She shook her head.
“Do you have family in the city?”
She shook her head again.
“Where were you going to go?” he said.
Her hands twisted and fluttered against her long skirt. “We thought we’d figure that out once we got to the city.”
This was going nowhere. “Where do you hail from?”
“Too many places to count,” she said.
Her accent was strange. German? Myles spoke a bit of the language, because it was the quartermaster’s original tongue. “Wo in Deutschland?”
“Austria, really,” said the woman. “Where are you from?”
“Me?” said Myles.
“Yes, you,” she said.
“It’s not important,” he said, too quickly.
She lifted her chin. “Where we’re from isn’t important, either.”
At that, he nodded. A lot of people didn’t like to talk about where they were from. “Fine. You still have to go.”
“Yes,” she said, but she didn’t move.
“Has your brother got the fever?”
“Which fever?”
“Yellow fever,” said Myles. Was she daft?
“No! It’s just a cold or something. And he’s tired. We’re both tired.”
“Hmmm,” Myles said. If they weren’t passengers, if they were stowaways and he was caught helping them, it was he who would be thrown into the water. But the sick man reminded him of the islands, and of the sick woman there, and of the thing that Myles had done that he could not tell anyone, not ever, for fear they’d look too closely at him.
This woman was looking closely, though. She pressed one of her fluttery hands to her own cheek, as though feeling the lack of whiskers on Myles’s.
Though he willed himself not to, he found himself mimicking her gesture, putting his hand to a cheek that he had disguised with soot just that morning. “I’m only fifteen,” he said.
She wasn’t fooled. “How has no one discovered you?”
“I’m careful,” said Myles bitterly. He had been careful, but this lady had seen through him in a few minutes.
At this, she merely nodded. But he exploded as if she’d asked him a question, the question: Why?
“You should know why I had to!” Myles said, his voice loud, too loud. He cleared his throat and lowered his voice. “Who would want the lot of a woman?”
Her laugh was one of recognition, not amusement. “Who indeed?”
“They wanted to marry me off to some poor fool like I was no more than a fattened pig. They said I didn’t have a choice. So I gave myself a chance.”
“Right,” she murmured. “You ran away?”
Myles nodded. He had no idea why he was telling this stranger his deepest secret, except for the strain of keeping it to himself for so long. “I stole some clothes and came to the docks. There are always jobs if you’re willing to do them. I was willing.”
She nodded again, thoughtfully. “I’m not sure you could say I—we—were willing, but we were desperate.”
“Well, miss,” Myles said, “I guess it’s the same thing. Why don’t we get your brother off the ship? Maybe we could find a suitable inn where you could stay.”
“Thank you,” she said. “You’re very kind.”
“I’m not,” Myles insisted. “I’m not kind. If we’re caught, I’ll say I found stowaways, which is the God’s honest truth. I won’t lose my position here. I can’t.”
“All right,” she said. “What’s your name?”
He drew himself up stiffly. “Myles.” He half expected her to ask for his other name, the name that he had buried when he’d put on these boy’s clothes and come to this ship, but she didn’t.
“I’m glad to meet you, Myles. Will you help me get my brother out of bed?”
Myles set the lantern down on the floor and took one of the man’s arms while the lady took the other. Together, they hauled the man upright.
“Okay, okay,” the man mumbled. “I’m up, I’m up. You could have just asked.”
“Ignore him,” said the woman. “He’s peevish when he first wakes up.”
“Who’s peevish?” said the man.
“What’s peevish?” said Myles.
“My brother,” the woman said. “If you can take him, I’ll carry the trunk.”
Myles shook his head. “A lady shouldn’t have to carry her own trunk.”
“There are no ladies here,” she said. But Myles took the trunk, which was a lot heavier than it looked, and the woman draped her brother’s arm around her neck. They hobbled out of the carpenter’s cabin, and then across the length of the hold. It was slow going, but they managed to get both the man and the trunk off the ship and onto the dock without anyone paying attention.
Once on the dock, the woman covered her nose. “What is that smell?”
“What smell?” Myles asked. The docks and the streets beyond were littered in the usual effluvia—horse manure, soil from the chamber pots, rotting vegetables, and coffee—but it would be so much worse in the summer. He barely noticed it now that winter had gotten a stranglehold.
“You don’t smell it?” The woman looked green in the lantern light. “I don’t know if I can do this,” she said, almost to herself.
Her brother lifted his head from her shoulder. “You can do it. We can. We have to.”
“Are you really from Austria?” Myles said. “What I mean is, can you speak German?”
“Yes. A little. And . . .” She hesitated. “A bit of Yiddish, too.”
“There’s an inn a few blocks that way where you might find a room. I’ve heard they don’t ask too many questions. And you shouldn’t say much in any case. Your accent is too strange.”
They hobbled down the street. Once, a drunken man tried to take the trunk from Myles, but the woman hissed like an angry street cat, scaring the man off. Nobody else bothered them. Finally, they reached the inn, the Morning Star. When the woman saw the name on the sign, she laughed.
“What?”
“The Morning Star. I like it.”
“Good,” said Myles, though he had no idea what she was talking about. As Myles had heard, the mountainous ruddy man at the desk didn’t ask questions of the woman except how many rooms she needed, and if she wanted food or a bath prepared.
“Both, please,” she said.
The innkeeper named a price for the room and board. The woman fished in her coat and brought out a gleaming gold coin. The innkeeper’s eyes went shifty. When the big man dropped the coin into the box below the desk without a word, Myles whispered, “That’s too much.”
“Is it?” said the woman. “I don’t think so.”
After the innkeeper left the desk to order a servant girl to prepare a room, the woman pressed another few coins into Myles’s palm, more money than he had ever seen at once, enough money to change his life right there and then.
“Miss,” he said, stunned. “I can’t . . . I can’t . . .”
“Yes, you can,” she said.