle of the boat.
So a shallop isn’t just a rowboat, Jonah thought numbly. It can use sails, too….
Katherine was already helping him pull on the oar, coordinating with John King’s paddling. But it was the sails that really saved them. As soon as the wind caught the first billow of cloth, the shallop lurched to the right, narrowly edging past the towering ice.
Jonah slumped against the side of the shallop in relief.
“I am an excellent captain!” Henry Hudson screamed out into the fog. “You had no right to banish me!”
Just in the moment that they’d spent dodging the ice, the larger ship had vanished completely. Henry Hudson’s scr
eams echoed off the ice around them.
Banish me …
Banish me …
A hand slammed against the side of Jonah’s head once more, trapping air painfully against his ear.
Okay, I’m guessing that John Hudson and his dear old dad didn’t have the best relationship, Jonah thought, cringing away from the man.
“Who’s this JB you were calling out to?” Henry Hudson asked suspiciously. “Some code name? Could it be? My own son plotting against me?”
“No, no,” Staffe said smoothly, holding on to the sails. “He was merely being reverent. He said, ‘JC.’ Jesus Christ. Your son was beseeching the Lord for our aid. And where do you think these winds came from? His prayers were answered!”
The wind in the sails was pulling them away from the ice at an amazing speed.
Henry Hudson gazed suspiciously back and forth between Jonah and Staffe. As soon as Hudson turned his head, Staffe winked at Jonah. Then he straightened out his face into an innocent gaze as soon as Hudson’s eyes were upon him again.
So that’s how it works, Jonah thought. Captain Hudson’s mean to his son—er, me, for right now—but this Staffe guy protects him….
It wasn’t as good as JB protecting him by yanking him and Katherine out of time, but Jonah was glad not to be hit again.
“Sir?” John King asked, taking over the sails from Staffe. “Shall we sail toward shore, to set up camp at the winter cabin?”
Toward shore? Winter cabin? What’s he talking about? Jonah wondered. He remembered what JB had said earlier, that the men from Hudson’s ship had had a rough winter and spring. Evidently they hadn’t stayed on the ship all that time. They’d packed up to get away from the floating ice and the howling winds and camped out on shore.
Jonah stared at the ice floating past the shallop and reminded himself that it was June now. Summertime. If this was what June was like, he really didn’t want to see what it’d be like to live through January and February here.
“The winter cabin?” Hudson sneered. “Odd’s bones, man, we’re sailors, not rabbits. At least, I am. Henry Hudson does not cower in a hole when there are treasure routes to be found, glory to be attained …”
He’s crazy, Jonah thought. Totally bonkers. Has he already forgotten that he’s been thrown off his own ship in disgrace? That we’re in a glorified rowboat? In ice? Shouldn’t he be more concerned about staying alive than anything else?
“But if we go to the cabin, we can lay in supplies for next winter,” Staffe said, taking up John King’s argument. “By next spring a rescue expedition is bound to come for us—”
“Henry Hudson will not be rescued!” Hudson thundered, smacking his hand down on the side of the shallop in his fury. “Henry Hudson will sail home in glory, with a shipload of treasures from the Orient!”
“The Orient”? Jonah thought. Wasn’t that one of those old-fashioned expressions his grandparents used sometimes? Would it mean the same thing in 1611 that it means to Grandma and Grandpa? he wondered.
It couldn’t. Grandma and Grandpa talked as if the Orient was China and Japan and other places in Asia.
We’re somewhere in Canada right now. Does Henry Hudson really think we’re going to sail this shallop all the way to China or Japan? And then back to England? Jonah didn’t know much about geography, but that had to be a long way. Like, halfway around the world and back again. Hudson couldn’t go that far even if he still had the ship! Could he?
“You still believe in the Northwest Passage?” one of the sickly, dying sailors murmured. He sounded as if those might be his last words. “Even now?”
There were those words again: “Northwest Passage.” Some old memory stirred at the back of Jonah’s mind. Something from fifth-grade social studies, something Mrs. Rorshas had droned on and on and on about, with her talent for making even the most interesting subjects boring. Explorers … China … treasure … What kind of treasure was everyone looking for?
“You shall refer to it as the Hudson Passage, henceforth,” Hudson said haughtily. “Because I shall discover it.”
You’ve got to give this guy credit for having confidence, Jonah thought. But how does he think he’s going to discover anything in a rowboat—er, sailboat? In ice? How does he think anyone here is going to survive?
The cloak and mask and wig of Jonah’s disguise seemed too tight again. It seemed harder and harder to draw enough of the cold air into his lungs.
The Northwest Passage, Henry Hudson being crazy, these people who are going to freeze or starve—I can’t do anything about any of it, Jonah told himself. Really, it already happened. It’s done. JB just has to get me and Katherine out of here….
Jonah twisted around to the side, pretending he was only trying to block the wind. He hunched over, bringing his face closer to the pocket where he’d tucked the Elucidator.
“JB!” he whispered. “You really could come for us now! I could pretend to fall over into the water or something.”
But would one of the others try to jump in and rescue him? Would Staffe? Would Henry Hudson himself?
“Maybe we should go to the winter cabin,” Jonah said aloud, so everyone in the shallop could hear him. If they landed on the shore, he could sneak away without endangering anybody.
A fist slammed into his jaw; a hand pinned his chest back against the side of the shallop. If Katherine hadn’t been beside him, holding him up, he would have fallen over sideways.
“You dare to challenge my authority?” Henry Hudson snarled, looming over Jonah. “I said we will not retreat to the winter cabin. We sail on to glory! Do you not remember who is captain here?”
Jonah stared into Hudson’s eyes. He felt so odd suddenly, feeling the choices before him. He could say, Don’t you remember you just got kicked out of being a captain? Kicked out of your own ship? He could say, Maybe I think it’s time you let someone else take over as captain. Since you’re not doing such a great job.
Or he could back down.
Which choice would protect his face from getting punched again?
Which choice would John Hudson have made?
What was the right thing to do?
Normally Jonah made decisions fast, by the seat of his pants. A split second was a long time for him to mull over anything. But whole minutes seemed to be flowing by, and his brain just felt more paralyzed.
Is it always like this, when people don’t make decisions right away? Jonah wondered. Does the decision always get harder and harder, the longer you spend not deciding?
He could feel the entire boatload of sailors watching him, waiting to see what he was going to do. Even Katherine was waiting, her face twisted in confusion.
What? Katherine isn’t going to try to tell me what to do? Jonah thought.
For perhaps the first time in his life he wished she would.
Something hovered at the edge of Jonah’s vision, off in the distance. At first Jonah thought it was some remnant of his timesickness problems. An illusion. But there really did seem to be a large shadow sliding toward them through the fog. Was it another ice chunk? How could an ice chunk rise so high above the water?
Jonah squinted, turning his head right and left. He forgot he’d been trying to make a decision.
What I’m thinking can’t be right, he thought. The direction’s all wrong. Isn’t it?
The shadow broke through the fog, its shape finally distinct: three masts, billowy sails, a weathered hull. Jonah gasped, unable to believe his eyes.
Everyone else turned and stared with him.
“The ship! It’s come back for us!” Hudson cried.
“Huzzah! Huzzah! Hooray!”
Even the sailors who appeared to be nearly dead found the energy to cheer. They raised weak fists in the air and made feeble attempts at pumping their arms up and down. Toothless grins split across wizened faces.
“I planned this,” Hudson said. “I knew it would work out this way. The mutineers were lost without me….”
“Then
how could they figure out how to sail back around and come get us?” Jonah muttered.
He looked at Katherine, trying to ask with his eyes: Does any of this make sense to you? This can’t be right!
She just kept shaking her head, bafflement written all over her face.
The sailor beside Jonah was huddled over a small box, and Jonah realized for the first time what it was: a compass. Jonah caught a glimpse of the needle jerking around, pointing north.
That’s the direction the ship was going, when it sailed away from us. North … maybe northeast, Jonah thought. We went west, trying to get away from the ice floe. So now the ship is sailing back toward us from the southwest? Impossible! How could it have circled around us that quickly?
“I’m … turned around,” the sailor holding the compass muttered. “The directions … all off …”
“Wydowse, the sickness confuses you,” Hudson said, almost kindly. “You’re an excellent navigator—you will be again, once you’re well.”
“The Discovery sailed that way,” Wydowse said, pointing north. “And now, to come back around from the south…”
“Thou knowest this bay has devilish winds and currents,” Hudson said, a light tone in his voice, as if he was only humoring the man. “Have faith—we can overcome them!”
“But what if this is a trick?” Wydowse said stubbornly. “Mayhap they return only to torture us further?”
Oh, great—thanks! Jonah thought. Just what I need—more awful possibilities to think about!
Now the boatload of men fell silent, watching the Discovery approach.
“Captain! My captain!” a voice called out.
“Abacuk Prickett?” Hudson called back. “Is that you?”
“Aye, Captain,” the voice called back. “Everything worked just as we planned.”
Planned? Jonah thought.
He could have sworn he saw a flicker of confusion cross Hudson’s face too, but the captain covered it quickly, shouting back, “Quite so! Most excellent!”