Sure enough, as I ran towards the pine forest, breathless and clumsy, I saw the Wend’s headdress bobbing in the dark before me. She grinned at me as we met in the field and told me to wait for Thea, who was following behind.
When Thea approached, carrying a heavy basket, I ran to help her and together we returned to my home. Matthias had not woken from his bunk in the loft – nothing but Papa’s shouted summons would wake him in those days – but my father was up, sitting at the bare kitchen table as my mother’s groaning – and Anna Maria’s calm tones of reassurance – issued from behind their closed bedroom door. He nodded at Thea as she entered, stood then sat again, built up the fire and lit his pipe before knocking it out against the mantel. He pulled on his boots and headed outside.
Thea held out her scarf to the hearth to dry it and smiled at me over her shoulder. ‘He’s worried for her,’ she said.
I sat down on the floor in front of the fire and held my knees to my chest. ‘Papa is never worried. He says that the worried lack faith.’
‘He is worried. Of course he is.’ She sat down beside me, eyes reflecting the flames before us. ‘People here believe that they are born with a fixed reservoir of blood in their bodies. Maybe your father thinks childbirth will lower the stores.’
I turned to her. ‘You mean that’s not true?’
Thea wrinkled her nose at me. ‘If it were true, how do you account for the fact that men and women die at a similar age?’
I blushed then. Thea noticed and laughed. ‘You look so uncomfortable.’
‘I don’t understand how you can talk so easily about these things.’
‘It’s natural. You need not be ashamed.’ She picked up the poker and broke a log into embers. ‘Mama told me it was a sign of a gift. The power of creation.’
I hugged my knees closer to my chest and stared at the fire. ‘The first thing Mama said, when it happened to me, was how to wash and dry my cloths so that no one would ever see.’
‘Oh, Hanne.’
To my embarrassment, I felt my chin tremble. Don’t cry, I told myself. Not now.
‘Hanne? What is it?’
‘It’s nothing,’ I said, but tears had filled my eyes. In the periphery of my blurred vision I was aware of Thea staring at me. I bent my face into my knees and breathed into my skirt, still damp from snow.
The familiar weight of Thea’s hand was on my shoulder. ‘Hanne?’
I pressed my eyes harder into my kneecaps until I saw lights flicker amidst the dark.
‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘No, I know.’ I wiped my face with my hands. ‘It’s just . . . Gottlob.’
Thea shook her head, confused.
‘Gottlob. My brother.’ I closed my eyes. ‘I had an older brother. He’s dead now.’
Thea was silent. ‘You’ve never told me.’
‘No. I’m sorry. I suppose I should have . . .’ I took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘I mean, everyone here knows and I . . . Anyway, I was reminded of him.’ I gave her a small smile. ‘It was at his funeral that, you know . . . At the churchyard. I was wearing Eleonore Volkmann’s dress. Mama had to scrub the blood from it.’
‘Hanne.’ Thea looked aghast. ‘That’s awful.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘It was awful.’
‘What happened to him?’
The door opened then, and Thea and I turned to see Matthias entering the kitchen, arms full of firewood, face bruised with sleep. He peered down the corridor and then at us.
‘Has she . . .?’ he asked.
I shook my head.
My brother stacked the logs against the wall then joined us by the fireside, sitting cross-legged. He smiled at Thea and smoothed his hair against his skull, then winced as a heavy groan issued from the bedroom.
Thea reached across me and tapped Matthias lightly on the arm. ‘Hanne just told me about Gottlob.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Matthias glanced at me, the gap in his teeth visible through his parted lips. ‘She didn’t know?’
I shook my head.
‘Our parents never talk about him either.’ He shrugged.
‘Do you want to?’ asked Thea.
‘What?’
‘Talk about him.’
My twin and I looked at each other.
‘How did he die?’ Thea prompted.
‘He fell from a horse,’ Matthias said. ‘Three years ago. He was seventeen and he was taking our horse –’
‘Otto,’ I interrupted.
‘– our horse Otto to Skampe. Hans Pasche found him.’
We were silent. Through the walls Anna Maria said something to my mother over and over again, her voice steady and soothing.
‘Papa blames himself, I think,’ Matthias said quietly.
I looked at him. ‘Really?’
Matthias nodded. ‘He once told me he wished he’d told Gottlob to hide as well.’
I was silent for a moment. ‘I always wondered if Mama felt responsible. She was the one who asked him to ride to Skampe.’
Thea looked confused. ‘Why did Gottlob need to hide?’
‘Something happened a few days before Gottlob’s accident,’ I explained. ‘It was when the soldiers were searching for Pastor Flügel.’
‘They knocked at our door,’ Matthias said. ‘Mama pushed Hanne and me out the back and told us to stay out of sight. We crawled into the rye field and hid there all day.’
‘Later, when Mama called us back inside, we saw that Gottlob had been beaten. When the soldiers had threatened to set the hayrick on fire, to drive out the pastor should he be hiding in there, Gottlob had picked up a pitchfork and the men had set upon him.’
‘Papa intervened,’ Matthias added. ‘They arrested him for disaffection, saying he’d armed his children against the Church’s representatives. When Papa asked how, they pointed to Gottlob’s pitchfork.’
Thea lifted a hand to her cheek.
‘They took Papa to Züllichau,’ I said. ‘That’s why Gottlob was riding Otto to Skampe. Mama sold the horse to a family there to raise the money to free Papa. But later that day Hans Pasche found Otto trotting back towards Kay, riderless.’
From the bedroom sounded a muffled scream. Matthias and I exchanged frightened looks.
‘What had happened?’ Thea whispered.
‘We never really found out,’ Matthias said softly. ‘Hans found Gottlob lying unconscious in the road a little further on. He rode Otto home and told Elder Pasche, who went with his wagon to retrieve Gottlob.’
I was quiet, remembering how, after Hans had told us what had happened, Mama had run out the door. When Elder Pasche returned, Mama was sitting on the floor of his wagon, Gottlob’s head in her lap. The bloodstain in her skirt had been a perfect circle.
Thea was watching me, eyes wide. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she repeated.
Matthias nodded. He reached for the fire poker and turned it over in his hands.
I wiped my face with my skirt.
Another muffled cry came from the bedroom.
The poker dropped onto the hearth as Matthias rose suddenly and left the room.
Thea and I were quiet for a moment. The cry turned into a constant low groaning that made me feel sick in my stomach.
‘Now we’ll have a new brother,’ I murmured.
‘It’s a girl. Mama told me.’
‘She knows things, doesn’t she?’ I asked. ‘Anna Maria.’