The Map of Stars Read online

  DEDICATION

  To the ladies of the LSG, superheroes all

  MAP

  EPIGRAPH

  In my end is my beginning.

  —MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Map

  Epigraph

  Peck’s Slip, Manhattan: Winter Solstice, 1798

  New York City: Present Day

  Chapter One: Tess

  Chapter Two: Theo

  Chapter Three: Jaime

  Chapter Four: Merry

  Chapter Five: Tess

  Chapter Six: Theo

  Chapter Seven: Jaime

  Chapter Eight: Cricket

  Chapter Nine: Tess

  Chapter Ten: Theo

  Chapter Eleven: Jaime

  Chapter Twelve: Karl

  Chapter Thirteen: Tess

  Chapter Fourteen: Theo

  Chapter Fifteen: Jaime

  Chapter Sixteen: Imogen Sparks

  Chapter Seventeen: Tess

  Chapter Eighteen: Theo

  Chapter Nineteen: Jaime

  Chapter Twenty: Darnell

  Chapter Twenty-One: Tess

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Theo

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Jaime

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Ava

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Tess

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Theo

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Jaime

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: September 6, 2025

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Tess

  Chapter Thirty: Theo

  Chapter Thirty-One: Jaime

  Chapter Thirty-Two: August 18, 2041

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Tess

  Chapter Thirty-Four: Theo

  Chapter Thirty-Five: Jaime

  Chapter Thirty-Six: Tess

  Chapter Thirty-Seven: Theo

  New York City: December 3, 1855

  New York City: May 10, 2114

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Laura Ruby

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Peck’s Slip, Manhattan

  Winter Solstice, 1798

  Even hundreds of years ago, New York City was the stuff of legend. People came from all around the world to escape their lots, to find their peace, to seek their fortunes. The streets are paved with gold, some whispered as they huddled in the bellies of ships, shivering from the cold and damp. There is honest work for honest folk, said others, their stomachs rumbling, their mouths dry with thirst, praying over meager meals of moldy bread crusts. There are treasures ripe for the taking, still others said, tongues thick with too much beer, rubbing their dirty hands together in their eagerness to rob anyone with anything worth stealing.

  Every day, ships from all over the world crammed the East River docks, disgorging their thin and weary passengers into the hum and buzz of the city beyond. From the cargo holds, deckhands unloaded bales of cotton and wool; barrels of rice, flour, and salt; chests of tea; puncheons of rum; and pipes of wine. From the counting houses, brandy-gulping merchants came to inspect the goods and ordered the hands to bring the boxes, barrels, and chests through the teeming crowds of people so that the bounty could be properly totaled and celebrated with ever more drink.

  On this December night, darkness fell early—it was the solstice, after all. That did not mean the work ended early, however. Myles White toiled along with the rest of the hands on the deck of the Aurora, unloading the sugar, molasses, and coffee they had hauled all the way up from the West Indies, goods that would go for a pretty price in this city. But it had not been a pretty trip, not for Myles White. He had seen things on those faraway islands he wished to forget, to scrub from his mind, things that had haunted his dreams and whittled him nearly as thin as some of the hungry and homeless newcomers milling around the docks. Myles would not speak of what he’d seen in the Indies, or what he’d done. First because there was no one for him to tell, and second because he did not trust himself not to reveal his other secrets.

  Like many who traveled the ships that clogged the East River, Myles White had plenty of secrets.

  Once the goods had been hauled away by the merchants, Myles got to work on the deck, sweeping and swabbing. No one had to order him to do it. He had learned long ago that the best way to prevent questions on such a ship was to work harder and faster than anyone else, to do the job before you were asked, and to do it so well that no one could find fault. He might be only a swabbie, but he was determined to be the best swabbie the Aurora ever had.

  Even so, he could feel the eyes of Mr. Jasper, the boatswain, before the man spoke, could smell the drink and sweat wafting downwind.

  “You there,” said Mr. Jasper. “Swabbie!”

  Myles turned. “Yes, sir?”

  “When you’re done with that deck, double-check that all the goods are out of the holds.”

  “Yes, sir,” Myles said. “Of course, sir.”

  Mr. Jasper scowled, and took a long pull from a brown bottle. “You’re that boy,” he said.

  Fear prickled Myles’s skin like spray from an icy, roiling sea. “Sir?” he said, trying to keep his voice even.

  “That boy who . . .” He swayed and had to grip the rigging to keep from falling over. “The one who . . .”

  “Yes, sir?” Myles said again.

  Mr. Jasper squinted hard at Myles, then made a noise at the back of his throat like one of the dock cats hacking up something disagreeable. “Ach, I don’t care who you are. Swab that deck and then check the holds are clear before you take your leave. And be back by dawn or we sail without you. Any boy could take your place, mark my words.”

  No boy could take his place. Myles almost laughed, but coughed instead. “Yes, sir.”

  Mr. Jasper stumbled away, tripping and falling onto the dock before crawling off to one of the pubs.

  Myles continued to work, the exercise keeping him warm in the chill darkness, and keeping his thoughts from more unpleasant things.

  That is, until he heard the thump.

  He stopped swabbing, tipping his head toward the noise. And there it was again: thump, thump. From somewhere below.

  As far as Myles knew, Mr. Jasper had been the last of the sailors to leave the ship. So who, or what, could be making that noise?

  He leaned his mop against the rigging, lit a lantern, and proceeded to check the whole of the quarter deck, the gun deck, the middle deck, and the lower deck. All were clear. By the time he reached the hold, in the deepest part of the ship, his lantern barely cut through the blackness. The Aurora rolled gently with the movement of the sea, but down here, the undulation felt more ominous, the boards creaking all around him. Myles fumbled in his back pocket for his knife, small but deadly sharp, a knife that had kept many a bored and drunken sailor from beating Myles for sport. With the knife in one hand and the lantern in the other, he crept through the freezing dark and soon came to the cabin of the carpenter. The carpenter lived down here because of the easy access to the hold, but also because he was a mean old man who hated everyone except for the rats, some of which he gave jolly names like Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift. Maybe the carpenter hadn’t left for the evening?

  Myles pressed his ear against the cabin door. He heard faint scratching, then mumbling and whispering. As far as he knew, Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift could not speak, no matter how much the carpenter wished they would. Myles took a deep breath and then threw open the door, thrusting the knife out in front of him.

  Inside the tiny cabin, a dark-haired woman sat down abruptly on the bed, her hand trembling over her mouth. She was white, and not old, but not nearly as young as Myles. In the yellow light of Myles’s lantern, her eyes were as black as
the ocean at night, wide and dark and terrified, but also defiant, as if she were scared of the knife but also willing to meet it, whatever that meant for her.

  “Who are you?” Myles said.

  The woman licked her lips but said nothing. It was then that Myles noticed that there was someone in the bed behind her. Someone trying to stifle a cough.

  “Who is that? Were you passengers on the last voyage?” Myles repeated. “You need to get off the ship or—”

  “Or what?” the woman snapped. “Or you’ll stab me?”

  Myles had only stabbed one person in his whole life, and he’d been sure that person had deserved it. But he didn’t know if this woman did.

  He made a decision and tucked the knife away. “No. But if the carpenter or the boatswain or anyone else finds you, they’ll throw you into the sea. Or worse.”

  The woman swallowed hard, gestured to the man in the bed. “My brother is sick. We only wanted to rest a bit.”

  Indeed, the man did look sick, sweaty and pale. And the resemblance between the man and the woman was unmistakable. Maybe she was telling the truth.

  She said, “I thought everyone would be away for at least a few days.”

  “A few days?” Myles said. “We get a few hours. And the captain will be back before then to make sure no one damages his ship.”

  “Oh,” the woman said. “Right.” She wrung her hands, frowning. In addition to the man in the bed behind her, there was a trunk at her feet. Myles had no idea how she’d been able to sneak the man and the trunk onto the ship without anyone else seeing her. But he had to get her off the ship before they did.

  “Is someone meeting you on the docks?” Myles said.

  She shook her head.

  “Do you have family in the city?”

  She shook her head again.

  “Where were you going to go?” he said.

  Her hands twisted and fluttered against her long skirt. “We thought we’d figure that out once we got to the city.”

  This was going nowhere. “Where do you hail from?”

  “Too many places to count,” she said.

  Her accent was strange. German? Myles spoke a bit of the language, because it was the quartermaster’s original tongue. “Wo in Deutschland?”

  “Austria, really,” said the woman. “Where are you from?”

  “Me?” said Myles.

  “Yes, you,” she said.

  “It’s not important,” he said, too quickly.

  She lifted her chin. “Where we’re from isn’t important, either.”

  At that, he nodded. A lot of people didn’t like to talk about where they were from. “Fine. You still have to go.”

  “Yes,” she said, but she didn’t move.

  “Has your brother got the fever?”

  “Which fever?”

  “Yellow fever,” said Myles. Was she daft?

  “No! It’s just a cold or something. And he’s tired. We’re both tired.”

  “Hmmm,” Myles said. If they weren’t passengers, if they were stowaways and he was caught helping them, it was he who would be thrown into the water. But the sick man reminded him of the islands, and of the sick woman there, and of the thing that Myles had done that he could not tell anyone, not ever, for fear they’d look too closely at him.

  This woman was looking closely, though. She pressed one of her fluttery hands to her own cheek, as though feeling the lack of whiskers on Myles’s.

  Though he willed himself not to, he found himself mimicking her gesture, putting his hand to a cheek that he had disguised with soot just that morning. “I’m only fifteen,” he said.

  She wasn’t fooled. “How has no one discovered you?”

  “I’m careful,” said Myles bitterly. He had been careful, but this lady had seen through him in a few minutes.

  At this, she merely nodded. But he exploded as if she’d asked him a question, the question: Why?

  “You should know why I had to!” Myles said, his voice loud, too loud. He cleared his throat and lowered his voice. “Who would want the lot of a woman?”

  Her laugh was one of recognition, not amusement. “Who indeed?”

  “They wanted to marry me off to some poor fool like I was no more than a fattened pig. They said I didn’t have a choice. So I gave myself a chance.”

  “Right,” she murmured. “You ran away?”

  Myles nodded. He had no idea why he was telling this stranger his deepest secret, except for the strain of keeping it to himself for so long. “I stole some clothes and came to the docks. There are always jobs if you’re willing to do them. I was willing.”

  She nodded again, thoughtfully. “I’m not sure you could say I—we—were willing, but we were desperate.”

  “Well, miss,” Myles said, “I guess it’s the same thing. Why don’t we get your brother off the ship? Maybe we could find a suitable inn where you could stay.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “You’re very kind.”

  “I’m not,” Myles insisted. “I’m not kind. If we’re caught, I’ll say I found stowaways, which is the God’s honest truth. I won’t lose my position here. I can’t.”

  “All right,” she said. “What’s your name?”

  He drew himself up stiffly. “Myles.” He half expected her to ask for his other name, the name that he had buried when he’d put on these boy’s clothes and come to this ship, but she didn’t.

  “I’m glad to meet you, Myles. Will you help me get my brother out of bed?”

  Myles set the lantern down on the floor and took one of the man’s arms while the lady took the other. Together, they hauled the man upright.

  “Okay, okay,” the man mumbled. “I’m up, I’m up. You could have just asked.”

  “Ignore him,” said the woman. “He’s peevish when he first wakes up.”

  “Who’s peevish?” said the man.

  “What’s peevish?” said Myles.

  “My brother,” the woman said. “If you can take him, I’ll carry the trunk.”

  Myles shook his head. “A lady shouldn’t have to carry her own trunk.”

  “There are no ladies here,” she said. But Myles took the trunk, which was a lot heavier than it looked, and the woman draped her brother’s arm around her neck. They hobbled out of the carpenter’s cabin, and then across the length of the hold. It was slow going, but they managed to get both the man and the trunk off the ship and onto the dock without anyone paying attention.

  Once on the dock, the woman covered her nose. “What is that smell?”

  “What smell?” Myles asked. The docks and the streets beyond were littered in the usual effluvia—horse manure, soil from the chamber pots, rotting vegetables, and coffee—but it would be so much worse in the summer. He barely noticed it now that winter had gotten a stranglehold.

  “You don’t smell it?” The woman looked green in the lantern light. “I don’t know if I can do this,” she said, almost to herself.

  Her brother lifted his head from her shoulder. “You can do it. We can. We have to.”

  “Are you really from Austria?” Myles said. “What I mean is, can you speak German?”

  “Yes. A little. And . . .” She hesitated. “A bit of Yiddish, too.”

  “There’s an inn a few blocks that way where you might find a room. I’ve heard they don’t ask too many questions. And you shouldn’t say much in any case. Your accent is too strange.”

  They hobbled down the street. Once, a drunken man tried to take the trunk from Myles, but the woman hissed like an angry street cat, scaring the man off. Nobody else bothered them. Finally, they reached the inn, the Morning Star. When the woman saw the name on the sign, she laughed.

  “What?”

  “The Morning Star. I like it.”

  “Good,” said Myles, though he had no idea what she was talking about. As Myles had heard, the mountainous ruddy man at the desk didn’t ask questions of the woman except how many rooms she needed, and if she wanted food or a bath prepared.
r />   “Both, please,” she said.

  The innkeeper named a price for the room and board. The woman fished in her coat and brought out a gleaming gold coin. The innkeeper’s eyes went shifty. When the big man dropped the coin into the box below the desk without a word, Myles whispered, “That’s too much.”

  “Is it?” said the woman. “I don’t think so.”

  After the innkeeper left the desk to order a servant girl to prepare a room, the woman pressed another few coins into Myles’s palm, more money than he had ever seen at once, enough money to change his life right there and then.

  “Miss,” he said, stunned. “I can’t . . . I can’t . . .”

  “Yes, you can,” she said.

  Myles whispered, “I stabbed a man. In the West Indies. There was a girl—she was sick and couldn’t work and he kept beating her. I stabbed him and I helped her escape. I don’t know where she is now. Where she went. If she’s safe.”

  Again, he had no idea why he was telling her these things. The words felt as if they were being torn from him, ragged and bloody.

  She said, “I was right. You are kind.”

  “But the man . . .”

  “Was beating a girl. And you saved her. Wherever she is, I’m sure she is grateful. I’m grateful.” The woman closed his fingers over the money. “Take this. And perhaps if you get sick of working on a ship, you can find me. I might have a job for you, too, someday. If you’re willing.”

  “But I don’t know your name.”

  She touched his too-smooth cheek. “You will.”

  NEW YORK CITY

  Present Day

  CHAPTER ONE

  Tess

  There are people who are human whirlwinds. They move fast, they talk faster, they think even faster still. Their fingers jitter against their legs, their knees dance when they sit, their lungs heave as if they’ve been running a race. At night, when they try to sleep, their thoughts spin and jive. Sometimes happily, but mostly the thoughts knit themselves into nightmares that could make a person twist and kick, maybe even scream themselves awake.

  Tess Biedermann was such a person. A whirlwind, a worrier, a jitterer, a heaver, and a kicker. Her knees danced, her thoughts spun and knitted themselves into nightmares even when she was awake. Because of this, she never really understood the phrase “Time stood still,” because Tess herself was rarely still, always leaping to the next thing, literally and figuratively.