Hannah stepped out of the nimbus of light surrounding the revelers, but she didn’t feel ready to go home. Instead, she wandered down Main in the deepening twilight until she reached the wharves. Not a trace remained of the bobbing skeletons that had haunted the waters for weeks after the fire, dispersing in bits and washing up as far as Amagansett and Penobscot. A few of the destroyed whaleships had been rebuilt: the
Peregrine
, the
Centennial
, and the
Wauwinet
were moored off the bar, their shiny copper sheathing and fresh-hewn masts waiting for orders. Hannah wondered if they’d get their crews in New Bedford, which had more shipyards and a deeper mooring, not to mention employable men.
Hannah circled back through the narrow streets, feeling like a hungry animal in search of prey. Each familiar quadrant had been reconfigured: corners in perpetual shadow had become bright as day; the frameworks for new wooden buildings popped bright as wildflowers from the grey paving stones. Without her even realizing where she was going, her feet carried her to the corner of Pearl and Federal.
The new Atheneum squatted in the footprint of the old like a gleaming white monolith. It was two stories high, a neoclassical structure with two enormous Ionic columns soaring like guardians to the peaked portico. She wondered what it looked like inside. Was the philosophy section still tucked into the north corner? Did the light at the day’s end still slant across the floorboards like an ancient sundial?
Hannah’s exclusion from the rebuilding had been complete. She hadn’t been invited to be part of the planning process or the soliciting of new books; the Trustees had answered her written offer of assistance with a note befitting an illiterate stranger:
We are grateful for thy offer but thy assistance is not needed at this time.
All at once, Hannah fiercely missed the life she’d led before. Before the fire, before her disownment—before Isaac came, before Edward left. Her days had once ebbed and flowed with readers and questions, anchored by her sturdy desk, her tiny wooden girl amid her cabinet of wonders. All of it had gone up in flames.
The conversation she’d had with Edward so many years earlier, on the hill where they’d gazed down on their Town, returned to her again:
Bone and gold
.
Is that how we shall be remembered?
Hannah turned back toward India Street, her shoulders hunched, heavy with loss. A last sweep of these familiar stars; then she would say good-bye.
y the time she got home from the lighting ceremony and up to the roof, night had fallen. The air was searing cold, but the sky spread above Hannah like a giant velvet wing speckled with stars. She pulled on her mittens and bent over her log. As she flipped through, she caught glimpses of her own entries from the past months:
4 mo 9—a Pleiades occultation . . . waning moon already within the constellation as it rose . . . spotted Alcyone and Taygeta along her dark limb. Just before dawn swept from the far western side of the constellation clear across. No wanderers sighted.
22 mo 11—Swept all around Aquarius, which is yet dim but contained between Pisces and Formalhaut, just above the horizon to the South. No wanderers sighted.
16 mo 1—Cygnus reveals nothing new, though a bit of cloudiness did catch my eye a few degrees southeast of Deneb, stretching toward Albireo. No wanderers sighted.
30 mo 2— . . . nebulosity has resolved, nothing unusual. No wanderers sighted.
She’d worked her way around to Polaris, the Pole Star.
Back to the beginning,
she thought. An echo of her first rooftop lecture to Isaac drifted into her head:
Imagine that you’re holding an enormous parasol, the tip of which ends at Polaris.
She fastened the telescope into place and readied her chronometer. Before she looked, Hannah filled her lungs with cool air, hoping to clear her mind. Then she leaned in to the eyepiece.
The spread of stars above her was as soothing as a lullaby. Instead of scrutinizing the quadrant of stars in front of her lens, Hannah allowed herself a moment to appreciate the array. What an architect of great imagination was their Creator. She was overwhelmed by gratitude for the beauty of the Heavens. Even if she couldn’t observe much in Philadelphia, at least she’d been given the gift of these years to explore the realm of fixed stars and wanderers, elusive as they might be, the nebulae in their veiled mystery. Sighing with pleasure, she readied her mind for sweeping, and focused on Polaris.
It was the first thing she saw: directly in front of her lens, a few degrees northeast of the Pole Star, a small, nebulous body occupied a space that had been empty the night before, and every night as far as she could recall. No star resided in that spot: she knew it as well as she knew the number of fingers on her own hand.
Hannah stared at the body for three full minutes, withdrawing her gaze only long enough to scribble an entry in the open logbook in her lap:
A cloud drifted over the body in question. Hannah bolted across the walk and down the steps, then stopped short, confronted by an army of crates. Where had she packed
Celestial Objects
?
She pried the lid off one crate, than another, rifling through hay and crumpled newspaper, feeling with her fingers for the peculiar heft of the volume, the telltale crack in its spine. In the third box, her fingers curled around it, and she drew it out and paged through, her mind hopping from one possibility to another.
A new nebula, a portion of an old nebula, some other object well- known to the astronomical community but not to her? Hannah checked the maps and charts, confirming her first thought: there was no star logged in that position. Standing upright in the garret, the book cradled in her arms, her skin seemed to vibrate. She felt as awake as she’d ever been in her life.
Hannah raced back up the stairs and looked for the object again, finding it easily: a faint smudge on the dark palette of the sky. The longer she stared at it, the more she doubted. How could it be a comet, in such an obvious spot? Someone would have sighted it easily before now. It had to be a nebula, one she hadn’t heard of. Yet . . . she studied the tiny blur again. It almost appeared to have a bright center, as would a comet or something with a comet’s properties.
Hannah stared at the object until her eyes blurred, and then she gathered her skirts in her hand and leapt down the garret steps two at a time, slowing herself to a dignified pace before she stopped in front of her father’s door. She counted to three, to calm herself, then knocked on the door as gently as she could.
“Hannah?” Her father opened the door in his dressing gown and nightcap. Hannah could see papers laid out upon the bed.
“I’m sorry to interrupt. I’ve seen something—I’m not sure what it is. I thought perhaps you could have a look.”
“What does thee think it is?” His gaze was indulgent, tender. “I’m not sure. It’s likely a nebula, but not one I’ve seen before.” “Has thee consulted the catalogues?”
Hannah raised her eyebrows.
“Of course thee has. All right, give me a moment. If you think it’s important, I’ll come and look.”
Hannah whirled around and pounded back up to the walk. Five agonizing minutes passed before Nathaniel was beside her, peering through the Dollond. During that time, her mind danced among explanations, but landed each time upon the same conclusion. A current of excitement began to buzz in her chest and pound in her throat like a chemical reaction. But she would not let it spread until she knew for sure.
“You say there’s nothing recorded for this region?” Her father squinted at the lens.
“Not by Admiral Smyth. But our copy of
Celestial Objects
is two years old.”
Hannah hopped from one foot to the other while he observed the object.
“It certainly could have some cometary properties,” he finally said.
“I thought so, too!” Hannah yelped. She was standing so close behind him that when he rose, he almost knocked her over. “I distinctly saw a bright nucleus.”
“Hannah,” her father said, his voice gentle, but firm. “I’m sure you realize it’s highly unlikely that if it is a comet, in such a location, that it’s as yet undiscovered.”
“I know. I know that.” Panting a little, leaning into the eyepiece, she studied the tiny blur. “It’s most likely a nebula.”
“You can write to William in the morning if you like. Though you might want to wait and observe it again, to see if it changes position.”
“But when will I do that? If we’re to leave tomorrow, I mean.”
Father and daughter stared at each other. When Hannah spoke, her words fell like wet snow, thick enough to stick.
“I should stay.”
“Hannah.”
“I know what you’re going to say. But I have to know. The last time I found a comet—”
“The last time?” He looked at her as if she had said she’d sprouted wings once and flown to Trinidad.
“Yes. The comet Monsieur Rainault has earned priority for? You remember?”
“I read on the discovery.”
“I saw it earlier. I saw it and I didn’t report it, because I thought I might be mistaken. I doubted myself.” She began to pace the walk.
“But why, Hannah? If thee thought thee’d seen a comet, why didn’t thee give notice?”
She shook her head and wrapped her arms around her body.
“No one expected me to see anything. So I stopped expecting to. And then, when I did, I didn’t trust myself.” Hannah raised her chin, though her hands were shaking. “I won’t do it again. I’ll write to George right now and post it in the morning, and if what I’ve seen is nothing, I’ll join thee in Philadelphia in a week’s time. But I will not leave until I know for sure whether it’s something or nothing. I cannot.”
Hannah stared into her father’s familiar eyes. Her pulse was a drum corps in her ears, and her nose was running. She felt terrified but strong, as if she were swimming for her life.
He sighed, as if to fortify himself.
“As thee wishes,” he said. “I only hope that thee is not disappointed. Again.”
Forgive the shortness of this letter and my poor handwriting, but I am writing this very late and with the last of my candle. I observed something this evening that has some cometary properties. See attached for exact RA and location, &c., and a sketch. I won’t lie and say I shan’t be severely disappointed if it turns out to be a nebula; but of course I will chart its actions again tomorrow, weather permitting.
Please advise at your earliest convenience whether you have knowledge of any object in the night sky at this location and what it looks like through your instruments.
Father removes for Philadelphia today but I have refused to join pending resolution of this matter (no pun intended!). Thus I await your reply anxiously and hope that you will not make me wait among my boxes for too long.
After Hannah had sealed the envelope, she remained at her desk, as energized as if she’d just woken from the best night’s sleep of her life. Yet she wasn’t satisfied by the letter to George, or her father’s reluctant approval of her plan to wait on Nantucket for her priority to be validated or refuted.
I have done it
is what she needed to say.
I believe it in my heart, though I cannot yet prove it.
There was only one person to whom she would utter such a thought, and that was Isaac Martin. Hannah slid her observing log along the desk until it was in front of her, then pulled out the page from the back that still held the two words she’d committed to it months earlier, and smoothed it down on the table before her. Then she picked up her quill.
I am in hopes that this letter finds you well, and in fair winds, if it finds you at all. And that if it does, you will read it through to the end, and not tear it into pieces and toss it into the sea.
You may have heard about the fire here on Nantucket that devastated our Town. It was exceedingly bad. The Atheneum burned to the ground, along with 1/3 of everything else. Much of it has been rebuilt but the wharves did burn, along with whatever portion of the fleet was docked, and while commerce continues everyone knows it will never be what it once was. Perhaps the Pearl will next sail from New Bedford, or Boston, and never again be floated into our Bay, which may not matter to you. But the idea of our Town reduced to a quaint haven for sea-goers saddens me.
Next: I believe I have found a Comet. I only just saw it tonight; it may have been seen by someone else in the United States or in Europe. For all I know, you may have seen it, too, as you gazed at the night sky where you are. If it does turn out that not a single observer at home or abroad did see “my” comet before me, then I may be eligible for the King of Denmark’s prize, which comes with enough currency to fund this and at least another year of modest living—and of course I know of no other kind.
While I await word, I have resolved that I shall not leave the Island, and if it takes longer than my Father will support, I shall subsist on pebbles and potatoes. I can teach, or tutor, or both; I’m thinking about starting a school of my own. Though I’m not sure many of Nantucket’s families would entrust their children to me.
Finally, and there is no news in this, I wish to offer what I have not, until this point, been able to articulate in a letter, and barely to myself, which is my profound apologies for the way I behaved when we last met. I know that I wounded you. I did not write of it sooner because I was—and am—confounded by my feelings. I have no experience with these matters. Yet it is no excuse. I foundered when it was most important.
Now I must be direct. I have not stopped thinking of you; yet I cannot imagine anywhere that such thinking can lead. It is unproductive, at best, and distracting, at worst. Yet I cannot seem to stop, in spite of all my industry. I fear that you despise me. Or worse, that you pity me. I would understand either.
I write to ask your forgiveness, and in hopes that I may remain, Your friend,
Hannah Gardner Price