Devotion(26)

‘They know there are passports then,’ I whispered.

‘Yes.’

‘You must speak to your father,’ I said. ‘You must speak to them. Tell them they will be free from oppression.’

‘There are different kinds of oppression. He is worried that, if permission is revoked again, we will not be able to withstand the loss.’

‘Tell him that there is someone, some man, some gentleman, who is loaning money for passage to anyone who asks for it. And then he will have land and you can all work it and your father can pay back the debt. That is what we will all be doing. We will all be free.’

Thea stared at the river. ‘But none of us has seen this place. And the journey is long. It’s dangerous.’

I pressed harder at my throat. My fingers slid over bone, stemmed a rising knot of tears. ‘You don’t want to leave.’

Thea closed her eyes and rested her forehead against my shoulder. She smelled of bread and something else, something uniquely her. Warm skin and linen washed in vinegar. Baked apples. I pressed my cheek against her hair.

‘Thea?’

‘Mm.’

‘I would follow you anywhere.’ The words rushed out of me in a sob.

Thea did not reply, and in that moment I felt winded with shame. I knew that to leave Thea would rend a tear in my side and I did not know what that meant. I had been gifted with a friend and yet still I was unable to offer friendship as other women. She would not follow me. She would follow her family, as people did, as young women must, and she would pity me for the store of need I felt for her.

There is something wrong with you, I told myself, and I dug my fingers more deeply into the soft tissue at the base of my neck.

Thea pulled my hand away. ‘What are you doing?’

I shook my head. I could not speak.

‘You have left a mark. You’re hurting yourself.’

My voice was strangled. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘What are you sorry for, Hanne?’

For needing too much. For feeling too much.

I stood up, pressed the backs of my hands against my eyes.

‘Hanne?’

I turned and walked away from the river.

‘Hanne, please don’t go!’

I kept walking.

‘Don’t go!’

Her voice arrested me like a hand, and I stopped. Thea had risen from the log. She stood facing me. I could not read her expression. The wind blew her hair over her face, and when she lifted a hand to push it out of the way, I saw that her hand was shaking.

I returned. We sat back down. Neither of us said anything. We watched the flow of water.

‘Mama is waiting to consult her book,’ Thea said quietly. ‘She will find out whether our fortune lies here or beyond the sea. She says we cannot afford to lose everything again.’

‘What?’

Thea leaned back, mouth twitching. ‘Her book will tell her whether we must stay or whether we ought to go.’

‘You mean the Bible?’

‘No, not that. It’s a very powerful text. I can show you. Now, if you like.’ Thea glanced at me sidelong. ‘No one is home. They won’t be back till sundown.’


Thea let me inside the cottage, then shut and barred the door behind us. The room was quiet and oddly still, the dough bin on the floor half filled, the lid propped against the wall. Thea carefully lifted the bread she had been shaping to one side of the table, then wiped down the other, looking up from time to time as though trying to guess at my thoughts.

‘Truly, Hanne, the book is holy and precious. It is not a wicked thing.’

I did not know what to say. I did not know what she was talking about.

Thea went to the hearth and, reaching into the back of the chimney with a rag, removed a brick and set it carefully on the floor. She took out another.

‘She keeps it in a special hollow here,’ Thea explained. ‘She has to hide it. Some people do not approve.’ She took out a small cloth package, holding it in both hands. I watched her set it on the table.

A chill went through me. I thought of Christiana’s words. She’s a witch. An image of Anna Maria crouched in the ashes of her hearth, wishing ill on others, crossed my mind. It was not something I could reconcile with the woman as I knew her, ruddy-faced and wholesome and ready to laugh.

Thea was studying my reaction. ‘Do you want to look?’

I gave a small nod and Thea carefully unfolded the material to reveal a small, worn book bound in pigskin. It did not look magic, only old and well-used.

‘Mama told me the books were revealed by Almighty God to Moses on Mount Sinai. That is why it is called The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses. Das sechste und siebente Buch Moses. Mama said that as long as the book is in her possession she will not die.’

‘That’s impossible,’ I whispered.

‘It’s what she said. She will give this to me one day, and then, when I am ready to die, I will pass it on to my own child.’

‘What if you have more than one child?’

‘I won’t,’ she murmured. ‘The book will not allow it.’

She opened the cover and I saw, briefly, the title filling the page in ornate text, a six-pointed star beneath. Thea slotted a finger between the pages, turning to the second half of the book. ‘This is the seventh book. This is the one she uses most. It’s herbal cures, really.’