Brave New Worlds

Leaving?"
    "Leaving. " Snatching up the preserved flower, he dangles it before his wife. "Leaving. . . "

    ". . . and of the Son," says Connie, raising the sputtering infant from the water, "and of the Holy Ghost. "
    Merribell Dunfey screeches and squirms. She's slippery as a bar of soap. Connie manages to wrap her in a dish towel and shove her into Valerie's arms.
    "Let me tell you who you are," she says.
    "Father Cornelius Dennis Monaghan of Charlestown Parish. "
    "You're a tired and bewildered pilgrim, Father. You're a weary wayfarer like myself. "
    Dribbling milk, Angela Dunfey staggers into the kitchen. Seeing her priest, she recoils. Her mouth flies open, and a howl rushes out, a cry such as Connie imagines the damned spew forth while rotating on the spits of Perdition. "Not her too! Not Merribell! No!"
    "Your baby's all right," says Valerie.
    Connie clasps his hands together, fingers knotted in agony and supplication. He stoops. His knees hit the floor, crashing against the fractured linoleum. "Please," he groans.
    Angela plucks Merribell from Valerie and affixes the squalling baby to her nipple. "Oh, Merribell, Merribell. . . "
    "Please. " Connie's voice is hoarse and jagged, as if he's been shot in the larynx. "Please. . . please," he beseeches. Tears roll from his eyes, tickling his cheeks as they fall.
    "It's not her job to absolve you," says Valerie.
    Connie snuffles the mucus back into his nose. "I know. "
    "The boat leaves tomorrow. "
    "Boat?" Connie runs his sleeve across his face, blotting his tears.
    "A rescue vessel," his parishioner explains. Sliding her hands beneath his armpits, she raises him inch by inch to his feet. "Rather like Noah's Ark. "

    "Mommy, I want to go home. "
    "Tell that to your stepfather. "
    "It's cold. "
    "I know, sweetheart. "
    "And dark. "
    "Try to be patient. "
    "Mommy, my stomach hurts. "
    "I'm sorry. "
    "My head too. "
    "You want an aspirin?"
    "I want to go home. "
    Is this a mistake? wonders Stephen. Shouldn't they should all be in bed right now instead of tromping around in this nocturnal mist, risking flu and possibly pneumonia? And yet he has faith. Somewhere in the labyrinthine reaches of the Hoosac Docks, amid the tang of salt air and the stink of rotting cod, a ship awaits.
    Guiding his wife and stepchildren down Pier 7, he studies the possibilities—the scows and barges, the tugs and trawlers, the reefers and bulk carriers. Gulls and gannets hover above the wharfs, squawking their chronic disapproval of the world. Across the channel, lit by a sodium-vapor searchlight, the U. S. Constitution bobs in her customary berth beside Charlestown Navy Yard.
    "What're we doing here, anyway?" asks Beatrice.
    "Your stepfather gets these notions in his head. " Kate presses the baby tight against her chest, shielding him from the sea breeze.
    "What's the name of the boat?" asks Roger.
    " Mayflower ," answers Stephen.
    Epigaea repens , trailing arbutus, mayflower.
    "How do you spell it?" Roger demands.
    "M-a-y. . . "
    ". . . f-l-o-w-e-r?"
    "Good job, Roger," says Stephen.
    "I read it," the boy explains indignantly, pointing straight ahead with the collective fingers of his right mitten.
    Fifty yards away, moored between an oil tanker and a bait shack, a battered freighter rides the incoming tide. Her stern displays a single word, Mayflower , a name that to the inhabitants of Boston Isle means far more than the sum of its letters.
    "Now can we go home?" asks Roger.
    "No," says Stephen. He has taught the story countless times. The Separatists' departure from England for Virginia. . . Their hazardous voyage. . . Their unplanned landing on Plymouth Rock. . . The signing of the covenant whereby the non-Separatists on board agreed to obey whatever rules the Separatists imposed. " Now we can go on a nice long voyage. "
    "On That thing?" asks Willy.
    "You're not serious," says Laura.
    "Not me," says Claude.
    "Forget it," says Yolanda.
    "Sayonara," says Tommy.
    "I think I'm going to throw up," says Beatrice.
    "It's not your decision," Stephen tells his stepchildren. He stares at the ship's hull, blotched with rust, blistered with decay, another victim of the Deluge. A passenger whom he recognizes as his neighbor Michael Hines leans out a porthole like a prairie dog peering from its burrow. "Until further notice, I make all the rules. "
    Half by entreaty, half by coercion, he leads his disgruntled family up the gangplank and onto the quarterdeck, where a squat man in an orange raincoat