Playing Beatie Bow

Four years later, Abigail Kirk is nearly eighteen years old, and the Kirk family has returned to Sydney after living abroad in several countries for the last few years. As Abigail, Kathy, and Weyland step into their old apartment unit, they notice that it has grown grubbier over the years. Abigail thinks the place looks somehow smaller and larger at the same time, and wonders if she, too, has changed in odd ways over the years. As she considers herself in the bathroom mirror, she notes that her cheeks have thinned and her hair has lightened over the course of the “curious” past four years.

For the first year after her return from the past, Abigail’s memories of the Bow family were “bitterly real” and caused her grief and longing, especially when she considered Judah and his awful fate. Even if she could never share a life with him, she’d wanted him to have a beautiful one. Abigail would try and convince herself, in her lowest moments, that she had dreamed the whole thing, though she knew it was not so.

Abigail tells her mother that she’s going to go next door and see if the Crowns still live there. She rings the doorbell and is surprised when Vincent, now much taller and probably ten or eleven years old, opens the door. She asks him if he remembers her, and he smiles happily, revealing that he does. Justine is happy to see Abigail, too—Abigail asks after Natalie, and Justine tells Abigail that Natalie is out shopping with someone called Robert, as today is her eighth birthday. Abigail worries aloud that Natalie won’t recognize her. Vincent goes off to practice piano, and Justine expresses to Abigail her relief that Vincent has calmed down over the last several years, largely in part due to his fascination with music.

Abigail tells Justine that she thought her husband’s name was Bill, and asks who Robert is—Justine answers that Robert is her younger brother, and at twenty, is Natalie’s favorite uncle. Justine asks Abigail to tell her about all the affairs she must have had with “glamorous” Norwegian men, and Abigail coyly admits that she has had a few. A few minutes later, the doorbell rings, and Natalie rushes in with all of her parcels—the second she spots Abigail, though, she shrieks with delight and drops them on the ground, embracing Abigail and telling her that she would know her anywhere.

As Abigail hugs Natalie, she wonders whether Natalie truly remembers their time together. Just then, Natalie leans in and whispers to Abigail, asking if she remembers the little furry girl, who was always their little secret. There is a fumbling at the door, and Natalie exclaims that it’s Robert, with the rest of her birthday presents. Justine goes to open the door and a tall young man walks in—upon seeing him, Abigail fears she might faint. He looks and sounds almost exactly like Judah, and for a moment, Abigail is afraid that everything is starting again—that she is returning to the past.

The Crowns converse with one another casually, and then Justine introduces Abigail to the young man—her brother, Robert Bow. The young man, upon meeting Abigail’s eye, exclaims, “Abby!” but instantly turns red and seems taken aback by his own forwardness. He apologizes, and tells Abigail that for just a moment he thought he knew her.

While Natalie opens her presents with Vincent and her mother, Robert and Abigail talk with one another. Abigail can hardly focus on Robert’s words, though—she is too overcome with relief, believing that Judah lived after all. She wishes she could reach out and stroke Robert’s cheek, but she remembers that he does not know all that she knows. She realizes that Justine’s maiden name must be Bow, as well. She coyly tells Robert that she knew some Bows once, and befriended a Bow named Judah. Robert exclaims that his own middle name is Judah.

As Robert and Abigail converse, she finds it easy and natural to talk to him. Robert tells Abigail that he is in a marine engineering course, and has a feeling that his ancestors came from Shetland, and that the sea is in his genes. Abigail corrects him, telling him the Bows are from Orkney. Before she leaves, Robert asks Abigail if he can come by and see her, and she tells him that he can—she’s right next door.

When Abigail returns to her own apartment, her mother asks her who she has met over at the Crowns’ who has given her such a look on her face. She tells Kathy that she has met a young man named Robert, and he’ll be coming by on Saturday to look over a family tree with her.

On Saturday, Robert arrives with his family Bible in hand. As the two of them sit down to begin, Abigail notices the small ways in which he looks, after all, quite different from Judah. They open the Bible, and Robert tells Abigail that the book belonged to “some old great-great aunt” who was the headmistress at a school in Sydney—the aunt had “petrified” Robert’s mother. Abigail is delighted, knowing that Beatie “made it” after all. Robert seems confused, and Abigail promises him that after they have looked over the family tree, she will explain things to him a little bit—the rest, she tells him, will have to wait until they know each other “lots better.” Robert responds that if he has anything to say about it, they’ll know each other well very soon.

In the kitchen, Robert opens the Bible to a page bearing the Bow family tree. Abigail, without looking at it, immediately asks where Robert’s great-grandfather, Judah is on it—Robert replies that Judah is only a family name, and his great-grandfather’s name was Samuel. Abigail insists that Samuel was Beatie and Gibbie and Judah’s father. Robert points out Gilbert Samuel Bow, who, according to the dates on the tree, lived a long and healthy life. Abigail realizes that Judah must have drowned, after all, and that Robert is descended from Gilbert. Abigail begins sobbing, and Robert puts his arms around her, in no way put off by Abigail’s tears and ramblings about the Bow children.

Robert asks Abigail to calm down and tell him how she knows so many things about his family—things even he doesn’t know—and then kisses away her tears. Abigail tells him everything that happened, and is relieved to find that Robert listens to her quite seriously. When she’s done with her tale, Robert insists that Natalie must have had something to do with everything that happened—after all, she is a Bow, he says, and is perhaps in possession of the legendary Gift. Abigail realizes that Granny’s Prophecy was right in some ways and wrong in others—Granny assumed that Gibbie would die and Beatie would be barren, when really it was “Judah for death, and Dovey for barrenness.”

Robert points out, however, that Dovey—or Dorcas, as he knows her—wasn’t barren—she had a child named Judith, but it died alongside Dovey and Granny during a smallpox outbreak. Abigail marvels aloud that getting Gibbie out of the fire, more than Dovey, was important to carrying on the Bow line. As Abigail rants on and on, she pauses, and tells Robert that she is amazed that he believes her. Robert confesses that he experienced a strange sensation the moment he met her, as if he’d always known her.

Abigail spends a quiet moment thinking about Granny Tallisker and her “infinite goodness and strength.” Abigail sees now, too, that time is not a “great black vortex down which everything disappear[s].” Time, Abigail realizes, is a great river—always changing, but the same water flowing from source to sea.

Kathy comes into the kitchen and asks Abigail what she and Robert are up to. Abigail coyly replies that they are “just playing Beatie Bow.” Though her mother doesn’t understand, it doesn’t matter—Robert does.