Catch the Wind: My Journey with Caroline

The compass needle steadies in my palm, pointing right back at me again. I take a deep breath, let the familiar dizziness wash over me, and close my eyes.

When I open them, Lake Ontario is there to greet me again, and Caroline is still standing nearby. She offers to leave, worried she’s interrupted something, but I ask her to stay and explain I was only sorting through my thoughts.

She tells me she comes here to think, too, since the lake calms her down. I get it completely, even though the pond behind my house isn’t anything like this. Lake Ontario is so enormous it makes my heart race.

Caroline’s gaze lands on the compass, and she asks about it. I hold it out into the sunlight, and she gasps, tears welling in her eyes as she says her papa owns one just like it.

I ask what happened to him. Caroline explains that she and her papa sailed out two months ago on a brand new ship for a trial run. War had already been declared, though the news hadn’t reached Sackets Harbor yet, and the British came aboard their sloop and took him prisoner. He’s now held somewhere across the lake in Upper Canada, thirty miles away in British territory.

I hadn’t known Britain held colonies in Canada, too.

Caroline wipes her eyes and wonders aloud whether the compass belongs to my father, guessing he might be one of the many navy men who’ve flooded into town. I mumble something vague about a family heirloom, not sure how else to explain where I actually come from. I tell her it’s hard to have a parent in the navy. She must understand.

Then Caroline stops me. Her papa isn’t navy at all, but a shipbuilder. I marvel at the idea that a person could build an entire ship from scratch.

Caroline points out that I’ll need money and obviously can’t bunk at the navy barracks, so she asks if I’ve thought about finding work in the village. I admit I have no idea what to do next. Her face brightens, and she claps her hands, about to suggest I stay with her family, when a thunderous boom cuts her off. Another rolls across the harbor right behind it.

Caroline’s hand finds mine the instant after the boom sounds, and she gasps that it’s cannon fire before pulling me into a dead run.

A long skirt makes running far harder than shorts ever did, though at least sandals aren’t tripping me up. The shoreline ahead curves into a harbor crowded with buildings and wooden boats. Rowboats bob beneath tall-masted ships that dwarf the rooftops around them. One ship is already easing out toward open water, and I can’t stop picturing a cannonball tearing straight through a hull made of nothing sturdier than wood. Mom’s navy ship would make these look like toys.

We run into a yard where workers are hauling massive logs off a cart pulled by a long-horned animal. It’s not a cow, so maybe it’s an ox. A sign by the street spells out “Abbott’s,” and it clicks: this has to be Caroline’s family shipyard.

A large white-haired man breaks from the group and comes striding toward us. It’s Mr. Tate, the shipyard’s head carpenter, standing in while Caroline’s papa is away. Still catching her breath, Caroline asks whether anyone’s spotted enemy ships. Mr. Tate reassures her it was only the gunners practicing, though the same signal guns will fire in earnest once the British actually show up. Somehow that answer scares me more than the cannon fire itself did. A shout goes up near the oxcart before he can say anything else to me. A few of the huge logs crash to the ground, and Mr. Tate rushes off to see what’s happened.

Instead, Caroline steers me toward a small building inside the yard, explaining that her mother runs things now that Papa’s gone. Shelves crowded with books and ship drawings line the walls inside, and a woman sits on a stool dipping a quill into a pot of black liquid, entering figures into a thick leather ledger.

Caroline’s mother’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise when Caroline introduces me. I manage a small curtsy and give my name, and Caroline adds that I just got to Sackets Harbor and might stay with them a day or two. Sweat is already running down my face from the heat as I offer to help with chores. Mrs. Abbott notices how flushed I look and asks if I’m all right. I tell her I’m only a little warm. She points me toward a water barrel outside where a dipper hangs ready for a drink.

Right as I reach the door, I catch Mrs. Abbott asking Caroline, quietly, what she actually knows about me. Mom would scold me for eavesdropping, but I linger anyway, curious to hear the answer.