Until We Reach Home by Lynn Austin Page B

reply, Kirsten said, “You know, we’ve been so sheltered all of our lives. Our world was our farm and our family. A trip into the village was the most excitement we ever had. But now we’re here with all these people on this enormous ship on this vast ocean, and I can’t understand why you would want to stay in one place when there is so much to see. What are you so afraid of?”
    “I’m not afraid—”
    “You certainly act like it. And the more afraid you are of everyone and everything, the more fearless I want to be. I don’t want to be like you, Elin.”
    “Well, you don’t have to worry about that. You show no caution at all!”
    Kirsten walked back to where Elin sat on the bed. The smile that usually graced Kirsten’s pretty face was replaced with tight-lipped anger. “I don’t understand how you could act so brave when we were back home in Sweden, telling us that this was going to be a great adventure and convincing us to sail halfway around the world to start a new life—and then act so wary of everyone we meet.”
    “These people are strangers. And those boys you’re always hanging around with are bigger and stronger than you are.”
    “What difference does that make?”
    “They could take advantage of you.”
    Kirsten shook her head in disbelief. “You’re crazy!”
    Her words made Elin shudder. What if she was crazy? She had hoped that by leaving home she would find peace and safety and rest, but her fears seemed to multiply with each passing day. Sometimes she worried that she was losing her mind.
    “Why are you so suspicious of everyone?” Kirsten asked. “Who would want to go through life that way?” She turned to leave, but Elin grabbed her skirts.
    “Wait—take Sofia with you.”
    “No,” Sofia moaned. “I don’t want to get wet.”
    “Sofia, please go up with her,” Elin said, lowering her voice. “I’m worried that she’s spending so much time alone with those boys. Please? For me?”
    “What if I get sick again?”
    “Why don’t you go up and see if Kirsten is right? Maybe you’ll feel better in the fresh air.”
    “You can come, too, you know,” Kirsten told Elin.
    She shook her head. “Not this time.”
    “I don’t understand why you stay down here in this awful place all the time. In fact, I don’t understand you at all!”
    “Well, I don’t understand you, either,” Elin shot back. She sometimes wondered how she and Kirsten could be sisters—born of the same flesh and blood, raised in the same home—and yet be so different. And she didn’t understand Sofia, either, moping around like it was the end of the world. Elin recalled the way Papa had acted toward the end—sleeping a lot, refusing to eat, barely speaking to them—and saw the same behavior in Sofia. She shuddered.
    “Go on, both of you,” Elin said, shooing them away. “Come back and tell me how the weather is.”
    She watched them go, weaving between the bunks as they made their way to the stairwell. The enormous room seemed quieter than usual today with so many passengers ill. Elin had worried that the large, rambunctious family in the bunks beside her would be uncontrollable for the entire trip, but those children had all fallen ill, too. The oldest boy had been unwell since the day they’d left Liverpool, when the weather had still been sunny and the sailing smooth. But even before the ship had run into the storm, three more of his siblings had become sick, one after the other, with coughs and fevers. Now the remaining two lay sick and feverish.
    For days, as Elin had watched the woman take care of them, she’d hoped that the children had nothing worse than croup or the measles, which Elin and her sisters had already had. She wished she knew how to break through the barrier of language and help the struggling mother, but most days Elin had been too preoccupied with her own sisters to be of any help to the woman.
    Elin sighed and pulled out her diary. Writing in her journal transported