A Spark Unseen

wagon creeping behind us, Mary tapping a finger on the watch case. Mr. Babcock slowed, waving us repeatedly toward a boat slip.

A small vessel rose and fell gently behind him, its sails furled, a British flag ruffling in a slight gust of breeze, smoke billowing from a single stack. I could hear the steam engine thrumming, water slapping the sides of the boat. I leapt out of the carriage, heart hammering as I looked over my shoulder for the wagon. We truly were behind time. Mary scrambled out after me with her carpetbag, Mr. Babcock pecked my cheek and grabbed my arm, his other hand directing a pair of barefooted sailors toward our luggage as we hurried to the gangplank.

It took three trips to get our things unloaded, two straining men alone to carry the steamer trunk belowdecks. They set it with our other boxes in a dim, clammy room that stank of fish and the smoking oil lamp that swung from the ceiling, making their way out again while I fidgeted with impatience. There were no chairs here, only crates and our boxes, and I wondered if it was possible that any of this boat’s cargo was legal, and if not, by which officer’s underhanded arrangement it had come to be here in the first place.

Mary had the watch out, her freckles scrunched as she attempted to see its hands in the wavering light. As soon as the door was shut, I took several purposeful steps toward my trunk, but Mr. Babcock held up a hand.

“We are expecting a visit from our captain, my dears, such as he is. Tact was indeed part of our arrangement, but I am not at all certain how far his discretion might go.”

“But we are behind time!” I said, voice rising. An uncharacteristic panic was taking hold of me. This entire idea had been madness, a crime against my own common sense. What had made any of us think it should be attempted? I felt Mary’s hand on my shoulder.

“Mr. Babcock’s right, Miss. What’s done is done. Only a little time more. Sit on this now, Miss, but mind you don’t dirty your dress, ’cause there’s no knowing when the next cleaning might be, or how often them French people are even doing such things, if you know what I mean, and we wouldn’t want you knocking on the door of your new house looking less than a lady, would we now? How would I be holding my head up in France if you was seen walking down the street with dirt on your dress, Miss?”

I sat, Mary’s nonsense lashing me to reality just as firmly as the crate I was sitting on was tied to the floor. Mr. Babcock plopped down onto a similar perch, mopping his forehead with a handkerchief.

“That was a near thing, my dears, a near thing! The captain has a deadline that will brook no delay, a deadline that seems to involve tides and when the most recently bribed agent is scheduled for the customs shed. They are saying the wind will be against us in the Channel, and that we shan’t make good time, and so the boat would have to sail by …”

As if to emphasize Mr. Babcock’s words, I felt a jerk, and another, and then a pull, a smooth sense of movement more akin to rolling on skates than the trains and carriages to which I was accustomed. The floor dipped and rose back up again, the humming in the air increased to a vibration beneath my feet. I crossed my arms against the clench in my stomach.

“Lord!” exclaimed Mary. “Would you look at that?” Her nose was pressed against a small round window, the glass smeared by the smack of an occasional wave. “Who’d ever be thinking that much water could go and be getting so filthy, Miss!”

“In any case,” Mr. Babcock continued, taking no notice of Mary, “our captain said he was leaving within the half hour, with or without you, which caused considerable unpleasantness all around.” He sighed heavily. “And our packages? I assume they had a safe trip?”

I nodded, hanging on to the crate as the floor tilted, anxiety eating hot at my insides. “Mr. Wickersham came early,” I told him, “just at the end of the funeral. I dealt with it, but it put us behind schedule.”

Mr. Babcock’s eyes went shrewd. “And how much did he guess?”

Before I could answer, knuckles rapped sharply on the door, and two men entered our fetid little room with a pomp more fitting to a grand hotel. The first had a dirty face, fraying cuffs, and a hat that managed to look both official and disreputable all at once; the second had the oily sort of smile that made me think instantly of a snake.

“Coo!” Mary said, whispering in my ear. “There’s a pair of ne’er-do-wells if I ever saw them. Better be staying close to me, Miss.” I would have comforted Mary, had her tone not been positively dripping with glee.

The official hat made a sweeping arc through the air, showing a balding pate as the captain bowed and began to speak rapidly in French. The reptilian man translated right on top of the words, his accent thick.

“If it pleases the guests,” he said, “we leave Devonport and Plymouth, sail the coast, and with God’s help will cross the Channel and stand in Le Havre before the noon. The captain asks …”

A dull, muffled thump came from somewhere off to my right, where my trunk was stowed. I blinked, laced my fingers together, and kept my eyes on the rambling captain.

“… that you would stay below, please, for the avoiding of questions, and when Le Havre is reached if your baggage would stay below for the same reason, we would all be most happy.”

Mr. Babcock inclined his head, and again a soft thump, with three more in quick succession, came from my right. I felt Mary tense. The captain was still speaking, gesticulating wildly with his hat, and the translator leaned outside the door and brought two metal bowls back in with him. With a brevity that seemed to have nothing whatsoever to do with the captain’s unceasing speech, he said, “The captain says to give you these. For the …”

He paused, struggling for the correct word as the captain talked on and on. The soft thumping was continuous now, regular and rhythmic, though between the captain’s babbling and the thoughtful scratching of the second man’s head, neither seemed to notice. The translator finally gave up the linguistic fight, shrugged one shoulder, and said simply, “First the boat will be up, and then it will be down. Up and then down. Good night.”

He gave us a grin that was long and narrow, the bowls went to the floor with a clatter, and the captain bowed himself out, words still flowing as the slippery translator shut the door after them.

The interior of the little room was suddenly quiet. The three of us remained still, the lamp above our heads making the shadows sway. The thumping had stopped. I listened to the scurry of feet and the shouting of men on the deck above, to the silence outside our door, counting eight terrified heartbeats before in unspoken agreement we all three leapt forward and ran to my trunk, the key already in my hand. I turned the lock and threw back the lid, tossing the top layer of dresses out onto the dirty floor.

My uncle lay curled in a nest of cushions, still and with his face pale, wrapped tightly in the blanket from his bed. Only his wild, white hair and unkempt beard disturbed what would have otherwise been the look of a dreaming child. Nothing moved. The hammering in my chest seemed to pause, then beat with a speed that stole my breath.

“Well?” said Mr. Babcock.

I reached a hand into the trunk and found my uncle’s neck, feeling the skin with two fingers until I had located what I wanted: a pulse, very slow, but strong. Uncle Tully’s chest rose up suddenly in a long, deep breath.

“Sleeping,” I said weakly, and felt some of the collective tension release around me. I smoothed Uncle Tully’s hair, damp with the stuffiness of my trunk, and carefully adjusted his legs and the cushions, making sure the small air holes drilled into the leather-covered wood were unobscured.

Uncle Tully breathed deeply once more, and then all at once he yelled loudly, kicking out hard against the side of the trunk. The cocoon of his blanket loosened as he flailed, shouting out nonsense. I held his head, eyes darting to the door as Mary knelt quickly beside me, taking one of the little brown bottles Dr. Pruitt had given us out of her carpetbag and holding it to my uncle’s lips. He drank without ever opening his eyes, coughing and sputtering as he struggled, but after a long minute, a time when every sound pricked me with fear, the movement in the trunk quieted. Uncle Tully relaxed, his face going slack. I let go of his head and arranged the blankets, tucking him in tightly, as if he were in bed. Blood pounded in my ears.

“All well?” Mr. Babcock whispered, his ugly face creased.

“He should have had that dose nearly an hour ago,” I said, “but Dr. Pruitt did say to wait as long as we could, that the less we gave him the better. …” I rubbed a finger over my throbbing temple. I felt ill, though whether from guilt or relief I wasn’t sure. What would have happened if my uncle had shouted like that while those men were in the room? I doubted our captain’s “tactful,” tariff-free enterprise actually included sailing screaming men locked in trunks across the English Channel.

“Don’t worry, Miss,” Mary said. “It doesn’t seem to have been doing him any harm.”

My head nodded mechanically as I counted Uncle’s Tully’s breaths, watching them gradually slow. I trusted