Wolves Among Us(33)

The hole completed, she sneaked back into the house. Her body felt weak. Fear drained her strength. She should eat, just for strength. But her appetite had fled. Maybe that was how the miraculous maids resisted food. Maybe they were afraid too.

No one had stirred inside, although the kitten opened its round eyes and blinked once, watching her without interest before returning to its nap.

Mia slid the delicately tooled chest from the dark, unused corner of her home. Alma sometimes used the chest, with its heavy frame and strong lid, as a stool. Mia should not have allowed that, she thought now.

She took a deep breath and opened the lid. Inside hid linens and pearls, gold thread and fine needles. They sparkled, even in the dim yellow light of the fire. Mia pushed them aside. She had used this chest only once, four years ago when she made a christening cloth, anticipating her first birth. Alma had been born in distress, and Mia lost much blood.

“Have her keep the christening cloth,” Father Stefan had told Bjorn at the christening. “We’ll bury the child in it.”

Bjorn became cold, unwilling to have another child, loath to touch either of them.

“You look so sad,” Dame Alice had said to her as Mia passed by her home on the way to the market. “Come inside, dear.”

“No, the baby is unwell today. I need to get her home.”

“Don’t you trust me, Mia? I’ve had children too.”

Yes, but they died, Mia thought. “Perhaps later.”

And then other women began to turn a cold shoulder to her, as if she had offended them. She had sought advice sometimes, working up the courage to speak to another new mother, only to be rebuffed.

“Have I done something?” Mia asked Rose. They had both reached for a summer apple at the same time. Rose jerked her hand away as if burned and turned to walk away.

“Please tell me,” Mia called after her.

“Perhaps later.”

Alma survived that first stone-cold winter. Mia had spent all her energy keeping Alma warm, willing her to breathe.

“There was no time later,” Mia said to herself, thinking of Rose. To drive the thoughts away, Mia moved her hand under the sewing goods and clutched a metal square, drawing it up into the light, turning herself from the door so she could not be seen with it.

She traced the outline of the perfect letter M. Her father had given it to her when she was just a few years older than Alma. Mia glanced back at the door again. She had to bury it forever. Her stomach burned. Her knees were shaking as the memories came back to her.

She had been so happy, peeking around her father’s legs, making him swat at her with feigned impatience. He held his impossibly strong arms—the arms of a printer—straight out, grasping the handle, pulling it to him until the press shook with terrible creaks and snaps.

Releasing the handle, he nodded to Mia, who pulled the paper free with her small, gentle hands, walking somberly with the sheet as though she held the emperor’s crown. She took it to the sad man who sat so often by the window.

She knew him as Master Hutchins. It was not his real name. He would not tell her his real name. Only later did she learn it, when it was too late to save her father. Or herself.

Master Hutchins took the paper and studied it. She saw how his eyes moved over it, from one side to the other, starting at the top and working down to the last line of type. One day he did not hand the paper back to her. Instead, his eyes peered back over the top, looking down at her, his thick eyebrows wiggling.

Mia laughed and held out her hands for the paper.

“’Tis fine,” Master Hutchins called to her father. “We have money for ten tonight. Best to work fast and eat later.”

Then he returned his attention to Mia. “You have no brothers, do you?”

Mia hung her head.

“No, no. I did not say it to shame you, my dear. Indeed, it could be a blessing. Look how fine your hands are, how delicate and careful your every movement with them. You have made a fine puller.”

Mia tucked her hands behind her skirts.

“I can see that you like to work. But tell me, Mia, do you like to learn?”

Mia bit her lip and looked back toward her father. He pressed the paper. She should fetch it. That was her job as puller.

“You will outgrow that task, probably by winter’s end. You could be worth more than ten sons to him, if you are willing to learn.”

Mia ran away from him. She took the paper from the press, her hands trembling, and laid it with the others, listening to her father argue with Hutchins.

“You surprise me, William.”

“Are you quite mad? When she’s married,” her father continued, “what use will she have for letters and words?”

“Oh, she might marry a printer, a man like yourself.”

“I pray not. One cannot make a living in publishing.”

“She’s a bright girl but lonely. You cannot give her brothers or sisters.”

Mia had hung her head again then. Her mother had died giving birth to her.

“But you can give her truth.”

Her father lunged at the man, the man she would later learn was called by the name of William Tyndale. Her father knocked him to the floor. Mia hid her face in her hands. She heard punches and grunts. When she looked back up, her father stood over Master Hutchins, who had blood pouring from his nose. Mia tore across the room, ripping at her cloak, pressing it against Master Hutchins’ wounds.