As days passed and the temperatures grew even warmer, we forgot the taste of purity and blocked our noses by habit. I began to wait until thirst stuck my tongue to the roof of my mouth before picking up the dipper. My stomach swelled. Cramped. I became accustomed to clenching my fists against the narrow walls of the water closet. And I blamed the foul water for Thea’s persistent headache. For five days she grew increasingly listless and distracted, until finally her headache was so bad that she could not stop whimpering from the relentless pain of it. Anna Maria came every day and smoked her bed with juniper, offered her the last of her remedies, but I could see the Wend’s anxiety at having so little at her disposal.
I tried to comfort Thea. At night I held her hand and stroked her hair and fetched damp cloths for her forehead, but the smell of them was the same as the rancid water and she could not bear it. I stole up the hatchway and asked the nightwatchman for sea water. The salt dried to her white hair. I brushed it out with my fingers as she tried to sleep.
‘It won’t be long and we’ll have fresh water again,’ I whispered to her. ‘The wells we dig will be filled with clear water. I’ll plant a pear over yours to make sure it is sweet.’
The corners of her mouth flickered in an attempted smile.
‘It hurts to talk?’
She nodded.
‘Rest, then,’ I said. ‘I’ll stay with you.’
‘Am I sick?’ she asked. ‘Am I going to die?’
Panic billowed through me. I felt my gut drop, my mouth slip open, before I remembered myself. ‘Of course not,’ I said, and I smiled and placed my hand on her forehead. She was fire.
Thea pulled my hand down against her cheek and held it there, searching my face as though she did not believe me. ‘This feels like dying.’
‘It’s just that awful water,’ I said. ‘As soon as it rains, as soon as we arrive, you’ll feel better.’
‘Hanne.’ Her eyes were a hot blue.
‘You’re not dying.’
‘You won’t leave me, will you? Please – stay with me.’
I watched her kiss the crease in the middle of my palm.
‘I’m here,’ I said. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Promise me.’
‘I promise.’
As I arrive at it now, the great hinge of my existence, the taste of that foul water creeps back across my tongue and remains with me. It bristles against my throat even now, all these years later, even here, in the valley, the sky pearling with coming dawn.
That night I saw Thea curl like a leaf in flame. I saw the colour go out of her. I saw her turn to ash.
‘Hanne.’
I woke to find Thea pallid and filmed with sweat. She did not smell as herself; she was the smell of turning meat. ‘Help,’ she was saying, eyes closed. ‘Help me.’
I woke Mutter Scheck. Anna Maria was sent for and I gave up my space in the berth and moved my things to Ottilie’s bunk, which had remained unoccupied since her death. My mouth was dry. I did not dare believe Thea had caught the sickness, even though I had spent the evening feeling the fever in her skin, holding her steady over the bucket. I watched as Mutter Scheck and Anna Maria stood in soft conversation. I could not hear what they were saying, but I thought I heard Anna Maria’s voice lift in vexation. At ten o’clock, Christiana silently rose and put out the light, and shortly afterwards I heard Mutter Scheck’s prayers as she readied herself for bed. I heard her say Thea’s name.
She is not dying, I told myself. She will be well again soon.
I did not sleep that night. I could hear Anna Maria tending to Thea in the gloom, bringing her boiled water and urging her to swallow all of it. I heard a spoon clink against a bottle. Heard the low, private sounds of Thea’s body as it rejected anything that promised recovery or sustenance. When the lamps were lit in the morning, they illuminated a grey scene. The Wend, sentry over her daughter, mouth grim.
‘Is she better?’
Anna Maria looked up. Her eyes found mine and they were kind and worried. ‘Not yet.’
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘Nervous fever.’ Her voice was soft. Full of bruising. ‘Typhus.’
‘It was just a headache,’ I said. My voice was strange to my ears. I did not recognise it. ‘Because of the pig.’
Thea groaned in her bed and Anna Maria turned back to her.
‘What can I do?’ I asked.
‘Pray for her,’ Anna Maria replied without lifting her eyes off her daughter. She stroked her cheek. ‘Pray for her.’
I did not dare leave my berth that day. I prayed again and again, until it felt as though my words were a kind of talisman, as though they were circling about Thea and, as long as I prayed, they would hold her fast to the world.
I did not eat. When night came, I told myself that Thea would feel the weight of my gaze and be calmed by it, protected by it. I prayed, eyes open. Almighty God, I implored, spare her and make her well. Lord, spare her and make her well. Spare her. Spare her.
I fell asleep eventually, my body betraying my will. And when I woke the tween deck heaved with slow breathing, sleep and creaking. The air was heavy. The light from the hatchway swung with the regular rocking of the ship, and in its glow I saw Anna Maria sitting next to Thea. At first I thought she prayed over her, but when I heard Thea’s voice, I saw that Anna Maria held a book in her hands and was pressing it upon her daughter’s chest.
‘Accept it,’ she was saying. ‘Accept it.’
Thea was pushing the book away with what remaining strength she had, and when I heard Anna Maria speak again, I could hear tears in her voice.
‘Please,’ she was saying. ‘Please, you must accept it.’
I did not hear Thea’s reply, and although I waited, nothing more was said between them. Anna Maria rose and staggered to the water barrel, and I shut my eyes so that she would not know I had seen her.
I dreamed of water. I dreamed I divined rivers running beneath the ship’s boards. I crouched on the floor, one hand outspread and the other gripping a knife. I plunged the blade downwards and the wood of the boards broke apart. Water bubbled up like a wellspring. Fresh, clean water. It sang of snow melt and rock and silent places. I watched it creep along the floor, rising until it lapped against the blankets of the lower berths. I reached out and placed my palm against the surface, and when I looked up, I saw Thea drinking, scooping handfuls to her mouth so that water dripped down her chin and clothes.
‘Water of life,’ she said, and she reached for me.
And then I fell out of my bed and woke.
It took a few moments for me to understand what was happening. The bow was black-dark and I could hear voices and cries. There was water everywhere, as in my dream, but as the ship tipped and I started to slide across the floor, colliding with something hard, I understood that it was not fresh water, but salt.
I wanted to cry out but the words caught at the back of my throat. I was strangled with fear. I reached out as the ship rolled again, and my hand found an ankle. I heard Christiana shriek.
‘Christiana?’
‘Hanne?’
Hands found me and helped me up, pulling me into a bed. The mattress was soaked.
‘Christiana, is that you? Why is it dark?’
‘The safety light has gone out.’