“The graveyard? Why must we meet there?”
“It is not a place they would expect us to choose. You saw that there were new girls in the barn with us? While I was allowed to rest and tend to James, I watched the selfsame Indians who brought us here deliver these new conscripts. The man whose wounds I tended with bear grease recognized me. If people may come in, people may go out. Rachael Johansen will deliver in a couple of months; the Indians return then, too.”
“Do you not think Reverend Johansen will return for her?”
“I know not. But she could not travel so soon. I plan only for you and me.”
“We should take some food. I do not want to go on a ship in a cage. I want to go as ladies. Fed ladies.”
“I would sell my gold rings for our passage home. I have asked to attend Rachael. I will be free to come and go in carrying out my duties for her. You do not need to do anything but wait for my word. I shall watch the moon after her babe is come. We will travel by bright moonlight. Do nothing unless you hear gumboo.”
“And we could slip away?”
A voice behind us said, “Shall you slip away? Where to?”
I turned to see Christine Hasken there, and said, “To the privy, for we both have soured stomachs from the food we had to eat.” I squeezed Patience’s arm.
Christine said, “Leaving? Why, I thought you were a good little pope’s child, Mary.” She clucked her tongue. “What would Sister Joseph do if she knew? She delivered Thea Newham to one of the priests to be used as a doxy. Perhaps that would suit you?”
Patey shuddered against my side. “I don’t believe that. None of us have been treated so.”
I remembered Lukas’s sister. “Thea Newham was a tart when she came here.” I knew not if it were true; I meant to scald her. She bristled, but she did not try to slap me.
Christine said, “I care not whether you believe it. You are both stupid slaves.”
I added, “Your sister Rachael’s husband has run away and left her heavy with child. Fine minister of God, he is. You suppose he will come back for her?”
“He left with my father,” she said. “The two of them will come back. They will take us away.”
Sister Agathe approached.
“I am sure,” said Patience, “that you mean yourself and your sister? You do not mean we three standing here?”
Christine closed her mouth and glared at Sister Agathe. I smiled at the nun, and said, “Good evening, Sister.”
“Return to your rooms now, children,” Sister said, and continued on her way.
Christine hissed, “There is nothing more savage than a Roman Catholic.” She whirled around so that her skirt brushed ours, and left.
“How, Ressie, do you come to know what a tart or a doxy is?” Patience whispered.
“What is it?”
“Better you forget those words. The less you know of that the better.” She pinched my cheek, but did not smile.
From my cot I whispered to Donatienne, “I heard the Indians came back with more children recently.”
“Did they have feathers and make whooping sounds?”
“No.”
“Then they were not Indians.”
I did not want to argue with her. “I heard two men escaped from here.”
She lay on her back. I could see the profile of her face in reflected light coming in a window. “Men sometimes find a way to leave.”
“Would you leave, if you got the chance?”
“Where would I go? This place is my home.”
“But if you had a home somewhere, would you not go?”
“We are not prisoners, Marie. This is an orphanage. We have no place to go to, and no one else who will feed an orphaned girl. Why, if they held the doors wide open I would not go through.”
I wanted to say, “I was sold like an animal in a room by the outer wall. I still remember the old man, Brother Christophe, who wrote down my name and paid the Indians money,” but all I said was, “Oh.”
Donatienne was silent. I heard her sigh. She said, “Girls who leave here, the ones without castles and coaches, come to a bad end, you know?”
“What end? Do they starve? I would not want to starve.”
“You know what I mean.” Someone across the room snored. Two girls coughed.
“No, I do not.”
“Lean close to me.” She whispered, “They go to a bawdy house and take money to let men press desires upon them.”
“What does that mean?”
“I am not sure.”
“Oh. What is a doxy?”