I uncross my legs under the table. “Not much,” I say.
I fold my hands in my lap, stunned by my betrayal. In all the years that I have been with Thomas, I have never told a single person. Nor, to my knowledge, has he. Despite our fears when he won the prize, no one discovered this fact about Thomas’s youth, as the records were well sealed. Now, however, I know that Ada-line will tell others. She won’t be able to keep this information to herself.
I can’t have done this, I am thinking.
“Rich, leave this,” I say quickly, gesturing toward the mess on the table. “I want to go up. With Thomas. With the light still good. I’ll do the dishes later.” I push away from the table. Rich comes down the ladder and stands a moment with his hands over his head, holding on to the hatch. He seems puzzled.
Behind me, Adaline goes into the forward cabin. She shuts the door.
The Honorable R. P. Tapley of Saco, Maine, was the lawyer for the defense of Louis H. F. Wagner. George C. Yeaton, Esq. was the county attorney. The Honorable William G. Barrows was the presiding judge. The members of the jury were Isaac Easton of North Berwick, George A. Twambly of Shapleigh, Ivory C. Hatch of Wells, Horace Piper of Newfield, Levi G. Hanson of Biddeford, Nahum Tarbox of Biddeford, Benajah Hall of North Berwick, Charles Whitney of Biddeford, William Bean of Lim-ington, Robert Littlefield of Kennebunk, Isaac Libbey of Parson-field, and Calvin Stevens of Wells.
Although all of the jury, the lawyers, and the judge were white men of early American — that is to say, English — stock, neither the accused nor the victim, nor the woman who survived, nor even most of the witnesses, was an American citizen.
In the cockpit, Thomas comes to sit beside me. Billie leans against Thomas’s legs. My hands begin to shake. I feel an urge to bend forward, to put my head between my knees.
The three of us watch the sun set over Newcastle and Portsmouth, watch the coral light move evenly across Appledore and Star, leaving in its wake a colorless tableau. From below, Rich switches on the running lights.
I want to tell Thomas that I have done something terrible, that I don’t know why I did it except that I couldn’t, for just that moment, bear Adaline’s certainty that she knew Thomas well — perhaps, in a way, even better than myself.
On Star, windows are illuminated, and people walk through pools of deep yellow light.
“You’re trembling,” Thomas says.
The Magdalene Poems are an examination of the life of a seventeen-year-old girl in the last four seconds of her life, written in the voice of a seventeen-year-old boy who was clearly her lover and who was with her when she died. The poems speak to the unfulfilled promise of love, to the absolute inevitability of that promise remaining unfulfilled. The reader is allowed to imagine the girl as a middle-aged woman married to the man who was the boy, as an elderly widow, and as a promiscuous sixteen-year-old. The girl, whose name is Magdalene, is — as seen from the eyes of the boy — extraordinarily beautiful. She has the long slender body of a dancer, abundant multihued hair that winds into intricate coils at the nape of her neck, and full curved lips of even dimensions with barely any bow at all.
According to the State of Maine, on March 5, 1873, six people lived in the one-and-one-half-story red cottage on Smuttynose, and there were no other inhabitants on the entire island that winter. John and Maren Hontvedt had come in 1868. Karen, Maren’s sister, and Matthew, John’s brother, had each come separately in 1871. Karen almost immediately entered service at the Laighton’s Hotel on Appledore Island, while Matthew joined John on the Clara Bella, the latter’s fishing schooner. Evan, Maren’s brother, and his wife, Anethe, had arrived on the island in October of 1872, five months before the murders.
At daybreak on March 5, Matthew, Evan, and John left Smuttynose and sailed northeast in the schooner to draw their trawls.
The Ingerbretson men from Appledore joined them in their own schooner. The plan for the day was to fish in the morning, return for lunch, and then head for Portsmouth to sell their catch and purchase bait. But just before noon, an unexpected and swift-rising wind prevented them from making an easy sail home to