The Girl in the Torch Read online

  All the tourists made their way down from the Lady and toward the loading dock where the ferry was moored. She followed the crowd toward the boat and stood with the line of people waiting to board.

  Sarah knew this was the only way to get to the shores of New York. And she worried about trying to hide alone on the island for another night.

  Maybe I can just blend in and get on the boat, she thought.

  She stepped into place at the end of the line.

  “Tickets! Everyone have your tickets out,” the ferryman called from the entrance to the boat.

  Each of the passengers handed a ticket to the ferryman as they stepped onto the gangplank. Sarah froze. With no ticket and no money, there was no way for her to sneak past him.

  She was trapped on the island.

  Cat and Mouse

  SARAH SLUNK BACK THROUGH the crowd and made her way toward the Lady, hoping to sneak back inside. But when she got up onto the base’s roof, she saw one of the guards standing by the entry door, making sure everyone exited. He called into the doorway.

  “Park is closing! Last boat!”

  Sarah’s eyes darted around, looking for somewhere she could hide.

  She ducked back down the stairwell. Maybe there was some sort of storeroom or even a closet. But there were none. Emerging back onto the ground level, she saw the final tourists making their way toward the dock. The guard who had been checking the entry door of the statue was behind her, so she couldn’t go back up.

  A cold breeze blew off the water and rustled through the leaves. The leaves! She had almost forgotten her hiding spot from the night before. She quickly and carefully maneuvered over to the small patch of trees behind the statue’s base. Glancing around to make sure no one was looking, she jumped and grabbed the lowest branch, hauling herself up.

  She climbed high into an area with dense cover and settled herself onto a branch to look out. No one had seen her. Peering through the leaves, she could just make out the ferry dock. She saw two of the guards searching the grounds, calling, “All aboard!”

  When the last tourists and guards had boarded, the ferry pushed off into the harbor, the fiery sunset bathing everything in a deep orange glow. Sarah exhaled and relaxed onto the branch as the boat steamed north toward Manhattan. She was alone again.

  As the sky darkened, Sarah ate some of the food she had been saving, the chicken leg and the half-eaten roll. Soon, though, the wind picked up and the air grew cold and Sarah knew she needed to seek shelter inside. The minutes slowly ticked by and the sun sank lower and lower until the stars appeared above her.

  Sarah’s skin had chilled and her muscles had tightened by the time she finally ventured down. She ran toward the entrance of the base, but her stiff legs moved awkwardly. Her foot snagged on the corner of one of the large garbage bins along the path and she tripped, falling to her knees. Clang! The trash bin tipped over. She paused and listened from the ground.

  “Who’s there?” a deep, gruff voice called.

  Glancing up, Sarah could just make out the figure of the gray-haired giant emerging from the guardhouse near the ferry dock, holding out his kerosene lamp in the dark.

  “I said who is that?” the giant yelled again.

  Sarah jumped to her feet and ducked into the shadow of the statue’s base.

  “Stop!”

  He had seen her. Sarah’s heart beat faster as she saw him quickly heading up the path toward the statue. She dashed around the building, veering in and around the sharp edges of the enormous base, peeking around the corner each time to see if the man was trailing her.

  “Hold it!” he yelled.

  But Sarah moved much faster than he did.

  “I said stop!”

  Finally, she had circled the entire building and was back where she’d started, not too far from the row of the trees in the back. She paused to catch her breath.

  I can’t just keep running in circles all night, she thought.

  She couldn’t risk looking for another place to hide on the other side of the island, so she dashed back to her tree and pulled herself up. She had just settled onto a branch with good, leafy cover when she saw the watchman emerge from around the corner of the base.

  He held his kerosene lamp in front of him but could barely catch his breath from the effort of the chase. He stopped a few dozen yards from her tree, then put the lamp down and rested his hands on his knees until he could speak again.

  “Where are you?” he called into the night.

  Sarah held her breath in the silence.

  “I know someone’s out there.”

  He stood and listened. A strong wind whipped across the island, causing a loud flutter of leaves all around her.

  After the wind died down, he listened for a moment longer and then slowly shambled up toward the entrance to the base.

  As the watchman disappeared inside, Sarah exhaled but didn’t move. A few moments later, he reemerged on the roof, making his way toward the entrance to the pedestal. Was he going to climb up to the top? Or was there some sort of guardhouse inside the statue?

  She heard the sound of his heavy footsteps as he methodically climbed the metal staircase. Aside from the wind and the gentle sound of the waves lapping against the shore, the footsteps were the only sound on the island. Clank, clomp, clank, clomp, clank, clomp.

  Finally the footsteps stopped and Sarah saw the watchman appear on the Lady’s torch. He removed a small bottle from inside his coat and took a long swig. Sarah watched in silence as he stood staring out to sea, taking sips from the bottle and occasionally coughing. Eventually, he screwed the cap back on the bottle and returned it to the pocket inside his jacket, swaying as he made his way along the railing back toward the door to the torch. Suddenly, he lost his footing and the girl gasped, thinking he might go tumbling over the side. But he caught himself on the railing and maneuvered himself back through the door.

  The watchman emerged on ground level and stumbled a bit as he walked down toward the guardhouse by the ferry dock. He stopped to take another sip of the whiskey and emptied the bottle into his mouth.

  Sarah tensed as he abruptly changed direction and walked toward her tree.

  He moved closer and closer, his angry red face seeming to stare straight at her.

  This is it, she thought. He’s got me.

  Hunting for Pennies

  SARAH LISTENED TO THE sound of the guard’s breath wheezing in and out of his mouth as he walked directly beneath her branch. She tried to hold herself as still as possible, tensing every muscle, not allowing herself to take a breath for fear she would make a telltale sound. Despite the cold, sweat sprouted on her forehead as the watchman circled around the tree, scanning the grounds.

  Finally he paused and leaned a hand against the tree. Was he going to climb up after her? Sarah closed her eyes tightly. The watchman let out a great belch. Her eyes popped open and she looked down. The giant was leaning over, spitting onto the ground.

  Then he straightened his hat and stumbled away.

  Sarah watched him walk back to the guardhouse by the dock. Once he was inside, she lowered herself out of the tree. Her joints cracked as she sprinted toward the base and slipped in through the door. She paused to catch her breath, took off her boots so her bare feet would not make any noise on the steps, and then climbed up and into the statue as quickly as she could. She made it all the way to the crown room and settled herself down for the night.

  Relief swept over Sarah. The oddly shaped crown felt familiar and cozy, and she was already starting to think of it as her room. She climbed the small set of stairs that led to the windows and looked out at the harbor. Had any girl ever had a more spectacular view from her bedroom?

  She had found part of an old torn kerchief, which she used to make a tiny bed for Ivan that she placed right beside her. Then she covered herself with a brown shawl she had discovered abandoned on a bench earlier that day and tucked her arm under her head for a pillow. She imagined costumed servants
running up and down the stairs to serve them platters of fruit and cheese as if she were a princess in the tower of a castle.

  As she stared up at the stars through the windows of the crown, Sarah’s relief turned to worry. Sarah knew she had to get off the island before she got caught. Earlier in the day, she had found a penny on the ground behind one of the benches. Maybe she could collect enough to buy her passage to Manhattan.

  The next morning, she was more prepared for the arrival of the tourists. As the first ferry arrived, she watched from her window and then came down and sneaked up the ladder to the torch, thinking that most early climbers would want to go to the crown first. As soon as the first group walked up, she emerged from the torch and walked down to the pedestal.

  She wandered down to the boat launch and saw a sign on the boat that read: FERRY TICKETS 25 CENTS. She looked at her penny. One cent. She only needed twenty-four more. The question was, could she evade the watchman for long enough to find them?

  Sarah spent the next few days on the island wandering around and trying to blend in with the tourists. She scavenged food and drinks from the garbage when no one was looking and managed to find a few more pennies in places where people sat or gathered.

  Every day tourists discarded newspapers, so Sarah had plenty to read in both English and Yiddish. Occasionally she’d find a paper in a completely foreign language, and she made a game of trying to figure out what the stories were about based on the pictures.

  At night, she hid in her tree until the watchman had made his rounds. Every evening, he followed the same routine of climbing up to the torch, staring out to sea, and drinking from his bottle. And each night he’d come down and toss the empty bottle into the bay. To Sarah it felt like a game of cat and mouse, with her scurrying in and around the statue to avoid him.

  As she lay with Ivan in the crown room at night, she’d carefully count out her pennies, first three, then seven, then fifteen.

  “Only ten more,” she said to Ivan. “Then we can get to the promised land.” Being so close to her goal made Sarah miss her mother even more. She imagined how proud Mama would be if Sarah made it to New York on her own.

  Threat of Rain

  ON HER FIFTH DAY ON THE ISLAND, Sarah woke to a strange pinging sound in the crown room. The sky was gray and a light rain was falling. Anxiety gripped her. Would any tourists come? If not, where would she hide? How would she eat?

  Luckily, even in the rain, people visited the island—not as many, but still enough to provide cover. Sarah found an abandoned umbrella that someone had left on a bench and was able to lose herself in the crowd. Scavenging for food proved to be more difficult as no one was picnicking. The entire day went by without her finding a scrap of food or a single penny.

  Even so, Sarah was grateful when the last boat was boarded and she could hide in her tree. The moist branches were slippery, and she had to move carefully so that her hands and feet wouldn’t slide off the bark as she shimmied her way up.

  The rain fell harder as the night watchman emerged from the guardhouse and made his way up to the statue. He moved more slowly than usual and swayed and halted a bit, as if he had already started drinking before his shift. Sarah wondered if he would walk out on the torch’s platform even on such a miserable night. She hoped he’d skip that part of his ritual so that she could return to her nest in the crown room. But sure enough, he climbed up the Lady and emerged onto the torch just as he had every other night.

  As the cold rain soaked her to the skin, the minutes felt like hours. She wished he would hurry up and finish his ritual so she could get out of the cold. Yet he seemed to stay out there even longer than usual, sipping from his bottle and staring into the rainy darkness.

  At last, he turned and made his way back inside. Thank goodness. Sarah was soaked to the bone. She also had to go to the bathroom. She waited impatiently for the gray-haired giant to reappear, but he didn’t. Ten minutes passed, then twenty, then forty, then an hour, until her gut ached with the effort to hold it in. Finally she couldn’t wait anymore.

  She lowered herself from the tree, ducked behind the trunk, and lifted her skirt. Warm relief spread through her body. But as soon as she was finished, the cold overtook her again. The rain fell still harder, and Sarah wondered if the watchman was waiting out the storm inside the statue.

  She sat herself under the tree and continued to wait. Another hour passed and the rain tapered off and stopped, but still the watchman didn’t appear. Could he have already left the statue? How could she have missed that?

  The temperature dropped even more, and Sarah felt frost forming on the outside of her clothes, stiffening her hair like frozen blades of grass on a winter morning. An icy rain began to fall again, this time even harder than before. She had to get inside.

  Maryk

  RAIN AND WIND THRASHED the Lady as Sarah slowly climbed up the stairs in the darkness. She paused every few steps to listen for any sign of the watchman, but every time she did, she heard only the pinging of the rain and the shrill whistle of the wind rushing in and around the statue’s metal skin.

  She rose higher and higher until she came to the landing that led to the ladder up to the torch. Sarah paused to catch her breath before continuing to her makeshift bedroom.

  She had taken one step into the darkness toward the stairs when her foot struck something soft and solid.

  “Ugh.”

  She jumped back.

  The giant!

  Every impulse in her body told her to turn around and run back down the stairs. But then she heard a soft moan. She tentatively extended her foot once more. When her foot touched him, he groaned again, and she quickly pulled it back.

  She knelt down beside his body and ran her hand slowly along the ground until it hit something warm and sticky. She shuddered fora moment at the memory of her father’s blood on the night he died. She reached out her hand and found the watchman’s arm. He didn’t react, so she boldly ran her hand up his arm to his face. Halfway up his forehead, a deep gash was forming along the hairline. Suddenly his hand shot up out of the darkness and grabbed her wrist tightly. She tried to pull her arm back, but he held her firm.

  “Help,” he rasped.

  Finally he released her. Adrenaline roared through her body as she grasped the guardrail and pulled herself down the staircase. She was halfway back down when she stopped and listened. Silence. He wasn’t following her. She stood in the darkness a long moment, weighing the risks, as she listened to her own breathing and thought of the man’s labored gasps.

  What if he dies up there and I could have done something to save him?

  She felt Ivan in her pocket and recalled a memory of her father.

  He had been walking her to a friend’s birthday party when they came upon a man on the village road whose cart had overturned. Her father stopped to help him. Sarah had grown frustrated because she knew they would be late for the party.

  “But we don’t even know this man, Papa,” she whispered. “Can’t we let him wait for someone he knows to help him? Surely someone will come along.”

  “If everyone thought that way, he might be waiting forever, Sarah,” her father said. “We have an obligation to do God’s work. Even if it makes us late for a party.”

  Sarah stood another moment and then climbed back up the stairs until she reached the landing. She stood above the groaning watchman’s body, trying to figure out what to do. He rolled over and Sarah took a quick step back. He slowly raised his arm.

  “Help me up,” he said.

  She grabbed his hands and tugged, trying to hoist him to his feet. He was more than three times her weight, and it took all of her effort to help him regain his footing. When she finally got him to stand up, he swayed and toppled over. Sarah threw herself against his side to prop him up and buckled under his weight, but she managed to keep both of them from falling. Carefully balancing him on his unsteady feet, she threw her arm around his back and rested some of his bulk on her shoulder. She kne
w that she could never make it all the way back down with him. Her only option was to try to get him up the final set of stairs to the crown room, where at least there would be some small amount of light.

  Sarah maneuvered the giant to the stairs, placed his hands on the railing, and pushed him from behind. Ever so slowly, she shoved him up, pausing every few steps so they could catch their breath and steady themselves. By the time they reached the top, they were both panting and sweaty.

  The giant emerged into the crown room first and immediately collapsed onto all fours, struggling to catch his breath. He rolled over onto his back. His eyes flickered shut and his head rolled to the side.

  Because of the rain, the room was much darker than usual, but some moonlight was breaking through the clouds, and in the faint light she was able to make out more of his face: his thick gray hair, his large nose, his strange eyes, and the deep gash that ran along the side of his head. A silver badge glinted on his chest. It read MARYK.

  Sarah’s mother had taught her some basic first aid. She took her gray scarf and bound it tightly around the man’s head to stanch the flow of blood. As she folded her coat into a pillow and placed it behind his head, she could smell the whiskey and tobacco on his breath.

  Once she had him settled, she sat against the back wall to catch her breath. She heard the rain slowly subside and stop. She needed a place to think about what to do next, away from the giant, so she retreated from the crown room and climbed up into the torch.

  She had never been on the torch at night. As she came out onto the platform, a huge gust of wind blew back her hair and made her grab the railing. Once she had steadied herself, a thrill ran through her body. The thick clouds had parted just enough for her to see a yellow half-moon in the far distance, casting the whole sky in dramatic purple shadows. It felt dangerous to be in the open air at such a great height in the dark. Sarah finally understood why the watchman might have been coming up here every night.