Sisters in Jeopardy
Copyright© 2026 by Rachael Jane
Chapter 4: Reunion
Germany, October 1851
Lise’s second letter arrived on a cold morning in the late autumn of 1851, carried by the post rider who came through the valley only twice a month. Greta was the one who heard the knock ... sharp, hurried, as if the man wanted to be gone before the frost thickened. She opened the door to find him stamping his boots, his breath clouding in the air.
“Post from America,” he said, handing her a thin envelope with trembling fingers. “From St. Louis.”
Greta’s heart lurched. She called for Adelheid and Irmgard, her voice cracking with a mixture of hope and fear. They gathered around the table, the envelope lying between them like something fragile and dangerous. The paper was creased, the ink smudged from its long journey. Lise’s handwriting ... familiar, looping, unmistakably hers ... ran across the front.
Irmgard reached for it first, but Greta caught her hand gently.
“Let’s open it together.”
Adelheid slid a knife under the seal. Inside was a folded letter ... and something heavier.
A slip of stiff paper, stamped and official-looking, slid onto the table.
Greta picked it up with trembling fingers.
“A passage certificate,” she whispered. “For the three of us.”
Irmgard gasped. Adelheid pressed a hand to her mouth. Greta unfolded the letter.
My dearest sisters,
I have saved enough to send for you. Enclosed are prepaid passage tickets for the three of you to travel on the ‘Düsseldorf’ to New Orleans, and then on a riverboat to St. Louis. The ship leaves Bremen in early spring. You must be ready by then.
I know the journey will be long and frightening, but we will be together again. I have a place to live and steady work. When you arrive in St. Louis, you will find me at the Red Lantern Saloon. Any dockworker will be able to give you directions.
Do not delay. Do not lose these tickets. It is everything I have earned.
Tell Frau Keller. She will help you prepare.
I think of you every day.
Your loving sister,
Lise.
For a long moment, none of the sisters spoke. The only sound was the wind rattling the shutters and the faint crackle of the fire.
Irmgard was the first to break the silence. “We’re going to America,” she whispered, her eyes wide with wonder.
Adelheid sank into a chair, the letter clutched in her hands. “Lise did it,” she murmured. “She really did it.”
Greta felt tears sting her eyes ... not just from joy, but from the weight of what this meant. Lise had worked herself to the bone in some foreign city, alone, frightened, surrounded by strangers. And she had still managed to send for them. That was more than their father had done. Greta folded the passage certificate carefully and held it to her chest.
“We’re going,” she said. “All of us.”
They ran to fetch Frau Keller, who arrived with her shawl pulled tight and her boots muddy from the fields. Greta placed the letter and the tickets in her hands.
Frau Keller read the letter slowly, her brow furrowing. When she finished, she let out a long breath.
“Well,” she said, “your sister is braver than most men I’ve known.”
“Will you help us?” Adelheid asked.
Frau Keller looked at the three sisters ... thin, pale, determined ... and nodded.
“I promised Lise I would watch over you. Now I’ll help you leave this place before it swallows you whole.”
Her voice softened.
“It’s what your mother would have wanted.”
The weeks that followed were a blur of work and worry.
Firstly they had to sell what little they had. The cow went first, bought by a neighbour for less than she was worth. Then the tools, the spare linens, Marta’s wedding chest. Each sale felt like peeling away another layer of their old life.
With the money from the items they sold, they gathered supplies. Frau Keller helped them make lists: sturdy boots; woollen cloaks; dried bread and smoked meat for the journey; a small tin of salve for blisters; and a few keepsakes from home. They packed everything into two battered trunks and a canvas sack.
Neighbours came to offer blessings or warnings. Some envied them. Others pitied them. A few whispered that the girls were foolish to chase a dream across an ocean. But Greta, Adelheid, and Irmgard held fast to Lise’s words.
On their last night in the cottage, they slept huddled together in the bed they had shared since childhood. The fire burned low. The house creaked in the wind.
Irmgard whispered, “Do you think Lise is safe?”
Greta squeezed her hand. “She’s waiting for us.”
Adelheid stared at the ceiling, her voice barely audible. “Then we must go to her.”
When the first thaw came and the river ice began to crack, the sisters stood at the gate of the cottage with their trunks at their feet. Frau Keller embraced each of them in turn, her eyes shining with tears she refused to shed.
“Be brave,” she said. “And when you reach your sister, tell her that I’m proud of her for keeping her promise.”
The girls nodded, their hearts pounding with fear and hope in equal measure. Then they turned toward the road that led to Bremen, to the ship waiting in the harbour, and to the vast unknown beyond the sea.
The ship called Düsseldorf that carried Greta, Adelheid, and Irmgard out of Bremen was older than it looked ... its hull patched in places, its masts weather-scarred, its decks creaking like old bones. The emigrant agent had told Lise that the Düsseldorf was ‘reputable’. Perhaps she was twenty years ago. The sailors called her ‘lucky’. But the sisters learned quickly that luck was a thin shield against the Atlantic.
Steerage was a long, low-ceilinged cavern beneath the waterline, lit by a handful of lanterns that barely pierced the gloom. The air was thick with the smell of sweat, sickness, and damp straw. Families were crammed together on narrow wooden bunks. Rats scurried along the beams overhead.
Greta tried to be brave for her sisters, but even she felt her courage falter when the hatch slammed shut and the ship lurched away from the dock. Irmgard clung to her hand. Adelheid crossed herself, whispering a prayer. The ship groaned as it entered open water.
The Atlantic greeted them with the typical rough seas of early spring. The sisters spent the first days retching into buckets, their bodies shaking with exhaustion. The ship pitched violently, sending loose items sliding across the floor.
Several children developed a fever. A man raved in delirium, calling for a wife who wasn’t there. Greta held Irmgard’s hair back as she vomited again and again, whispering, “It will pass. It will pass.”
But the sickness clung to them like a curse.
In the second week, a fierce storm struck. The Düsseldorf heaved and shuddered. Water seeped through the deck above, dripping onto the bunks. Children screamed. Adelheid was thrown from her bunk, hitting the floor hard enough to bruise her ribs. Greta dragged her back up, both of them shaking.
The storm lasted through the night. When it finally passed, the sisters learned that three passengers had perished in the storm. Irmgard cried silently and Adelheid held her close.
Greta stared at the sea, wondering how many more souls it would take before they reached America.
Food grew scarce. The bread turned mouldy. The water from the barrels tasted of rust. Irmgard grew pale and thin, her cheeks hollowing. Adelheid developed a cough that rattled in her chest. Greta forced herself to eat, even when her stomach rebelled. She had to stay strong. She had to get her sisters to Lise.
At night, she lay awake listening to the ship’s timbers groan, imagining the ocean pressing in from all sides.
After weeks at sea, the ocean changed. The waves grew gentler, the air warmer. The sailors shouted that they were nearing their destination. The sisters climbed onto the deck, blinking in the bright sunlight. The coastline rose from the horizon ... flat marshland shimmering in the heat.
Irmgard whispered, “Is that America?”
Greta nodded, though her throat tightened. “Yes. We made it.”
But the journey was not over yet. The emigrants were transferred to a lighter that transported them to New Orleans. They saw enslaved people huddled in groups under the watchful eyes of overseers. The sight unsettled them deeply.
“This land isn’t what I imagined,” Adelheid murmured.
Greta agreed, but she kept her fears to herself. They were too close to Lise to falter now.
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