Pastor Flügel announced himself outside the Eichenwalds’ cottage at dawn, stepping inside before Anna Maria had time to welcome him in. Thea had not told her of my mother’s earlier visit, and so the Wend’s surprise at Flügel’s intrusion was genuine. And while she tried to hide it, I could see, too, real fear when the pastor told her he had come to search for a book that, by direction of the Lutheran Church, must be burned. Someone had been bewitching animals. Anna Maria sat at the table, trying to catch Thea’s eye as the pastor peered under beds, rapped his knuckles on the wall and opened her dough bin and earthenware vats of fermenting vegetables. Thea was a calm surface of innocence, standing patiently in the corner of the room with her hands folded in front of her apron. It wasn’t until the pastor had left, rumpled and annoyed, and Anna Maria had spun around to her daughter, face red, that Thea pointed to the dirt floor beneath her feet.
‘Fetch the spade,’ she said.
Anna Maria clapped her hands together and laughed. ‘How did you know to hide it? Clever girl.’
‘Johanne Nussbaum warned me.’
‘Johanne Nussbaum?’ Anna Maria raised her eyebrows. ‘When?’
‘She came this morning.’
‘She surprises me.’
Thea dropped her eyes to the earth floor. ‘I nearly threw it on the fire myself.’
‘Oh, Thea.’
‘I did. I nearly burned it.’
‘Why would you do such a thing?’
‘I’m sick of the suspicion, Mama. Why else do you think I’m marrying Hans? Why else am I attaching myself to the family of an elder?’
‘What?’
‘The Pasches are respectable. The Radtkes will be less inclined to level accusations at Hans Pasche’s mother-in-law.’
Anna Maria shook her head. ‘One day you’ll study that God-given book and you’ll find the wisdom you need in its pages. Those books are as holy as the five the pastor reads from in the Bible. I never told you to marry Hans.’
Thea lifted her hands in the air. ‘I just . . .’
‘What?’
‘I know. I know that if you hadn’t given it to me, Hanne would still be here.’
‘You don’t know that. Hanne was sick. “Hanne, Hanne.” Think of yourself! You – you would have died. You looked on the face of God in that ship.’
‘Did I?’ muttered Thea. ‘She has such curly hair.’
‘Do not blaspheme,’ Anna Maria snapped.
‘Do not take Hanne’s name in vain.’
‘Thea! What has happened to you? You were always such an open child, such a bright and curious girl, and now – now you do not honour me.’ Anna Maria stood from her chair. ‘Where is your light? That inner light of yours? You hardly speak to me. You hardly speak at all! And when you do . . .’
‘I’m not a child anymore, Mama. And you no longer know what is best for me.’
‘A mother always knows what is best for her child.’
‘Yes, her child, but I am grown now. I am grown!’ Thea ran her palms over her face. ‘I do honour you, Mama. If I didn’t, your book would be ash.’
Anna Maria stared at her daughter then, nodding grimly to herself, went outside.
Thea sank to her heels against the wall. ‘No light.’ She gave a sad laugh. ‘What a cruel thing to say to someone.’
There is a cave not far from here. I found myself at the mouth of it during those years of wandering, when I did not keep track of days or the changing face of the moon. Inside the cave were ochre paintings that suddenly pulled me into time. I sat and looked at them and time passed and I knew it was passing, but there was give in its direction, there was curve, and days passed like a whirlpool, its distance extended only within, against, beside itself.
There is ochre on the ground here, where I sit. I feel it underfoot, even in the dark. This country is clay country. Ochre country.
That I could draw her face with it. Draw us, mark us in time. We were here. We existed in time. We exist.
The night before her wedding, Thea called me by name.
She was in bed. My head was on the rise and fall of her ribs, my hand filling her upturned palm. It was late. The house was quiet. I was memorising the creases of her elbows, the whorls of her fingers, like a mother tongue I was afraid of forgetting. I was saying goodbye.
‘I dreamed about you, Hanne,’ she whispered.
I felt rather than heard her voice. It went through me like a song.
‘I dreamed we were birds. I felt feather quills shivering out along my skin, and then there was water beneath me. We were flying. Then a sailor shot you out of the sky and you fell into the sea, and I drowned trying to find you. I forgot I could not swim.
‘Hanne, I miss you.’ I felt her ribs seize with emotion. ‘I thought that faith would be enough. I thought the forest . . .’ Thea began to cry. I entwined my fingers with hers and waited until she fell asleep. I did not know what to say.
All that night, I composed hymns to the sound of her heart. Hymns that might hold its steady beat in perpetuity, once she was wed and gone from me.
The morning of Thea’s wedding, there was a heavy autumn mist on the ground. It was impossible not to think of Thea as I first met her, all those years ago.
Here we are, two ghosts. Telling each other we’re alive.
I heard Flügel’s handbell calling the congregation to the church as Anna Maria peered through the small window beside the door to the cottage, white headdress crisp and sharply folded. She called out to Thea, dressing in the bedroom. ‘I can see Radtke’s wagon arriving for Hans. Goodness, you’d best move yourself.’
‘Here.’
And there was Thea, standing beside the table, her hair white against the black of her wedding dress, covered with a wreath of green leaves. She looked a sprite. She looked a woman. Sombre and serious. The sight of her filled me with reverence.
‘Oh. Thea.’
‘I cannot do these buttons.’
Anna Maria slowly walked around her glowing daughter and fastened the high collar. ‘You’re trembling,’ she said.
‘I know.’
‘Are you nervous?’
‘I think I might be sick.’ Thea turned, eyes searching her mother’s. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think you look very fine.’
I was a pilgrim before an apparition. In that moment it was impossible not to imagine, however briefly, that Thea was marrying me. I knew that such a thing was an impossibility. I knew that no one ever contemplated such a thing. And yet, for one hallowed heartskip, that moment expanded into a life. Shared bed under two framed myrtle crowns. Skin on skin. Hours of ordinariness and days of rain, and night-walking to the creek, and sun-warmed clothes in arms. More time together than we had ever been allowed. More time. More time.
Anna Maria pulled her daughter into a close embrace and rested her chin upon Thea’s head. ‘You will be married then.’
The moment passed, and I was only shadow admiring the light.
Silence stretched the length of the room. Anna Maria stepped back, smoothing Thea’s hair behind her ears. Her expression shifted.
‘You’re crying.’
Thea nodded.