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chest, and the lion gives way for now. Before he’s off to sleep again, he makes sure to brush his sleeve across his mouth and teeth several times, to remove any green marks that might be left behind. Back home the people with green mouths and teeth were never very long for this world, and he doesn’t want to give Mam and Aunt Em a scare when they wake in the mornin’.
    He’s up again not long after first light, and as he sits up, he notices that the small pile of books has grown by one during the night. Milton’s
Paradise Lost
sits on top of the other two, and Ethan picks it up and brushes his hand across the cover and can’t help but smile.
    Aunt Em went an’ found it last night, Mam whispers. She left right after ya fell asleep an’ walked back an’ found it.
    Ethan feels a wave of gratitude toward his Aunt, and both he and his Mam look over at her and smile with closed mouths and heads that shake slightly side to side with a sense of reverence toward her for havin’ walked two extra miles in the dark just to retrieve the book. But then Aunt Emily rolls slightly to her back and lets out a gargled snore, and it’s all they can do to keep from laughin’ so hard they wake her up. And still, it’s a moment to be treasured between Ethan and his Mam, like they’re
both
aware there won’t be many more of them anytime soon.
    They make Newry with an hour to spare, and by the time they board the ferryboat, their bellies’ve been relieved with a little fish and potatoes, and bread with just enough butter to remind them of better days. The crowd on the boat to Liverpool sits silently along the deck, shoulders hunched, faces gaunt, their hair disheveled, their clothes torn and dirty. Some of them’re glad to leave, but others mourn like they’ve lost a loved one. When the boat pulls away from shore, some look backand begin to cry and a few even muster up the strength to join in an old song Ethan’d once heard Mr. Hanratty sing, about a man who’s sent off to Australia for stealin’ some food. As the Irish coast begins to disappear from view two hours later, Ethan stares back at the brown mass in the distance. He’s always found it strange to hear men like Mr. Hanratty describe Ireland as
she
or
her
and not
it
, but at that moment of final goodbyes, he understands better and grows sad at the thought of never seein’ her again.
    Liverpool is another matter altogether, and when they set foot off the ferryboat, he can’t imagine that anyone would ever look back at this place and grow sad at the idea of leaving. With its tall factory smokestacks spitting forth endless clouds of black coal dust until everything—the buildings, the streets, the people, even the sky—takes on a shade of dark gray, it’s clear to Ethan that Liverpool’s the kind of place that’ll always be an
it
, never a
she
.
    Of course, there’s not a bit of time once they land since it turns out there’s a ship leaving for New York that very mornin’. Aunt Em rushes off to buy the ticket for Ethan while Mam looks over the people standing in line waiting to board the
Lord Sussex
. She strikes up a conversation with one woman, but Ethan doesn’t pay any attention to it, busy as he is lookin’ over the ship and watching the men roll great wooden barrels up a gangway into the side of the vessel. And then there’s Mam introducing Ethan to this one woman named Mrs. Quigley and her husband, who Mam says have promised to look out for him. Ethan’s angry with his Mam for thinkin’ he needed anyone to look out for him, when here’s himself having been the man of the house for more than two years now.
    Sure ain’t he the spittin’ image o’ Seamus, Mrs. Quigley says, and then her husband puts his arm around her shoulder long enough for a single squeeze. We lost our boy to the fever just this winter past …
    And her voice trails off like so many voices from back home would when they talked about such things. Mrs. Quigley looks far too old to