فصل 95

emilia

As the hours passed, I felt increasingly nauseated. Joana said it was too cold and windy to take air on the top deck. Instead, she wrapped cold towels around my feet. It helped. Others were more seasick than I was. The baby slept, unbothered. After bouncing for months on the run, the sway of the sea soothed like a lullaby.

I hadn’t planned for this. I was certain the birthing would kill both of us, just as it had Mama. Yet somehow, after five cruel winters of war, I was still alive. I adjusted the baby in my arms. What was happening? Could I have been wrong about the sign?

I had received the sign six years ago. It was Saint John’s Night, the longest day of the year. Mama loved Saint John’s celebration—a night of bonfires, singing, and dancing. The tradition called for girls to make wreaths of flowers and candles. At dark, they would light the candles and send their wreaths floating down the river. Legend said that the boy who retrieved your wreath downstream was the boy you would marry. The year Mama died, the older girls let me make a wreath of flowers and candles with them. I chose all of Mama’s favorites—hibiscus, roses, poppies, and dried herbs.

After setting the wreaths to water, the girls danced around the bonfire. I decided to follow my pretty wreath. I padded barefoot in the grass along the river, watching the flowers and candles turning slowly in the water. I walked quite far. My wreath suddenly bounced, catching on something beneath the surface. It stopped in the center of the river. One of the candles tipped onto the flowers. The herbs caught on fire.

I sat in the grass and watched my wreath burn and sink, quietly sealing my fate.

I had expected everything to end. But now, I began to think that maybe the sign had been wrong. I had fought so hard and overcome so much. Something changed when the knight arrived. Maybe he truly saved me, had pulled my burning wreath from the water. After all, in Poland, Saint Florian was fighter of fire.

For the first time in years, people cared for me. Protected me. I looked down at Halinka. I could actually feel her. She was mine. I was hers. Her perfect cheeks and fingers were pink, just like my hat. What the knight said was true. She was part of me, my family, and Poland.

I had to consider the possibility.

Maybe the storm was finally behind me.