She didn’t need his test, not after living for so many years in Old Nichol, the devil’s home. Without waiting for Gully’s instruction, she lowered herself to the first rung of a ladder. It was slippery, and the air was damp. She gripped the ladder tightly, even as her slick soles fumbled for traction.

The rain followed her downward, until Gully lowered the hatch and plunged her into darkness. Without the noise of wind and waves, the moans and cries coming from below swirled up to taunt her, making her wonder if indeed she was descending into the pit of hell.

As her feet connected with a landing, she steeled herself. A chicken flew up, clucking in distress and flapping its wings in her face. The motion startled her, and she would have fallen if her hands hadn’t found the ladder again.

Dull lantern light glowed through a square opening. She bent and ducked through the entrance and found another, shorter ladder that led down to crowded accommodations that she guessed to be steerage. Without any windows, the cramped quarters were especially dark. The only light came from a lone lantern that hung from a beam near the far end of the deck.

Thick wooden bunk beds, similar to the style in their cabins above in third class, lined the walls on both sides. It appeared some families and passengers had erected makeshift partitions with sheets in order to gain a semblance of privacy between them. But without separate rooms or separate areas for men and women, Mercy guessed that privacy was as absent here in steerage as it had been in the slums.

Dozens upon dozens of people were crammed into every spare spot, along with their cooking pots, bundles of clothing and blankets, ragged shoes, wooden crates, and the rest of their earthly possessions. Except for the chickens and a small group of children slapping hands in play, there was very little movement. Most people were huddled in their beds or lying on the floor.

From the stench of the place, Mercy realized the passengers here were as ill as those above, if not more so. The hard knocking of the waves against the lower deck pounded louder, and the swaying was more dizzying.

She forced herself to breathe evenly so she wouldn’t be sick to her stomach. Turning toward the square opening from which she’d come, she felt a powerful need to scramble back up the ladder as fast as her feet could carry her. But as a woman sat up nearby and vomited into a basin, Mercy halted her retreat.