Free May: Daughters of the Sea #2 by Kathryn Lasky Page A

invisible and the visible.
    May was interested specifically in the small gyres of circulating air and water currents that worked along the New England coast, for those were what might explain the x’s that Edgar Plum had marked on the two charts.
    Absorbed in the book, May completely lost track of time. It was only the guttering flame in the lantern that alerted her to how long she had been reading. The dance must have already started. She heard a knocking at the front door of the library, then the creak of the door as it opened.
    “I hope I’m not too late. You still open, Miss Lowe?”
    May shut the book and walked to the front with the kerosene lamp.
    This must be the Harvard man,
she thought. He was holding the Bowditch pilot guide to his chest. She recognized the cover. Her father kept the same one on the shelf in the parlor. When he spotted May, his gray eyes widened with surprise. He tipped his head and seemed to be trying to read the title of the book May was still clutching to her chest.
    “Oh!” There was a sharpness in this single word. “It appears that Maury has quite the following in Maine.”
    “I believe this is the book that Miss Lowe forgot to tell you about. I—I —” May stammered. “I was looking for books about currents, too.”
    “Yes,” he said.
“The Physical Geography of the Sea
—not all that popular, but you apparently found your way to it.” He raised one eyebrow slightly as if to wonder at a simple island girl’s interest in such abook. He paused and thrust out his hand. “I’m Hugh Fitzsimmons.”
    “The Harvard man.”
    He looked down and gave a slight cough. “Yes, among other things.”
    “You’re a student, Mr. Fitzsimmons?”
    “A graduate student in astronomy. But please just call me Hugh. And what is your name?”
    “May Plum.” She swallowed. “Miss Lowe said you were here to conduct some research.”
    “Yes. I am exploring the gravitational pull of the moon on the tides, looking for a correspondence with the transits of the stars. It’s somewhat complicated —the theory.”
    Too complicated for me, I suppose,
May thought, somewhat indignantly.
    “The analogies between what’s up there” — he pointed vaguely with his thumb—“and —”
    “The invisible ocean,” May said quickly.
    “You know your Maury, I see,” Hugh replied, a small smile crossing his face. “Tell me, May, have you any thoughts about Maury’s comments on the Pleiades?”
    May had the distinct impression that he was quizzing her, as if he couldn’t believe a local girl could really understand Maury’s work. She cleared her throat and then looking him straight in the eye began.
    “I think Mr. Maury uses Scripture to explain how those seven stars might be the center, like poles, around which Earth and all the planets move.”
    He nodded. “He uses, I believe, quotes from the book of Job as well as Ecclesiastes. But it is the reference to Job — ‘Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades’—that he really uses to explain this movement. In particular he views Alcyone in the Pleiades as the pole star. He has, of course, been criticized mightily for this.” He paused and looked at May expectantly.
    “I have no idea if he is right or wrong. But it seems that his knowledge of the currents of the visible ocean is fair,” she replied.
    “Just fair?” His dark eyebrows shot up and, for a moment, she worried she had said something wrong. But then his face broke into a broad smile. Deep creases appeared on either side of his mouth and hiseyes like parentheses. “Well, as I said, you certainly know your Maury.”
    “I’ve been reading all afternoon. I should have learned something by now.”
    He chuckled slightly. “What drew you to him in the first place?”
    How could she answer his question? She didn’t dare tell him about the shipwreck of the
Resolute
and her suspicions about its connection to her own origins. She tried to sound casual. “Well, I do live in a