Acadian Star (6 page)
A cold fear gripped Meg and sent a shudder through her body. Was Tante Perle really going to just leave her there?
Meg sat hard upon the stone steps and buried her face in her hands.
T
HE BLACKNESS OF THE CELLAR WAS IMPENETRABLE
. Slits of light once visible through the slats of the cellar door were long gone. Tante Perle hadn't returned. Meg was trapped.
The oyster shell, the fake tears; it had all been a trick! Meg pulled the shell out of her apron pocket and felt the ridges between her fingers in the darkness.
She told me if we ever found the other half, we'd be friends
forever.
Yeah, right! Meg bet Tante Perle had just grabbed the oyster shell off the beach along with the rest of the junk in that shack of hers upstairs.
Meg strained to listen for something, anything that could tell her she was not alone. The only sound was the drone of the ocean in the distance. If Tante Perle was back in her shack, she was being quiet about it. Why had her great-aunt abandoned her like this? What could she be thinking?
I'm sure a night in the cellar will convince you.
Convince Meg of what? That Tante Perle was a raving lunatic? There was no doubt in Meg's mind about that now. And if Nève was there, she would understand why Meg had joined in with Mireille earlier. Tante Perle really was in her own imaginary world.
The closed dark space played on Meg's senses. Just when she thought she could make out her surroundings, her eyes tricked her with a blink. Her backside grew numb on the hard stone steps. She had no idea how long she'd been there already but her mom should have been by to look for her by now.
A scurrying noise scratched along the invisible floor at Meg's feet. She recoiled against the cool stone wall of the stairwell and clutched the oyster shell between her fingers. The thought of being trapped there any longer shot adrenaline through her veins. She couldn't wait a minute longer. She had to find a way out.
Her legs tingled as she straightened to stand.
Thwack!
A blow rang through Meg's skull as her head met with something solid. Red, white, and blue pinpoints of light danced in the darkness before her. She reached out to steady herself, nearly dropping the shell, desperate to stop the spinning sensation that overcame her.
The pricks of coloured light overwhelmed Meg's vision. She tried to blink the lights away as she slipped the shell back in her pocket. One by one they dissolved into the darkness, taking the dizziness along with them. But in that same moment, the air thinned and soured. Strange muffled sounds worked through Meg's senses.
Voices? Had someone come to rescue her at last?
“
Assis-toi
,” a woman's voice said in the darkness. Meg froze. She must have cracked her head harder than she thought.
“Listen to her. Sit and be quiet. Otherwise we will never get out of here.” Meg wilted at the second voice. She grabbed out into the blackness as her knees buckled. An arm braced her fall and helped her to sit on the hard floor.
“Who are you?” Meg demanded into the darkness. “How long have you been in the cellar? Did she trick you too?” Meg's voice cracked with confusion as she tried to comprehend what was happening.
“Marguerite,” said an invisible voice.
“Don't call me that!” Meg yelled. How could they tell who she was? The darkness was complete.
“You've given yourself quite a blow. We're not in a cellar, we're on a ship. Don't you remember?” a kind voice asked.
A ship?
A whirr of sensations washed over Meg. The sour odour sharpened against the back of her throat. She stifled a cough to keep from gagging. The hum of a myriad of noises rang in her ears, impossible to discern.
The blackness surrounding Meg lightened to a murky dimness. A sea of faces revealed themselves to her one by one in shadows. Meg's intestines cramped violently at the sight. The mass of people sat alongside her, thighs and shoulders touching in the airless space. The ceiling loomed overhead, a mere four feet or so from the floor.
What was this place? How did she get here?
“Let me out of here!” Meg struggled to stand. A firm grip on her arm kept her planted on the floor.
“Shhh!” The woman beside her warned. “No good comes from such foolishness. Our turn above deck is next; the fresh air will clear your head. Be patient, just a few moments more.”
Meg's ears filled with the mounting sounds of whispers, the cries of babies in mothers' arms, and the whimpering of children. Her stomach pitched and heaved as if sent adrift on the open ocean. Was that her stomach, or was it true? Were they really on a ship?
Three thuds sounded overhead. A door creaked open above.
Finally! Someone was coming to get her, Meg thought. The concert must be over, her mom must have figured out where she was. She needed to get to a hospital. Surely, she had a concussion. That would explain the hallucinations.
“Next group!” A gruff voice called out from above.
Meg was herded to a ladder and urged upwards by the people behind her. A ladder? Where were the stone stairs? Did the ladder lead right into Tante Perle's shack? Meg didn't care, if it meant getting out of this nightmare. She climbed up each rung, thankful to put the ordeal of Tante Perle's cellar behind her.
Meg's relief evaporated as she stepped over a hatch and found herself standing on the deck of a ship. The pitch of the ocean made her stomach lurch. How could this be?
Terror gripped Meg anew when three men holding old-fashioned rifles waved her group to the stern of the boat. Her chest seized at the sight of their scarlet uniforms and she laboured to draw each breath. This couldn't be happening. This wasn't real. Soon someone would wake her from this crazy dream.
Meg huddled with her group to keep warm against the chill of the evening air and twisted her head around, struggling to make sense of what she saw. Towering masts rose skyward, their cloth sails wrapped around the horizontal beams. There was no wind; just the nauseating pitch and heave of the ship as it bobbed between the waves in the twilight.
Her eyes darted around the ship, searching for an escape. She broke from the group for a moment and scanned the water. A rowboat packed with passengers edged toward them off in the distance.
“You there!” A soldier's voice thundered in Meg's ear. Her heart jumped. “Back with your group!” He pointed his rifle menacingly.
Meg stood, horrified. Hallucination or not, she did as she was told and joined the group clustered together for warmth. She welcomed the heat they offered as she moved within their ranks. Some of the women held children by the hand. They were dressed in what Meg first took to be Ãvangeline costumes, but then she noticed their tattered, dirty condition. The clothes looked amazingly authenticâ¦
“What are they going to do with us?” Meg whispered to a woman who was about her mother's age.
The woman stroked Meg's hair.
“They will take us to a new place. Our land is not our own anymore,” she said.
“They're going to steal our life's work!” another woman said.
“Don't scare her, Antoinette, she's already lost so much.” The woman's tone softened. “Marguerite, maybe your family will be on the next boat.” She pointed to the approaching rowboat.
With each stroke of the oars, the rowboat drew another length closer to their ship. My family? Meg wondered. My family is just fine back in Picasse Bay. And she would be fine too, just as soon as she could figure out a way out of there.
One of the soldiers peered over the railing. “That load better not think they're boarding here. We already have twice as many people as we were commissioned for. Captain says we'll be hauling anchor soon.” An odd English accent punctuated his words.
“Just as soon as the fires are well on their way,” said the other.
Fires? What fires? Meg wondered. As if on cue, a smoky odour wafted over her shoulder. She turned in the direction of the smell. Angry blazes lit the length of the shoreline a few hundred metres off in the distance.
“They've set our village on fire!” one of the ladies cried. The little girl at her side screamed.
Meg steadied herself against the railing. What was this place? This time?
A whistle rang in Meg's ears.
“Sound familiar?” An older woman stooped over the railing of the ship, her head covered by a shawl against the chill of evening air.
“I've heard that noise before.” Meg stood, transfixed by the sound. Water splashed below. Dolphins!
“With the dolphins come the ships.” The old woman brought her shawl away from her face. The moonlight shone on her craggy wrinkles.
“Tante Perle!” Meg screamed.
“S
ETTLE DOWN!”
one of the soldiers boomed.
“Now do I have your attention?” Tante Perle whispered.
“You had my attention when you locked me in the cellar!” Meg's voice rose despite her best efforts. The angry glare from the soldier prompted her to check her tone. “What were you thinking?” Meg whispered.
“You left me no choice,” Tante Perle answered.
Meg braced herself against the railing. Her whole body shook with anger. She struggled to even her voice to a whisper.
“Where the heck are we? This place is unreal! They have a bunch of people trapped below deck. Plus, they've set fire to the village and these guys threatened to shoot me!”
“I've taken you back to your history, Marguerite. To the time when our family was broken to pieces.”
“What history?” Meg demanded.
“What do you think?” Tante Perle waited for Meg to come to her own realization.
Meg's mind was a jumble of thoughts. She thought back to her history class. Then she remembered what Tante Perle had said about the latch on the front door of her shack keeping out the English. The clothing. The English soldiers. The ships. The people trapped below deck. The burning villages. The facts fell into place one by one. Meg shook her head in disbelief.
“The Acadian Deportation? You transported me through time to leave me to rot on this death trap?” Meg uttered the words through clenched teeth.
“You see that girl in the boat?” Tante Perle asked, ignoring Meg's question.
Just then, the rowboat approached the side of their ship. One of the soldiers waved the craft off.
“We're full! You'll need to try one of the other ships.” The soldier gestured widely to turn the boat away.
A young girl in the rowboat tilted her head up towards the ship. Her blonde hair fell in a sheet around her fine features. Meg could see the tears on her face glistening in the moonlight.
“Nève!” Meg cried. Then she turned to Tante Perle. “But Nève is back in Picasse Bay, about to move to Fort McMurray.”
“Not your Nève,” Tante Perle hissed in Meg's ear, “but this girl is also about to be separated from her family. You can change all that, and maybe even save a few other friendships in the meantime.”