The Year of the Witching(53)

But how could she slip away to the Outskirts unnoticed, with Honor and Glory as sick as they were? There was no way she could excuse her absence for more than an hour, and she would need at least a day to find her kin in the Outskirts.

Immanuelle frowned, staring past the flock of grazing sheep, to the windows of Abram’s workshop glowing in the distance. An idea took shape at the back of her mind.

Abram. Of course.

Immanuelle might not have been able to win Martha over . . . but perhaps Abram would be more sympathetic. He was kindhearted, gentler than Martha, and less pious than Anna. Perhaps he would see the merit in her desires to reach out to her kin in the Outskirts.

Emboldened by this idea, Immanuelle herded the last of the sheep into the corral where they spent their nights and started toward Abram’s workshop. It was a humble space. The wood floors were dusted with a thick carpet of sawdust. As usual, a series of half-finished projects cluttered the workspace—a pair of tree-trunk side tables, a stool, and a dollhouse that was no doubt intended to be a gift for Honor’s birthday.

Paintings adorned the walls, all of them her mother’s. There were sweeping landscapes on wood panels, parchment painted with faint watercolor flowers, a few still lifes. There was even a self-portrait, which featured Miriam, smiling, with her hair unbound.

Immanuelle peered over Abram’s shoulder to see what he was working on and stopped dead. There, on the table, was a small, half-carved coffin. It was big enough for only one member of the Moore family: Honor.

“She’s still . . . with us,” said Abram without looking up from his work. “I just want to be ready . . . if the worst comes.”

Immanuelle began to shake. “She’s going to wake up.”

“Perhaps. But if she doesn’t . . . I have to be prepared . . . Always promised myself . . . that if I had to . . . bury another child . . . I would do it properly. In a coffin . . . of my own making. I missed that chance . . . with your mother. I’ll not . . . have it happen again. Even if . . . I have to collect . . . her bones from the . . . pyre, I intend . . . to give her . . . a proper burial. Should it . . . come to that.”

Immanuelle knew what he referred to. Bethelan custom mandated that the blameless were buried and the sinful were burned, in the hopes that the flames of the pyre would purge them of their sins and allow them passage into the realm of purgatory. On account of her crimes, Miriam had died in dishonor and, as a result, she never had a proper coffin or burial plot in the graveyard where her ancestors were laid to rest. “Do you miss her?”

“More than you know.”

Immanuelle took a seat on the stool beside him. “And do you regret breaking Protocol to hide her here, years ago?”

Abram’s hand tightened around his chisel, but he shook his head.

“Even though it was a sin?”

“Better to take sin upon . . . one’s own shoulders . . . than allow harm . . . to befall others. Sometimes a person . . . has an obligation . . . to act in the interest of the . . . greater good.”

This was her moment, and Immanuelle was quick to seize it. “During that time, did my mother ever speak of my father?”

Abram faltered, then lowered his tool. “More than she did . . . anyone else. When the madness . . . took her she used . . . to call for him. Claimed his ghost . . . was wandering the . . . halls. She’d say he was . . . calling her home. I like to think . . . that he did in the end.”

Immanuelle’s throat clenched so tightly she could barely speak. “I want to go to the Outskirts, Pa. I want to know the people that knew him. I want to meet his kin. My kin.”

Abram remained expressionless. He returned to his work, scuffing a bit of sandpaper along the wall of the coffin. “Why now?”

“Because if I don’t do it now, I may never get the chance to. What with the fever spreading.”

“When do you . . . want to go?”

“Tomorrow, if possible. But I’d rather Martha not know. It would only trouble her.”

“So you’ve come to ask for my blessing?”

“That and your help. Perhaps you could distract Martha.”

“You mean lie . . . for you. Mislead her . . . into believing something that . . . isn’t true.”

Immanuelle flinched but nodded. “Like you said, sometimes a person has an obligation to act in the interest of the greater good even if it means they have to sin in order to do it. And is it not good for me to meet my kin while I still have the chance to?”

Abram offered her a rare smile. She could have sworn he looked almost proud of her. “Pity you weren’t . . . born a boy. Would’ve made a . . . fine apostle with your penchant . . . for talking in circles.”

“So you’ll do it?” Immanuelle whispered, barely believing her good fortune. “You’ll help me get to the Outskirts?”

Abram paused to blow sawdust from the inside of the coffin. “What won’t I do . . . for you?”





CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE





For the fires of purging are righteous and the Father rejoices at the sight of its flames.

—THE HOLY SCRIPTURES





IMMANUELLE LEFT FOR the Outskirts at daybreak. The journey passed in a series of disembodied glimpses, as though she was so overwhelmed at the prospect of meeting her kin she couldn’t process what she was looking at. There was the flash of a man in a mask like a crow’s face, stoking a pyre’s flames with a pitchfork, a shroud-wrapped body in the back of a wagon bouncing with every rut in the road. Blue smoke broke in waves above the treetops, so thick it stung her eyes, and the air rang with the cries of the blight sick.