Wind-Borne Sister. Melinda Holland

fell out on the floor. It was a letter. I felt a sort of stirring inside, as though that letter was important, so I tucked it into my pocket to look at later. Then I went to share the sad tidings with the others.

      “Katherine had not had much money, and though the doctor was most generous, Isabella and I pooled most of the rest of what we had to pay for her burial in the village churchyard down the way. We knew she would have done the same for us, but it left us with a difficult decision; was it time to return home? I miss you deeply, Mama, but I did not find a certainty in my heart that I had accomplished all that was meant for this journey. However, Isabella was adamant: we should take the shortest route to a port city and make our way back north. I would be too frightened to travel alone. I thought about trying to find Molly and Lily, but knew that their lives were going forward in other ways, and I could not press on their generosity. I agreed to make the short journey back to port and home.

      “So perhaps you will see me before you see this letter, Mama. I do not know the route the courier will take. It will be lovely to see your face, to wake early and milk the cow, to dance with Allan again. And yet in my heart I am puzzled; I can only see those things as through a dreamy mist, not sharply as I imagined. I wonder why?

      “Oh, I nearly forgot. I opened the letter from Katherine’s Bible late last night. It is from her sister, Betsy. I had not realized that Katherine had come from so far south in our country; she never spoke of home. The letter describes tall mountains and a beautiful valley with ‘praying oaks.’ I wonder what they are? I hate it when I remember that Betsy does not know that her sister is dead. When I get home I will write to her at her home in Nybron and try to tell her gently. Please pray for Betsy, Mama; it is clear from her letter that she loved her sister and that she, like you, has hands that shape beauty where none has been. She had little sketches throughout the three pages; I think one must be of her and Katherine together when they were a little younger. I can see the family resemblance! There was also a small design of a kitten; it made me think of our little tyke, Ebenezer. Such a grandiose name for a wee bit of fur! Though I imagine he is grown big and self-satisfied now. It will be good to sit with him when I return.

      “I love you, Mama. Give my love also to Papa and to Allan. Pray for travel mercies and safe passage, and I should be home before long. As always, rest in the arms of Jesus; he loves us so! Your Anna.”

      Susannah and I sat for a long time in silence, with the rumbling purr of Ebenezer as counterpoint to our thoughts. I imagine that Susannah was remembering her daughter with both deep grief and aching love. I was struck by a different sense: that somehow the letter from Betsy and my dream of weary stragglers washing up on a beach, tall mountains beyond, were part of one mystery, with Anna at its center. I turned the last page of the letter over in my hand. Very delicately lined on the back, as though they had been traced, I found both a landscape of mountains, with a valley and trees in the foreground, and the depiction of two young women’s heads, foreheads touching as though they laughed in a moment of shared joy. Which was Katherine and which Betsy? Had Anna found the latter? I did not know, and yet I felt certain that my journey led south to find out.

      We saw the last of the frost before long, and soon I was packed and ready to begin my journey. Ebenezer did not wish to stir from my side as I rose earlier than normal, and he greeted me with a grumpy meow of complaint. I would miss him and yet was glad he would remain as furry companion for Susannah in my absence. Susannah also was preoccupied, wondering if she and I had packed and prepared properly for all that lay ahead. A woman alone carried risks with her that male travelers did not. I would not be going by boat this time, and one never knew who might be met on the road. I thought of my meeting with Allan, of Michael and his description of my “sunshine,” of the surly man on the first day of my journey many months before. Would I be as fortunate in future as I had been with Susannah? As I packed a last few things, I spied on a small shelf of treasures the pearl “given” to me by the albatross. Anna had been on the brink of death, but she and her companions had come to land. I put the pearl in my pocket, remembering. The good Lord would go ahead of me, as the albatross had led Anna, and take me to places of hope. On my journeys of change, perhaps yet threaded through with grief, I would ever be held up on his sustaining wings.

      Susannah was older and more practical, it seemed. A few moments later, she turned to me with a different tone to her voice than I had heard over our many months together. In her hand she held a short, sharp dagger, with a hilt inlaid with amethyst. “This belonged to my husband,” she told me. “I have never used it and pray that you will have no call to wield it in self-defense. But it may be useful for other reasons; it may help you in tight situations. I awoke this morning certain I was to give it to you.” She sheathed it carefully in a leather case and held it out for me to take. “Gabriela, go with God. You have been a blessing to me these many months. You helped me to navigate a hard winter. You let me hear Anna’s letters again. And to be able to see light and form again! What a marvelous grace to an old woman who aches to work with her hands. I know that the Lord brought you here; I pray that he will bring you back again one day.” She paused and then held out an envelope to me. “Allan gave me this when he was last here. He said that I was to give it to you as you left on your journey. You are not to open it until the seventh day. Allan is not usually given to such strange directions; I imagine he wants to be sure that you will be well beyond his village before you read what he has written. But Brie, know that he is not an unkind man. He just carries so much pain that he cannot always walk in welcome.”

      She embraced me then and waited patiently as I packed the last of my provisions. My heart felt divided between a longing to stay in this place of safety, known and loved well, with Susannah and Ebenezer and the song of the sea to lull me to sleep each night, and a longing to risk what lay ahead, to follow the promptings of my heart that called me forward and away. Susannah interrupted my thoughts with a final word, “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” I took a deep breath. “It will be all right, Gabriela. Know that it will be all right.” Ebenezer rubbed up against my leg one last time, and I rubbed him just under the chin, where he loves it best.

      Then I knew it was time. I looked around the cottage, at the grace of Susannah’s sculptures, the warmth of her home, at her lined and love-filled face. “God be with you, Susannah. You have blessed me more than you know.” And my new journey began.

      The weather smiled on me as I followed the trails and byways southward. The spring rains were lighter than usual, and the first few nights I happened upon abandoned outbuildings or heavy tree-cover to shelter me. I met few travelers, which was as I had hoped. The few herdsmen or mounted travelers I passed simply nodded in my direction and kept going on their way. I tried to walk with heavy stride, with my long hair hidden in my hood; it would be better if they didn’t see right away that I was a woman alone.