Read The Movement of Stars for Free Online Page B

As Hannah watched, a bar of late afternoon light passed through the room, and he started, staring at the colors it flung upon the opposite wall like wild birds.
“It’s refraction,” Hannah said from the doorway. “My father used to experiment with prisms. That’s what it’s called—a prism.”
“I am once seeing an illusionist make such a trick,” he said, still eyeing the display. “In Fiji. From a stone he did conjure colors such as these.”
Hannah raised her eyebrows. “This is no trick,” she said, vaguely insulted. But how would he know better? She shifted into her teacher’s voice. “Light rays separate into the spectrum when they pass through the water. Those are the colors you see upon the wall.”
As she spoke, the ray of sun ceased, and the colors vanished. The sailor glanced around as if they might be hiding in a corner, and Hannah saw the room as he might: the set of hard straight-backed chairs, the table and mantel with no decorative flourish, the threadbare settee. Only the vines on the wallpaper and the woven rug had anything bright to offer. Hannah loved the spare alignment of the room, its angles and corners, but where she saw order, he likely saw a barren field. Her gaze lighted on his hair, and she wondered if it was as soft as it looked, or bristly as a wire brush. Then, embarrassed by her curiosity, she whirled around and went back up the steps.
“This way, please,” she said, ducking through the door off the landing that led up to the garret. “Mind the rafters.”
Upstairs, Hannah busied herself locating the ledger for the fleet, flipping through the pages for the Pearl ’s account. Not finding an entry for his ship, she turned to a fresh page in the ledger. PEARL, she wrote at the top as he edged into the room, hovering just inside the doorway.
“What is your captain’s name?” she asked without looking up.
“It is Captain Coffey.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Hannah saw him take a very small step into the room, then another, appraising its jumble of items as if they were the treasures of a hundred ships’ naturalists: conch and snail shells, specimens and minerals vied for space with the furniture and books. Sad bundles of sassafras and archangel hung from the ceiling. It was dim even on the brightest of days, but Hannah didn’t want to waste a candle.
JAMES COFFEY, Master, Hannah wrote. He was Mary’s uncle. She frowned into the ledger, though it was no surprise. The Coffeys owned much of the fleet.
“First mate? Navigator? Vessel’s first year in service? Current destination?”
He did not know some of the answers, and stumbled on those he did.
“Time in port?” she asked, trying for a less severe tone.
The last was met with silence. Hannah looked up. The man hefted a chunk of mineral in his palm. The stone was heavier than it looked, she knew, more dense, its true nature hiding beneath its humble coat. It was one of her favorites.
“That’s blue labradorite,” Hannah said, surprised by his interest. Perhaps he was wondering if it was valuable. “It’s just a mineral,” she added, unnerved by the thought that he could be a thief. He could be anything.
“Blue?” he repeated. She nodded. Pushing back her chair, she reached over and he dropped the grey rock in her open palm. Plucking a metal file from a small hook on the wall, she drew it sharply against the stone, once, twice, then blew on it to clear the dust.
Rubbing her thumb against the deep blue she’d exposed, the color of a moonless midnight, she passed the stone back.
“Blue.”
He passed his own thick, callused thumb over the warm spot, then placed it carefully back on the shelf and swept his arm around the room, indicating by the gesture the whole of its contents.
“These are belonging to you?”
“To my father and myself, yes.”
“These?” He reached toward the telescope and sextant on the table beside it, his fingers hovering over them, long and graceful.
“These as well.” She paused. Were