The young woman pushed through a crowd on the Galway docks. For a girl raised in a tiny Cornish village, the crowds were terrifying and huge.
Her dirty blond hair was scraggly, falling out of it's careful updo. Her rosy, freckled cheeks were obscured by a week's worth of soot and grime, and her clothes hung in loose, tattered folds around her body. One of her hands, scarred from the hard chemicals she had used to clean earlier that day, clung to a little girl, while the girl's twin, a boy, gripped her faded skirt. The other clutched desperately to three tickets to America that read the ship's name -the Farraige Domhain- and the date- 9th April, 1875. Everything about Maggie screamed poverty and desolation but her eyes. Her deep, chocolate- colored eyes still glimmered with just the tiniest sliver of hope. Hope for a brighter future. Hope that someday her children would have enough to eat, and that she'd never have to worry about being alone in the cruel world. She hoped, with all her heart, that she could find them. They were Maggie's only hope, her only chance.
For several long years she had searched, since her children were born. Her trips around the world had made her look far older than her twenty- three years. She searched, tirelessly, every day of her life, for her dead husband's family. For the aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents of her children. For her parents-, brothers-, and sisters- in law, for her nieces and nephews, for family. For home. Maggie searched for a place to belong, for people who would care for her and her twins.
She searched for the family of Kenneth MacEilan.
*****
"Anne!"
The cry came from Emma as she stood high on the hill, her skirt billowing in the cold wind. Her knitted shawl threatened to fly from her shoulders, and she clutched it tightly with one hand. The other hand tried valiantly to keep her fiery hair from escaping its careful braid. "Anne, I mean it! 'Tis time for dinner!"
Anne sighed, standing up. "For heaven's sake, Emma, won't you let me finish the chores?"
She trudged up the hill. Emma took the full milk pail from her.
"You've been at your chores for half an hour." she reprimanded.
"'Twas a long day at school!" protested Anne as they walked inside the house. "Examinations are comin' up and I've only been there a month."
Emma started to skim the milk as Anne wearily sank into a kitchen chair. Mary hummed the familiar tune of Loch Lomond,  but when she reached the "afore ye" her voice screeched out of tune so horribly that everyone winced. Her cheeks flushed a bit. "Sorry," she apologized quickly.
The cottage fell silent as the chores continued. Emma and Mary finished the dishes from dinner. Anne sat skimming the milk, and the three Jones girls finished their final studying.
"Anne?" asked the oldest of the three wards.
"Yes, Lizzie?"
"When did my pa say he'd be back for us?"
The questioned stunned Anne. "He- well, he didn't say."
The girl's face fell. "Will he?"
Anne couldn't speak. Her mind thought to the day than Mr. Jones had pleaded to Mary to take his three daughters. He had seemed so nice.
But then again, to most of Galway, so had James MacEilan.
*****
"Mother?" asked Emma, tugging on her mother's skirt. "Mother, when will Father be with us?"
A cold wind blew off the ocean, and Meav  wrapped the blanket tighter around baby Adalyn. The family stood on the deck of the Sharon, rocking with the ship. All of Galway was visible from the docks where they waited, waited for James. He had promised them. He had promised Meav that he would be there and go to America with them. He had promised!
"Why isn't he here?" cried Emma, but her wails fell on near- deaf ears.
"I don' know, lass," whispered Meav after a long, painful moment of utter silence.
Anne buried her face in Iain's shoulder. Her older brother held back tears of his own as he clutched her to him.
"All aboard!" bawled a deck hand, and after a moment the ship lurched away from the docks.
Meav stared, as if in a trance, as they went into the wide ocean.
A faint cry came through the chatter of the ship. "Meav!"
Her head perked up, watching a man with red hair run through the waving crowd frantically. "Meav!" he cried again. "MEAV!"
"James!" she cried, almost throwing herself into the churning green waves below.
"Meav, I-"
His voice was lost as they left the port. "James," sobbed Meav quietly. "Oh, James."
Mary went to her mother, her face hardened. "Mother, he's been gone a long time," she told her. The hate was evident in her voice. "Remember Molly? He kissed her in front o' you." Although only in her early teens, Mary suddenly seemed much older than she was. "That's unforgivable."
Anne looked up tearfully. She was ten, old enough to understand that her father was gone, but still not understanding why.
"I suppose it is," sighed Meav. She sat on the rocking deck. They were out of the docks now, but the green hills of Ireland still encased them on three sides.
All of the MacEilans looked back at their homeland.  All of them knew that this was the last glimpse they'd ever have of the Emerald Isle, and it soon faded, its rocky, craggy cliffs and emerald hills fading into the February mist as the Sharon sailed into the choppy sea.
The MacEilans headed forward to a new land- a land of promise, of opportunity. They left behind a father, a house, a city full of history and friends. They left the graves of two brothers and the memories of another.
But the broken family looked forward, into the vast grey horizon, looking westward, waiting, praying, that America would treat them better than Ireland had.
Hey guys!
So very sorry this update took longer than usual. I was in the school play (which just ended) and rehearsals went until 6 pm every night, then I had so much homework. But I'm making excuses.
I really threw a curveball with Maggie, didn't I? There is so much planned for her. It works out. If you've paid close attention to last chapter's Kenneth excerpt, you have a hint to this mess.
Will Mr. Jones come back for his daughters? Or will he be the next James MacEilan?
Have a wonderful day! Until next update, then! Remember to vote and comment if you feel so inclined.
~Megan