Penguin Teen Hidden Histories Sampler

s a l t

to the

s e a

a n o v e l

R U TA S E P E T Y S

P H I L O M E L B O O K S

Salttointerior_final_withmaps.indd 1 9/30/15 5:29 PM

PHILOMEL BOOKSan imprint of Penguin Random House LLC375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

Text copyright © 2016 by Ruta Sepetys. Map illustrations copyright © 2016 by Katrina Damkoehler.

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not

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Philomel Books is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataSepetys, Ruta. Salt to the sea : a novel / Ruta Sepetys. pages cm Summary: “As

World War II draws to a close, refugees try to escape the war’s final dangers, only to find themselves aboard a ship with a target on its hull”—Provided by publisher. 1. World War, 1939–1945—Juvenile fiction. [1. World War, 1939–1945—Fiction.

2. Refugees—Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.S47957Sal 2016 [Fic]—dc23 2015009057

Printed in the United States of America.ISBN 978-0-399-16030-1 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Edited by Liza Kaplan. Design by Semadar Megged.Text set in 11.5-point Adobe Garamond Pro.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

A L S O BY RU TA S E PE T Y S

Between Shades of GrayOut of the Easy


F o r m y f a t h e r .M y h e r o .


GERMANY

P OL AND

CZE CHO SL OVAKIA

LITHUANIA

EAST PRUSSIA

K i e l

B erl in

He id e l b erg

Wars a w

19 45OVERVIE W

Viln i u s

Ka una s

Gotenhafen Nemmersdorf

Ins terburg

TilsitPillau

Frauenburg

Goya

Wilhelm Gus tloff

Steuben

DENMARK SWEDENB irža i

Lwó w

Königsberg

B a l t i c S e a

S a s sn i t z

* **

L AT VIA

B ORNHOLM (DENMAR K)

final maps.indd 1 9/2/15 3:18 PM


GERMANY

P OL AND

CZE CHO SL OVAKIA

LITHUANIA

EAST PRUSSIA

K i e l

B erl in

He id e l b erg

Wars a w

19 45OVERVIE W

Viln i u s

Ka una s

Gotenhafen Nemmersdorf

Ins terburg

TilsitPillau

Frauenburg

Goya

Wilhelm Gus tloff

Steuben

DENMARK SWEDENB irža i

Lwó w

Königsberg

B a l t i c S e a

S a s sn i t z

* **

L AT VIA

B ORNHOLM (DENMAR K)

final maps.indd 1 9/2/15 3:18 PM


We the survivors are not the true witnesses. The true witnesses, those in possession of the unspeakable truth, are the drowned, the dead, the disappeared.

—Primo Levi


1S a lt t o t h e S e a

joanaGuilt is a hunter.

My conscience mocked me, picking fights like a petulant child.

It’s all your fault, the voice whispered.I quickened my pace and caught up with our small group.

The Germans would march us off the field road if they found us. Roads were reserved for the military. Evacuation orders hadn’t been issued and anyone fleeing East Prussia was branded a deserter. But what did that matter? I became a deserter four years ago, when I fled from Lithuania.

Lithuania.I had left in 1941. What was happening at home? Were the

dreadful things whispered in the streets true?We approached a mound on the side of the road. The small

boy in front of me whimpered and pointed. He had joined us two days prior, just wandered out of the forest alone and qui-etly began following us.

“Hello, little one. How old are you?” I had asked.“Six,” he replied.“Who are you traveling with?”He paused and dropped his head. “My Omi.”


2 R u t a S e p e t y s

I turned toward the woods to see if his grandmother had emerged. “Where is your Omi now?” I asked.

The wandering boy looked up at me, his pale eyes wide. “She didn’t wake up.”

So the little boy traveled with us, often drifting just slightly ahead or behind. And now he stood, pointing to a flap of dark wool beneath a meringue of snow.

I waved the group onward and when everyone advanced I ran to the snow-covered heap. The wind lifted a layer of icy flakes revealing the dead blue face of a woman, probably in her twenties. Her mouth and eyes were hinged open, fixed in fear. I dug through her iced pockets, but they had already been picked. In the lining of her jacket I found her identification papers. I stuffed them in my coat to pass on to the Red Cross and dragged her body off the road and into the field. She was dead, frozen solid, but the thought of tanks rolling over her was more than I could bear.

I ran back to the road and our group. The wandering boy stood in the center of the path, snow falling all around him.

“She didn’t wake up either?” he asked quietly.I shook my head and took his mittened hand in mine.And then we both heard it in the distance.Bang.



f lorianFate is a hunter.

Engines buzzed in a swarm above. Der Schwarze Tod, “the Black Death,” they called them. I hid beneath the trees. The planes weren’t visible, but I felt them. Close. Trapped by dark-ness both ahead and behind, I weighed my options. An explo-sion detonated and death crept closer, curling around me in fingers of smoke.

I ran.My legs churned, sluggish, disconnected from my rac-

ing mind. I willed them to move, but my conscience noosed around my ankles and pulled down hard.

“You are a talented young man, Florian.” That’s what Mother had said.

“You are Prussian. Make your own decisions, son,” said my father.

Would he have approved of my decisions, of the secrets I now carried across my back? Amidst this war between Hitler and Stalin, would Mother still consider me talented, or criminal?

The Soviets would kill me. But how would they torture me first? The Nazis would kill me, but only if they uncovered the plan. How long would it remain a secret? The questions



propelled me forward, whipping through the cold forest, dodg-ing branches. I clutched my side with one hand, my pistol with the other. The pain surged with each breath and step, releasing warm blood out of the angry wound.

The sound of the engines faded. I had been on the run for days and my mind felt as weak as my legs. The hunter preyed on the fatigued and weary. I had to rest. The pain slowed me to a jog and finally a walk. Through the dense trees in the forest I spied branches hiding an old potato cellar. I jumped in.

Bang.



emiliaShame is a hunter.

I would rest a moment. I had a moment, didn’t I? I slid across the cold, hard earth toward the back of the cave. The ground quivered. Soldiers were close. I had to move but felt so tired. It was a good idea to put branches over the mouth of the forest cellar. Wasn’t it? No one would trek this far off the road. Would they?

I pulled the pink woolen cap down over my ears and tugged my coat closed near my throat. Despite my bundled layers, January’s teeth bit sharp. My fingers had lost all feeling. Pieces of my hair, frozen crisp to my collar, tore as I turned my head. So I thought of August.

My eyes dropped closed.And then they opened.A Russian soldier was there.He leaned over me with a light, poking my shoulder with

his pistol.I jumped, frantically pushing myself back.“Fräulein.” He grinned, pleased that I was alive. “Komme,

Fräulein. How old are you?”“Fifteen,” I whispered. “Please, I’m not German. Nicht

Deutsche.”



He didn’t listen, didn’t understand, or didn’t care. He pointed his gun at me and yanked at my ankle. “Shh, Fräulein.” He lodged the gun under the bone of my chin.

I pleaded. I put my hands across my stomach and begged.He moved forward.No. This would not happen. I turned my head. “Shoot me,

soldier. Please.”Bang.



alfredFear is a hunter.

But brave warriors, we brush away fear with a flick of the wrist. We laugh in the face of fear, kick it like a stone across the street. Yes, Hannelore, I compose these letters in my mind first, as I cannot abandon my men as often as I think of you.

You would be proud of your watchful companion, sailor Alfred Frick. Today I saved a young woman from falling into the sea. It was nothing really, but she was so grateful she clung to me, not wanting to let go.

“Thank you, sailor.” Her warm whisper lingered in my ear. She was quite pretty and smelled like fresh eggs, but there have been many grateful and pretty girls. Oh, do not be concerned. You and your red sweater are foremost in my thoughts. How fondly, how incessantly, I think of my Hannelore and red-sweater days.

I’m relieved you are not here to see this. Your sugared heart could not bear the treacherous circumstances here in the port of Gotenhafen. At this very moment, I am guarding dangerous explosives. I am serving Germany well. Only seventeen, yet carry-ing more valor than those twice my years. There is talk of an honor ceremony but I’m too busy fighting for the Führer to accept honors. Honors are for the dead, I’ve told them. We must fight while we are alive!



Yes, Hannelore, I shall prove to all of Germany. There is indeed a hero inside of me.

Bang.I abandoned my mental letter and crouched in the supply

closet, hoping no one would find me. I did not want to go outside.



f lorianI stood in the forest cellar, my gun fixed on the dead Russian. The back of his head had departed from his skull. I rolled him off the woman.

She wasn’t a woman. She was a girl in a pink woolen cap. And she had fainted.

I scavenged through the Russian’s frozen pockets and took cigarettes, a flask, a large sausage wrapped in paper, his gun, and ammunition. He wore two watches on each wrist, trophies collected from his victims. I didn’t touch them.

Crouching near the corner of the cellar, I scanned the cold chamber for signs of food but saw none. I put the ammunition in my pack, careful not to disturb the small box wrapped in a cloth. The box. How could something so small hold such power? Wars had been waged over less. Was I really willing to die for it? I gnawed at the dried sausage, savoring the saliva it produced.

The ground vibrated slightly.This Russian wasn’t alone. There would be more. I had to

move.I turned the top on the soldier’s flask and raised it to my

nose. Vodka. I opened my coat, then my shirt, and poured the alcohol down my side. The intensity of the pain produced a



flash in front of my eyes. My ruptured flesh fought back, twist-ing and pulsing. I took a breath, bit back a yell, and tortured the gash with the remainder of the alcohol.

The girl stirred in the dirt. Her head snapped away from the dead Russian. Her eyes scanned the gun at my feet and the flask in my hand. She sat up, blinking. Her pink hat slid from her head and fell silently into the dirt. The side of her coat was streaked with blood. She reached into her pocket.

I threw down the flask and grabbed the gun.She opened her mouth and spoke.Polish.



emiliaThe Russian soldier stared at me, mouth open, eyes empty.

Dead.What had happened?Crouching in the corner was a young man dressed in civilian

clothes. His coat and shirt were unfastened, his skin bloodied and bruised to a deep purple. He held a gun. Was he going to shoot me? No, he had killed the Russian. He had saved me.

“Are you okay?” I asked, barely recognizing my own voice. His face twisted at the sound of my words.

He was German.I was Polish.He would want nothing to do with me. Adolf Hitler had

declared that Polish people were subhuman. We were to be destroyed so the Germans could have the land they needed for their empire. Hitler said Germans were superior and would not live among Poles. We were not Germanizable. But our soil was.

I pulled a potato from my pocket and held it out to him. “Thank you.”

The dirt pulsed slightly. How much time had passed? “We have to go,” I told him.

I tried to use my best German. In my head the sentences were



intact, but I wasn’t sure they came out that way. Sometimes when I spoke German people laughed at me and then I knew my words were wrong. I lowered my arm and saw my sleeve, splattered with Russian blood. Would this ever end? Tears stirred inside of me. I did not want to cry.

The German stared at me, a combination of fatigue and frustration. But I understood.

His eyes on the potato said, Emilia, I’m hungry.The dried blood on his shirt said, Emilia, I’m injured.But the way he clutched his pack told me the most.Emilia, don’t touch this.



joanaWe trudged farther down the narrow road. Fifteen refugees. The sun had finally surrendered and the temperature followed. A blind girl ahead of me, Ingrid, held a rope tethered to a horse-drawn cart. I had my sight, but we shared a handicap: we both walked into a dark corridor of combat, with no view of what lay ahead. Perhaps her lost vision was a gift. The blind girl could hear and smell things that the rest of us couldn’t.

Did she hear the last gasp of the old man as he slipped under the wheels of a cart several kilometers back? Did she taste coins in her mouth when she walked over the fresh blood in the snow?

“Heartbreaking. They killed her,” said a voice behind me. It was the old shoemaker. I stopped and allowed him to catch up. “The frozen woman back there,” he continued. “Her shoes killed her. I keep telling them, but they don’t listen. Poorly made shoes will torture your feet, inhibit your progress. Then you will stop.” He squeezed my arm. His soft red face peered out from beneath his hat. “And then you will die,” he whispered.

The old man spoke of nothing but shoes. He spoke of them with such love and emotion that a woman in our group had



crowned him “the shoe poet.” The woman disappeared a day later but the nickname survived.

“The shoes always tell the story,” said the shoe poet.“Not always,” I countered.“Yes, always. Your boots, they are expensive, well made.

That tells me that you come from a wealthy family. But the style is one made for an older woman. That tells me they prob-ably belonged to your mother. A mother sacrificed her boots for her daughter. That tells me you are loved, my dear. And your mother is not here, so that tells me that you are sad, my dear. The shoes tell the story.”

I paused in the center of the frozen road and watched the stubby old cobbler shuffle ahead of me. The shoe poet was right. Mother had sacrificed for me. When we fled from Lithuania she rushed me to Insterburg and, through a friend, arranged for me to work in the hospital. That was four years ago. Where was Mother now?

I thought of the countless refugees trekking toward free-dom. How many millions of people had lost their home and family during the war? I had agreed with Mother to look to the future, but secretly I dreamed of returning to the past. Had anyone heard from my father or brother?

The blind girl put her face to the sky and raised her arm in signal.

And then I heard them.Planes.



f lorianWe had barely crawled out of the potato cellar when the Polish girl began to cry. She knew I was going to leave her.

I had no choice. She would slow me down.Hitler aimed to destroy all Poles. They were Slavic, branded

inferior. My father said the Nazis had killed millions of Poles. Polish intellectuals were savagely executed in public. Hitler set up extermination camps in German-occupied Poland, filtering the blood of innocent Jews into the Polish soil.

Hitler was a coward. That had been one thing Father and I agreed upon.

“Proszę . . . bitte,” she begged, alternating between Polish and broken German.

I couldn’t stand to look at her, at the streaks of dead Russian splattered down her sleeve. I started to walk away, her sobs flapping behind me.

“Wait. Please,” she called out.The sound of her crying was painfully familiar. It had the

exact tone of my younger sister, Anni, and the sobs I heard through the hallway the day Mother took her last breath.

Anni. Where was she? Was she too in some dark forest hole with a gun to her head?



A pain ripped through my side, forcing me to stop. The girl’s feet quickly approached. I resumed walking.

“Thank you,” she chirped from behind.The sun disappeared and the cold tightened its fist. My cal-

culations told me that I needed to walk another two kilometers west before stopping for the night. There was a better chance of finding shelter along a field road, but also a better chance of running into troops. It was wiser to continue along the edge of the forest.

The girl heard them before I did. She grabbed my arm. The buzzing of aircraft engines surged fast and close from behind. The Russians were targeting German ground troops nearby. Were they in front of us or beside us?

The bombs began falling. With each explosion, every bone in my body vibrated and hammered, clanging violently against the bell tower that was my flesh. The sound of anti-aircraft fire rang through the sky, answering the initial blasts.

The girl tried to pull me onward.I shoved her away. “Run!”She shook her head, pointed forward, and awkwardly tried

to pull me through the snow. I wanted to run, forget about her, leave her in the forest. But then I saw the droplets of blood in the snow coming from beneath her bulky coat.

And I could not.


9780399168031_UnderaPainte_TX

1

1

THEY SAY DEATH AIMS ONLY ONCE AND NEVER

misses, but I doubt Ty Yorkshire thought it would strike with a scrubbing brush. Now his face wears the mask of surprise that sometimes accompanies death: his eyes bulge, carp-like, and his mouth curves around a profanity.

Does killing a man who tried to rape me count as murder? For me, it probably does. The law in Missouri in this year of our Lord 1849 does not sympathize with a Chinaman’s daughter.

I shake out my hand but can’t let go of the scrubbing brush. Not until I see the blood speckling my arm. Gasping, I drop the brush. It clatters on the cold, wet tile beside the dead man’s head. An owl cries outside, and a clock chimes nine times.

My mind wheels back to twelve hours ago, before the world turned on its head . . .

Nine o’clock this morning: I strapped on the Lady Tin-Yin’s violin case and glared at my father, who was holding a conch shell to his ear. I thought it was pretty when I bought it from the curiosity shop back in New York. But ever since he began listening to it every morning and every evening, just to hear the ocean, I’ve wanted to smash it.

9780399168031_UnderaPainte_TX.indd 1 9/15/15 10:27 AM

2


U n d e r A Pai nte d S k y

He put the shell down on the cutting table, then unfolded a bolt of calico. Our store, the Whistle, was already open but no one was clamoring for dry goods just yet.

The floor creaked as I swept by the sacks of coffee stamped with the word Whistle and headed straight for the candy. Father was cutting the fabric in the measured way he did everything. Snip. Snip.

Noisily, I stuffed a tin of peppermints into my case for the children’s lessons, then proceeded to the door. Unlike Father, I kept my promises. If a student played his scales correctly, I re-warded him with a peppermint. Never would I snatch the sweet out of his mouth and replace it with, say, cod-liver oil. Never.

“Sammy.”My feet slowed at my name.“Don’t forget your shawl.” Snip.I considered leaving without it so I wouldn’t ruin my exit. But

then people would stare even more than they usually did. I re-turned to our cramped living quarters in the back of the store and snatched the woolen bundle from a basket. Underneath my shawl, Father had hidden a plate of don tot for me to find, covered by a thin layer of parchment. I lifted off the parchment. Five custard tarts like miniature sunflowers shone up at me. He must have woken extra early to make them because he knew I’d still be mad.

I took the plate and the shawl and returned to the front of the shop. “You said we’d move back to New York, not two thousand miles the other way.” New York had culture. With luck, I might even make a living as a musician there.



3

Stacey Lee

His scissors paused. When he finally looked up at me, I raised my gaze by a fraction. His neatly combed hair had more white than I remembered.

“I said one day,” he returned evenly. “One day.” Then his tone lightened. “They say the Pacific Ocean’s so calm, you could mistake it for the sky. We’d see so many new animals. Dolphins, whales longer than a city block, maybe even a mermaid.” His eyes twinkled.

“I’m not a child anymore.” Only two months from sixteen.“Just so.” He frowned and returned to his cutting. Then he

cleared his throat. “I have great plans for us. Mr. Trask and I—”

Mr. Trask again. I set the plate down on the cutting table, and one of the fragile custards broke. Father lifted an eyebrow.

“Only men who want to pound rocks go to California,” I snapped. “It’s rocks and nothing.”

“California’s not the moon.”“It is to me.” Though I knew I shouldn’t claim the last word,

I couldn’t help it. I was born in the Year of the Snake after all, 1833. Father looked at me with sad but forgiving eyes. My anger slipped a fraction. With a sigh, I carefully scooped the broken tart off the plate and left the shop.

Five o’clock: Keeping my chin tucked in, I hurried down the road, kicking up dust around my skirts. The smell of smoke was especially robust tonight. Maybe the smokehouse had burned the meats again. The boys who worked there were not partic-ularly gifted, plus they were mean. I already knew they would


4



overcharge us for the salt pork we’d need for the trek west, and Father would have no choice but to pay.

I marched past uneven blocks of mismatched buildings, long-ing for the orderly streets of New York City. There were actual sidewalks there, and the air always smelled like sea brine and hot bread, unlike St. Joe, which reeked of garbage and smoke and—

I lifted my head. The sky had thickened to a hazy gray, textured with particles . . . like ash? Something sour rose in my throat.

It was not the smokehouse meat that was burning.I ran, my violin bouncing against my back.Oh please, God, no.I flew past empty streets and turned onto Main, where sud-

denly there were too many people, some standing like cattle, others clutching squirming children to them. Noise assaulted me from all sides, people yelling, animals braying, and my own ragged breath.

The Whistle was a charred heap, an ugly inkblot against the dusky sky. The heat made the air look wavy, but the bitter reek in my nose told me the scene was no mirage. Ashes fluttered like black snowflakes all around.

“Father!” I pounded toward the remains, scanning the area for his distinctive figure. His dark hair and small build. The worn jacket with the patches on the elbows that he wouldn’t re-place because he was saving for my future. Maybe he had shed it, for surely he was hauling water along with the rest of the men.

Smoke filled my lungs, and burned my eyes as I rubbed my grimy fingers into them.



5

Stacey Lee

“Out of the way!” yelled a man carrying buckets. Water sloshed onto my skirt.

I trotted beside him as he carried the buckets to another man who threw them onto the smoldering ruins. “My father—”

The man barely glanced at me. “He’s gone.”I uttered a hoarse cry. Gone?“Lucky you weren’t there yourself or you’d have been trapped,

too. Now move!” He trod on my foot as he shoved by, but I hardly felt it.

My God, I didn’t—I should have . . . “How?” I asked no one in particular. Was it an accident?

Father was the most careful person I knew. He always doused the stove after we used it, and strictly enforced our no smoking permitted signage. No, if it was an accident, it couldn’t have been Father’s.

Whoever was responsible, may he pay for it in a thousand ways, go blind in both eyes, deaf in both ears. Better yet, may he perish in hell.

I choked back a sob and tried to make sense of the fum-ing mess in front of me. There was nothing but jagged piles of charred fragments. I could make out a heap of ash in the spot where we kept our wooden safe. Though Mother’s bracelet was no longer inside, it had held other irreplaceable treasures. A photo of Mother. Father’s immigration papers.

A wall of heat stopped me from going closer than fifteen feet from our front door, or where it used to be. My eyes burned as I strained to find my father, still not quite believing the horror was real. But as the heat began to cook my skin, I knew as sure as


6



the Kingdom hadn’t come that he was gone. My father burned alive.

I shuddered and then my chest began to rack so hard I could scarcely draw a breath. Smoke engulfed me, thick and unyield-ing, but the awful truth rooted me to the spot: after I’d given my last lesson of the day, I’d dawdled along the banks of the dirty Missouri, throwing stones instead of coming home directly. I should have been with him.

Oh, Father, I’m sorry I argued with you. I’m sorry I left with my nose in the air. Were you remembering that when the smoke robbed you of your last breath? You always said, Have patience in one moment of anger, and you will avoid one hundred days of sorrow. My temper has cost me a lifetime of sorrow. And now, I will never be able to ask your forgiveness, or see your kind face again.

Another man carrying buckets barreled toward me. “Move back, girl, you’re in the way!”

I stumbled toward an elm tree, and there I stood, even after the glowing hot spots had ceased to burn, and buckets were no longer emptied.

Still the black snow fell, bits of my life flaking down on me.



7

TEXT

SH

OR

T

2

“SHE’S BEEN STANDING THERE OVER AN HOUR,”

a man muttered to another as they passed by.“Place just lit up,” said a woman from behind. “Everything

burned, even the Chinaman.”“They sold the Whistle to a Chinaman?” asked another

woman.My face flushed at her commenting on this rather than on

Father’s death. We were never welcome here. Why should I ex-pect people to care now, just because Father had died? I turned to glare at the two women, only now noticing the crowd that had gathered. The thick soup of smoke had thinned to a veil of black.

“Six months ago. Where you been? Well, that’s the chance you take when you operate a dry goods. Places like that are tinderboxes.” This first woman finally noticed me, my lips clamped tight and my eyes swollen. She elbowed her friend, then they hurried away.

Fly, you crows. My father was not a spectacle. He was the greatest man I ever knew. He was my everything.

I clutched at the elm tree before I fell over.


8



A child born in the Year of the Snake was lucky. But every so often, a Snake was born unlucky. Mother died in childbirth, a clear indication that my life would be unlucky. To counteract my misfortune, a blind fortune-teller told Father never to cut my hair, or bad luck would return. In addition, she said I should resist my Snake weaknesses, such as crying easily and needing to have the last word.

“ ’Tis a shame about your daddy,” said a familiar voice. Our landlord, Ty Yorkshire, shook his head. His puffed skin made him look older than my father, though they were both in their forties.

I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand.“My best building, too,” he said in his rapid speech that

caused his jowls to shake. His left eye winked, the lashes flutter-ing like moth wings. “Sometimes you roll snake eyes.”

I gasped. He knew my Chinese lunar sign? It took me a mo-ment to realize he was talking about gambling, not me.

“I gotta meet with some company men. You need a place to stay, wash that black off you. La Belle Hotel is one of mine. Betsy will get you a nice room.” He tipped the edge of his hat, then hailed two men.

I blinked at his departing back. Despite his kind offer, the man always made me uneasy. Maybe it was the way his black suits hung over his too-wide hips, reminding me of a spade. Fa-ther said spades represented greed, because the first Chinese coins bore that shape.

One of the onlookers covered her mouth and recoiled when she saw me. A man put a protective arm around her shoulders,



9

Stacey Lee

like I was a wounded animal that might bite. I couldn’t blame him. I was unsure of my own reactions. The anger and horror poisoning my insides made every nerve sing in pain, made me want to scream, and weep. I was my violin bow, bent to the breaking point and on the verge of snapping in two.

But I did not snap. Instead, I shuffled toward Main, not even sure where I was going as I picked my way around horse pies.

Did he suffocate before the flames—?I shook my head. I couldn’t bear to think of it.My adopted French grandfather called Father his scholar.

Father could predict the weather by listening to birdsong. Knew which plants healed and which poisoned. Spoke six languages. Tipped his hat to everyone, even Mrs. Whitecomb, who reg-ularly pinched buttons from us.

The moist evening air licked at my face and bare arms. Some-where I had lost my shawl.

To my right, a line of wagons led down to the Missouri River. The town of St. Joe squatted at the edge of the civilized world. Folks came here to jump into the great unknown, starting with a ferry ride across the dirty Missouri.

Into the great unknown was where the grocer Mr. Trask took Mother’s jade bracelet after Father inexplicably gave it to him. Now, nothing remained.

I pressed my violin case into my gut and stared at the river. The shimmering surface beckoned to me. I could be with Father, instead of in this unjust world, which never threw us more than a cold glance. With the strong undertow, death would be quick.

But Father would not want that.


10



Dazed, I stumbled away. My boot caught on a sandbag and this time I did fall, sending my case skittering in front of me.

“Look sharp!” yelled a young man from atop a horse. I cov-ered my head with my arms. His sorrel stamped its print just inches from my head. White markings extended past its fetlocks like socks. The rider slowed.

“You okay, miss?” he asked in a soft but clear voice.I nodded but didn’t look back. Father always said, He who

gets up more than he falls, succeeds. I scrambled to collect my vio-lin before another horse came along and trampled it. The rider moved on.

I found myself staring up at La Belle Hotel, whose pink walls set it apart from its drab neighbors. Up close, I noticed the dirt overlaying the paint. Father and I avoided this street because he said the uneven surface brought bad energy. But I had nowhere else to go.

I swung open the heavy door. Behind an elaborately carved walnut counter, a woman in bright taffeta lifted her shriveled face to me. “Yes?”

“Good evening, ma’am,” I said in a shaky voice. “I’m Samantha Young. Mr. Yorkshire said I might find accommodation here.”

“Good Lord,” she muttered, thin nose twitching like a mouse’s.

Her cane dragged along the floor as she hobbled toward me, shhh, tap, shhh, tap. She raked a contemptuous eye across my face and down to my worn boots. After an eternal pause, she said, “Annamae, bring Miss Young up to room 2A and scrub her down.”



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Stacey Lee

A girl my age appeared in the doorway behind the staircase, skin the shade of pecans. She didn’t wear chains, but the brand on her forearm gave her away: a square with six dots, raised like icing piped onto her skin. If it was possible to feel any sicker, I did. Negroes walked tall and free in New York. I wished for the hundredth time we’d never left.

“Miss Betsy, ma’am?” said Annamae in a quiet voice.The old woman squinted, as if the sight of Annamae talking

displeased her.“Thought you wanted me to pick up the linens from the laun-

derer tonight, like I always do. I was just on my way.” Annamae pulled her shawl tightly around her shoulders and slanted her heart-shaped face toward the main door.

“Well, I’ve changed my mind, and how dare you question me.” Miss Betsy’s voice sliced through the air. “Now do as I ask, and don’t be slow about it.” She threw a hand at the girl as if to strike her, but Annamae was just out of reach.

Annamae regarded me with her deeply inset eyes. Chinese people believe that eyes like those indicate an analytical, practi-cal mind. The look she gave me was not unkind, but there was a spark of something there—anger?—that compounded the guilt I was already feeling. With a last glance at the door, Annamae bowed her head and placed her hand on the banister. One by one, she ascended the stairs, as if every step were a labor. I plod-ded after her uniformed figure, keeping my eyes fixed on the cheerful pink bow of her apron.

Room 2A was grander than I thought could exist in St. Joe, with a slipper tub set at the foot of a feather bed. But the


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opulence sat like raw chicory on my tongue. I wanted to be back with Father, picking apart the Paganini concerto. Taking nature walks with our copy of Fowler’s Flora.

Annamae filled the tub. A thick-handled brush and a cake of soap waited on a side table. The brush looked big enough to scrub a horse. Annamae finished pouring the water while I stuck to the wall and hugged myself.

“You’s grimy. Get in,” she said. A moment later, the door closed. She was gone.

Maybe I wouldn’t be scrubbed down. I peeled off my dress with the tiny flowers, washed so many times the color had dis-appeared. It was sticky with sweat and reeked of smoke.

I stepped into the water, lowering myself carefully. The bath smelled of lavender. This was the first tub I’d sat in since coming to St. Joe, but all I could think about was whether it was deep enough to drown in.

Oh, Father! How could you leave me behind? I could not even bury you like you deserved. What a disgrace of a daughter. I’m sorry. I should’ve been there, shouldn’t have taken the last word.

I submerged my head and counted . . . Thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight . . .



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3

SOMEONE PULLED ME UP BY THE BACK OF MY NECK.

Annamae peered down at me as I sucked in air. “You can’t kill you’self like that. It don’t work. I tried.”

I gaped at her. Ignoring me, she stretched her lean body over mine to unwind the two buns on top of my head. Her own hair was cropped short, accenting the swan-like curve of her neck.

She wiggled her fingers to loosen my tresses. I wanted to tell her not to scrub me down, but when she started kneading my scalp, I forgot.

“God makes our bodies want to live, no matter what our minds want to do,” she stated in a quiet, deep voice. Her face was more handsome than beautiful, with strong cheekbones, a narrow chin, and clear eyes that didn’t wander. She must have been born in the Year of the Dragon, since she looked about a year older than me and held herself with a certain quiet dignity. Father said you could spot Dragons a mile away because all heads turned their way.

Annamae poured the rinse water over my hair, then picked up the wooden brush. The bristles scratched my skin, but she didn’t scrub hard.


14



“Now why you want to kill you’self?” Her sympathy broke me.“I got home too late,” I sobbed. “The place was ashes. My

father died. He was everything to me.”The brush stopped for a moment. “I’m real sorry about that. I

know the hurt you’s feeling. Like you want to disappear into the nearest rabbit hole and never come out.” She took my hand and gently ran the bristles under my fingernails. “He the one gave you that fiddle?” She nodded at the Lady Tin-Yin.

“Yes.”“That means he believed in you. Only men play the fiddle.”I stared at her. It was true that most folks considered the vio-

lin too difficult for a woman to master, but, as with teaching me the Classics, Father never gave it a second thought.

She helped me out of the tub and handed me a robe. “I’ll fetch some tea.” Out she breezed, taking my soiled dress with her.

Not two minutes later, the door opened again. I thought it was Annamae, and jumped when our landlord Ty Yorkshire appeared in the door frame. Though he stood just a few inches taller than my five-foot-three height, his presence filled the room like the scent of bitter almonds.

“I’m not dressed,” I cried, pulling the robe more snugly around me.

“Had a good chat with the sheriff.” Slowly, he rubbed his thick hands together.

He stepped closer and I backed away. My skin broke out in gooseflesh.

“No point in filing charges for negligence against a dead man.” He turned to hang his hat on one of the wall hooks.



1 5

Stacey Lee

“Negligence?” If there was negligence, it wasn’t ours.“ ’Course, fires are expensive. Someone’s gotta ante up. Not

easy to insure a wood building like that, but I can be very con-vincing.” He waved at the bed. “Let’s sit down.” The bed groaned as he made himself comfortable.

“It’s not proper for you to be here. I’m not decent.”“Doesn’t bother me.” He patted the spot beside him, his

manner friendly and almost cheerful. “I really should get some chairs in here.”

When I still didn’t sit, he added, “All I want to do is talk a little business with you. It troubles me to see your poor situation, and I would like to help. But we can’t do business if we don’t trust each other, can we?”

I may not have liked him, but he did lease us the Whistle, even installed a new window when we complained about the draft. But what could he want from me, I wondered. Not violin lessons.

I perched on one corner of the bed, keeping my distance.To my surprise, he stood and took two steps back to the wall

hooks. I thought he was going to take his hat and leave, but instead, he unstrapped his gun belt and hung it next to his hat. “Wearing a piece when talking to a lady is just disrespectful.” Then he shrugged off his black coat, spun of the finest wool, and hung it as well. “You got any family around? Anyone to look after you?”

I shook my head.The bed sank as he reseated himself. An oily smile spread

across his face. “That’s what I thought.”


16



His moth eye started winking again, picking up speed with every beat. It might have flown right out of his head. “So here’s what I propose. Out of respect for your dearly departed father, I would like to offer you room and board here. In exchange, you will provide services.”

I stiffened. “Services?”“Silken hair, ivory skin, eyes like a cat. Eyes that tell a man to

come in and shut the door,” he hissed out of the spaces between his teeth. His bulbous nose twitched as he sniffed once, twice.

Dear God, what now? I stood abruptly, casting around for a way out. There was only the door and the window.

He stood, too, blocking the path to the door. “Men will pay dearly for the pleasure of a woman’s company. I already got a Spaniard, an Injun, and two Negresses. An exotic number like yourself could augment my fine stable. The Lily of the East, we’d call you. Bet you’d fetch more than the lot of them, maybe five dollars an evening. You can wear pretty dresses, take baths. You’d enjoy that, wouldn’t you, Sammy?”

Only Father called me Sammy. My face burned at the unwel-come familiarity.

A too-warm breeze blew through the open window and rum-pled the back of my hair. I could end things right now. Step out the window like Ophelia, who fell out of a willow tree after Hamlet killed her father. Two stories was about the height of a willow.

I kept him talking. “Why would I do that?”He shrugged. “You got no choice. No money, nobody to look

after you. You think the pittance you earn from those violin



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Stacey Lee

lessons will keep you? This way, the only thing you’d have to lift is your, well . . . ” His eyes skipped to my lower half. “It’ll help pay your debts.”

“What debts?” I tried to still the tremor in my voice.“A fire like that could’ve been started by that stove you kept,

against building code for a dry goods.” His voice oozed like ointment.

I stepped to one side, wishing to squeeze past him and the tub to reach the door. He shifted as well, blocking me again. “A glimpse of a lady’s ankle is like the first sip of wine. Makes you thirsty for the whole bottle. Now before we make any formal agreement, I’d like to test the goods.”

“Stay away from—” I began, but quick as a striking adder, he clamped one hand over my mouth and the other on the back of my head. I clawed at him, trying to scream, but he squeezed harder, smashing my lips into my teeth . I tasted blood.

“Scream all you want. Ain’t no one here going to rescue you. I pay handsomely, see.”

He shoved me backward onto the bed. My head recoiled off the mattress when I landed. Looking wildly around for salva-tion, I spotted the scrubbing brush on the side table. When he looked down to undo his trousers, I reached over and closed my fingers around the handle.

Scrambling up, I swung it hard against the side of his head. My leverage was not good, but he yelped and grabbed my throat.

“Whore!” he spat.Wasting no time, I brought the brush up again and clubbed

him in the face, causing blood to spurt from his nostrils. He


18



jerked back to avoid another blow, but the movement threw him off balance and he slipped. His arms flailed, but his feet couldn’t get purchase on the wet floor.

Backward he fell. With a sickening crack, his head banged against the edge of the tub.

And as Ty Yorkshire crashed to the floor, his fall sent out ripples I feared would chase me no matter which way I ran.

I dropped the brush. It clattered on the cold, wet tile beside the dead man’s head. An owl cried outside, and a clock chimed nine times.

Moments after the last chime, the door opens again. Annamae enters, bearing a tray.

“Oh, Lord,” she gasps, eyes doubling in size.“I think he’s dead,” I whisper. “He was trying to—to—”Annamae shuts the door and sets down the tray. She paces for

a moment. Then she straightens the waist of her dress. “Move him to the bed before the blood soaks to the first floor,” she orders.

The hysterics gather in my chest, making it hard to breathe, let alone move.

She appraises my trembling self. Then, to my surprise, she hugs me. “Pull it together.”

The warmth of her touch quells some of my panic. “I . . . I’m going to hell.”

She pushes me away from her, and bends down so our faces are even. Her determined expression stirs me to mimic it. “Only if we don’t do something about him.”



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Stacey Lee

She’s right. I can’t come undone yet. She grips Ty Yorkshire’s arms, and I take his legs—one leg anyway. The man must weigh two hundred pounds. Together, we haul him onto the bed. Our efforts leave a trail of blood, more than I’ve ever seen at once. No one loses this much blood and lives.

When we finish, I’m heaving with exhaustion.“How old are you?” she asks.I catch my breath. “Fifteen.”“Old enough for the noose. You’ll get your death wish, then.”I wipe my eyes at this sobering thought. My father is dead,

my home destroyed, and I just killed a man—at least, that’s what they will believe. I have no business aboveground. Yet suddenly, I don’t want to die.

I could return to New York. It would be dangerous, a wanted criminal traveling through populated areas. But without Father, New York would just be another faceless city, worse now because living there would constantly remind me of my disrespect.

No, there is no going back.Father said he had great plans for us, and I owe it to him to

find out what they were. Mr. Trask was Father’s best friend, and now he is my only real connection to the living. I could catch him. He only left a few weeks ago. After all, there’s only one road west.

“Annamae, I’m going to California.”


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THEY TOOK ME IN MY NIGHTGOWN.

Thinking back, the signs were there—family photos

burned in the fireplace, Mother sewing her best silver and

jewelry into the lining of her coat late at night, and Papa not

returning from work. My younger brother, Jonas, was asking

questions. I asked questions, too, but perhaps I refused to

acknowledge the signs. Only later did I realize that Mother

and Father intended we escape. We did not escape.

We were taken.

June 14, 1941. I had changed into my nightgown and

settled in at my desk to write my cousin Joana a letter. I

opened a new ivory writing tablet and a case of pens and

pencils, a gift from my aunt for my fifteenth birthday.

The evening breeze floated through the open window

over my desk, waltzing the curtain from side to side. I could



smell the lily of the valley that Mother and I had planted two

years ago. Dear Joana.

It wasn’t a knocking. It was an urgent booming that made

me jump in my chair. Fists pounded on our front door. No

one stirred inside the house. I left my desk and peered out into

the hallway. My mother stood flat against the wall facing our

framed map of Lithuania, her eyes closed and her face pulled

with an anxiety I had never seen. She was praying.

“Mother,” said Jonas, only one of his eyes visible through

the crack in his door, “are you going to open it? It sounds as if

they might break it down.”

Mother’s head turned to see both Jonas and me peering out

of our rooms. She attempted a forced smile. “Yes, darling. I

will open the door. I won’t let anyone break down our door.”

The heels of her shoes echoed down the wooden floor of

the hallway and her long, thin skirt swayed about her ankles.

Mother was elegant and beautiful, stunning in fact, with an

unusually wide smile that lit up everything around her. I was

fortunate to have Mother’s honey-colored hair and her bright

blue eyes. Jonas had her smile.

Loud voices thundered from the foyer.

“NKVD!” whispered Jonas, growing pale. “Tadas said they

took his neighbors away in a truck. They’re arresting people.”

“No. Not here,” I replied. The Soviet secret police had no

business at our house. I walked down the hallway to listen and

peeked around the corner. Jonas was right. Three NKVD offi-

cers had Mother encircled. They wore blue hats with a red

border and a gold star above the brim. A tall officer had our

passports in his hand.


5t h i e v e s a n d p r o s t i t u t e s

“We need more time. We’ll be ready in the morning,”

Mother said.

“Twenty minutes—or you won’t live to see morning,” said

the officer.

“Please, lower your voice. I have children,” whispered

Mother.

“Twenty minutes,” the officer barked. He threw his burn-

ing cigarette onto our clean living room floor and ground it

into the wood with his boot.

We were about to become cigarettes.


6

2

WERE WE BEING ARRESTED? Where was Papa? I ran to my

room. A loaf of fresh bread had appeared on my windowsill, a

large wad of rubles tucked under the edge. Mother arrived at

the door with Jonas clinging close behind her.

“But Mother, where are we going? What have we done?”

he asked.

“It’s a misunderstanding. Lina, are you listening? We must

move quickly and pack all that is useful but not necessarily

dear to us. Do you understand? Lina! Clothes and shoes must

be our priority. Try to fit all that you can into one suitcase.”

Mother looked toward the window. She quickly slid the bread

and money onto the desk and snapped the curtains shut.

“Promise me that if anyone tries to help you, you will ignore

them. We will resolve this ourselves. We must not pull fam-

ily or friends into this confusion, do you understand? Even if

someone calls out to you, you must not respond.”



“Are we being arrested?” began Jonas.

“Promise me!”

“I promise,” said Jonas softly. “But where is Papa?”

Mother paused, her eyes blinking quickly. “He will be

meeting us. We have twenty minutes. Gather your things.

Now!”

My bedroom began to spin. Mother’s voice echoed inside

my head. “Now. Now!” What was happening? The sound of

my ten-year-old brother running about his room pulled a cord

within my consciousness. I yanked my suitcase from the closet

and opened it on my bed.

Exactly a year before, the Soviets had begun moving troops

over the borders into the country. Then, in August, Lithuania

was officially annexed into the Soviet Union. When I com-

plained at the dinner table, Papa yelled at me and told me to

never, ever say anything derogatory about the Soviets. He sent

me to my room. I didn’t say anything out loud after that. But

I thought about it a lot.

“Shoes, Jonas, extra socks, a coat!” I heard Mother yell

down the hallway. I took our family photo from the shelf and

placed the gold frame faceup in the bottom of the empty suit-

case. The faces stared back at me, happy, unaware. It was Easter

two years before. Grandma was still alive. If we really were

going to jail, I wanted to take her with me. But we couldn’t be

going to jail. We had done nothing wrong.

Slams and bangs popped throughout the house.

“Lina,” Mother said, rushing into the room, her arms

loaded. “Hurry!” She threw open my closet and drawers, fran-

tically throwing things, shoving things into my suitcase.



“Mother, I can’t find my sketchbook. Where is it?” I said,

panicked.

“I don’t know. We’ll buy a new one. Pack your clothes.

Hurry!”

Jonas ran into my room. He was dressed for school in his

uniform and little tie, holding his book bag. His blond hair

was combed neatly over to the side.

“I’m ready, Mother,” he said, his voice trembling.

“N-no!” Mother stammered, choking on the word when

she saw Jonas dressed for academy. She pulled in an uneven

breath and lowered her voice. “No, sweetheart, your suitcase.

Come with me.” She grabbed him by the arm and ran down

to his room. “Lina, put on shoes and socks. Hurry!” She threw

my summer raincoat at me. I pulled it on.

I put on my sandals and grabbed two books, hair ribbons

and my hairbrush. Where was my sketchbook? I took the writ-

ing tablet, the case of pens and pencils and the bundle of rubles

off my desk and placed them amongst the heap of items we

had thrown into my case. I snapped the latches closed and

rushed out of the room, the curtains blowing, flapping over

the loaf of fresh bread still sitting on my desk.~

I saw my reflection in the glass door of the bakery and paused

a moment. I had a dab of green paint on my chin. I scraped

it off and pushed on the door. A bell tinkled overhead. The

shop was warm and smelled of yeast.

“Lina, so good to see you.” The woman rushed to the coun-

ter to assist me. “What may I help you with?”



Did I know her? “I’m sorry, I don’t—”

“My husband is a professor at the university. He works

for your father,” she said. “I’ve seen you in town with your

parents.”

I nodded. “My mother asked me to pick up a loaf of bread,”

I said.

“Of course,” said the woman, scurrying behind the coun-

ter. She wrapped a plump loaf in brown paper and handed it

over to me. When I held out the money, she shook her head.

“Please,” whispered the woman. “We could never repay

you as it is.”

“I don’t understand.” I reached toward her with the coins.

She ignored me.

The bell jingled. Someone entered the shop. “Give your

parents our very best regards,” said the woman, moving to

assist the other customer.

Later that night I asked Papa about the bread.

“That was very kind of her, but unnecessary,” he said.

“But what did you do?” I asked him.

“Nothing, Lina. Have you finished your homework?”

“But you must have done something to deserve free bread,”

I pressed.

“I don’t deserve anything. You stand for what is right,

Lina, without the expectation of gratitude or reward. Now,

off to your homework.”


10

3

MOTHER PACKED AN EQUALLY large suitcase for Jonas.

It dwarfed his small, thin frame and he had to carry it with

both hands, bending backward to lift it off the floor. He didn’t

complain of the weight or ask for help.

The sound of breaking glass and china wailed through the

house in quick intervals. We found our mother in the dining

room, smashing all of her best crystal and china on the floor.

Her face glistened with sweat, and her golden ringlets fell loose

over her eyes.

“Mama, no!” cried Jonas, running toward the broken shards

that littered the floor.

I pulled him back before he could touch the glass. “Mother,

why are you breaking your beautiful things?” I asked.

She stopped and stared at the china cup in her hand.

“Because I love them so much.” She threw the cup to the floor,



not even pausing to see it break before reaching for another.

Jonas began to cry.

“Don’t cry, darling. We’ll get much nicer things.”

The door burst open and three NKVD officers entered

our house carrying rifles with bayonets. “What happened

here?” demanded a tall officer, surveying the damage.

“It was an accident,” Mother replied calmly.

“You have destroyed Soviet property,” he bellowed.

Jonas pulled his suitcase close, fearful that any minute it,

too, might become Soviet property.

Mother looked in the foyer mirror to affix her loose curls

and put on her hat. The NKVD officer slammed her in the

shoulder with the butt of his rifle, throwing her face-first into

the mirror. “Bourgeois pigs, always wasting time. You won’t

need that hat,” he scoffed.

Mother righted and steadied herself, smoothing her skirt

and adjusting her hat. “Pardon me,” she said flatly to the offi-

cer before fixing her curls again and sliding her pearl hatpin

into place.

Pardon me? Is that really what she said? These men burst

into our home at night, slam her into the mirror—and she

asks them to pardon her? Then she reached for it, the long gray

coat, and suddenly I understood. She was playing the Soviet

officers like a careful hand of cards, not quite sure what might

be dealt next. I saw her in my mind, sewing jewelry, papers,

silver, and other valuables into the coat under the lining.

“I have to use the bathroom,” I announced, trying to divert

the attention from my mother and the coat.



“You have thirty seconds.”

I shut the bathroom door and caught sight of my face in

the mirror. I had no idea how quickly it was to change, to

fade. If I had, I would have stared at my reflection, memoriz-

ing it. It was the last time I would look into a real mirror for

more than a decade.


13

4

THE STREETLAMPS HAD been turned off. It was nearly black

in the road. The officers marched behind us, forcing us to keep

pace with them. I saw Mrs. Raskunas peer out of her curtains.

The moment she saw me looking, she disappeared. Mother

nudged at my arm, which meant that I should keep my head

down. Jonas was having a hard time carrying his suitcase. It

was banging against his shins.

“Davai!” commanded an officer. Hurry, always hurry.

We marched into the intersection of the street, toward a

large dark object. It was a truck, surrounded by more NKVD.

As we approached the rear of the vehicle, I saw people sitting

inside on their luggage.

“Boost me up before they do,” Mother whispered quickly,

not wanting an officer to touch her coat. I did as she asked.

The officers pushed Jonas up. He fell on his face, his luggage



thrown on top of him. I made it without falling, but when I

stood up, a woman looked at me and clasped her hand to her

mouth.

“Lina, dear. Button your coat,” instructed Mother. I looked

down and saw my flowered nightgown. In the rush and search

for my sketchbook, I had forgotten to change. I also saw a tall,

wiry woman with a pointy nose looking at Jonas. Miss Grybas.

She was a spinster teacher from school, one of the strict ones.

I recognized a few others: the librarian, the owner of a nearby

hotel, and several men I had seen Papa speaking with on the

street.

We were all on the list. I didn’t know what the list was,

only that we were on it. Apparently so were the other fifteen

people sitting with us. The back gate of the truck slammed

shut. A low moan came from a bald man in front of me.

“We’re all going to die,” he said slowly. “We will surely

die.”

“Nonsense!” said Mother quickly.

“But we will,” he insisted. “This is the end.”

The truck began to move, jerking forward quickly, throw-

ing people off their seats. The bald man suddenly scrambled

up, climbed the inside wall of the truck, and jumped out. He

smashed onto the pavement, letting out a roar of pain like an

animal caught in a trap. People in the truck screamed. The tires

screeched to a halt and the officers leapt out. They opened the

back gate, and I saw the man writhing in pain on the ground.

They lifted him up and hurled his crumpled body back into the

truck. One of his legs looked mangled. Jonas buried his face in



Mother’s sleeve. I slipped my hand into his. He was shaking. My

vision blurred. I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them. The

truck jerked forward, moving once again.

“NO!” the man wailed, holding his leg.

The truck stopped in front of the hospital. Everyone

seemed relieved that they would tend to the bald man’s inju-

ries. But they did not. They were waiting. A woman who

was also on the list was giving birth to a baby. As soon as the

umbilical cord was cut, they would both be thrown into the

truck.


16

5

NEARLY FOUR HOURS PASSED. We sat in the dark in

front of the hospital, unable to leave the vehicle. Other trucks

passed, some with people covered in large restraining nets.

The streets began to buzz with activity. “We were early,”

one of the men commented to Mother. He looked at his watch.

“It’s nearing three a.m. now.”

The bald man, lying on his back, turned his face toward

Jonas. “Boy, put your hands over my mouth and pinch my

nose. Don’t let go.”

“He will do nothing of the sort,” said Mother, pulling

Jonas close.

“Foolish woman. Don’t you realize this is just the begin-

ning? We have a chance now to die with dignity.”

“Elena!” A voice hissed from the street. I saw Mother’s

cousin Regina hiding in the shadows.



“Have you any relief now that you’re on your back?”

Mother asked the bald man.

“Elena!” The voice appeared again, a little louder.

“Mother, I think she’s calling you,” I whispered, eyeing the

NKVD smoking on the other side of the truck.

“She’s not calling me—she’s a crazy woman,” Mother said

loudly. “Be on your way and leave us alone,” she yelled.

“But Elena, I—”

Mother turned her head and pretended she was deep in

conversation with me, completely ignoring her cousin. A

small bundle bounced into the bed of the truck near the bald

man. His hand grabbed for it greedily.

“And you speak of dignity, sir?” said Mother. She snapped

the bundle out of his hands and put it under her legs. I won-

dered what was in the package. How could Mother call her

own cousin “a crazy woman”? Regina had taken a great risk to

find her.

“You are the wife of Kostas Vilkas, provost at the univer-

sity?” asked a man in a suit sitting down from us. Mother

nodded, wringing her hands.~

I watched as Mother twisted her palms.

Murmurs rose and fell in the dining room. The men had

been sitting for hours. “Sweetheart, take them the fresh pot of

coffee,” said Mother.

I walked to the edge of the dining room. A cloud of ciga-

rette smoke hovered over the table, held captive by the closed

windows and drapes.



“Repatriate, if they can get away with it,” said my father,

stopping abruptly when he saw me in the doorway.

“Would anyone like more coffee?” I asked, holding up the

sterling pot.

Some men looked down. Someone coughed.

“Lina, you’re turning into quite a young lady,” said a

friend of my father’s from the university. “And I hear that

you’re a very talented artist.”

“Indeed, she is!” said Papa. “She has a very unique style.

And she’s exceptionally smart,” he added with a wink.

“So she takes after her mother then,” joked one of the men.

Everyone laughed.

“Tell me, Lina,” said the man who wrote for the newspaper,

“what do you think of this new Lithuania?”

“Well,” interrupted my father quickly. “That’s not really

conversation for a young girl, now, is it?”

“It will be conversation for everyone, Kostas, young and

old,” said the journalist. “Besides,” he said, smiling, “it’s not

as if I’d print it in the paper.”

Papa shifted in his chair.

“What do I think of the Soviets’ annexation?” I paused,

avoiding eye contact with my father. “I think Josef Stalin is

a bully. I think we should push his troops out of Lithuania.

They shouldn’t be allowed to come and take what they please

and—”

“That’s enough, Lina. Leave the pot of coffee and join your

mother in the kitchen.”

“But it’s true!” I pressed. “It’s not right.”

“Enough!” said my father.



I returned to the kitchen, stopping short to eavesdrop.

“Don’t encourage her, Vladas. The girl is so headstrong, it

scares me to death,” said Papa.

“Well,” replied the journalist, “now we see how she takes

after her father, don’t we? You’ve raised a real partisan,

Kostas.”

Papa was silent. The gathering ended and the men left the

house at alternating intervals, some through the front door

and some through the back.

~

“The university?” said the bald man, still wincing with pain.

“Oh, well, he’s long gone then.”

My stomach contracted like someone had punched me.

Jonas turned a desperate face to Mother.

“Actually, I work at the bank and I saw your father just this

afternoon,” said a man, smiling at Jonas. I knew he was lying.

Mother gave the man a grateful nod.

“Saw him on his way to the grave then,” said the surly bald

man.

I glared at him, wondering how much glue it would take to

keep his mouth shut.

“I am a stamp collector. A simple stamp collector and they’re

delivering me to my death because I correspond internation-

ally with other collectors. A university man would certainly

be near the top of the list for—”

“Shut up!” I blurted.

“Lina!” said Mother. “You must apologize immediately. This

poor gentleman is in terrible pain; he doesn’t know what he is

saying.”



“I know exactly what I am saying,” the man replied, star-

ing at me.

The hospital doors opened and a great cry erupted from

within. An NKVD officer dragged a barefoot woman in a

bloodied hospital gown down the steps. “My baby! Please don’t

hurt my baby!” she screamed. Another officer walked out, car-

rying a swaddled bundle. A doctor came running, grabbing at

the officer.

“Please, you cannot take the newborn. It won’t survive!”

yelled the doctor. “Sir, I beg you. Please!”

The officer turned to the doctor and kicked the heel of his

boot into the doctor’s kneecap.

They lifted the woman into the truck. Mother and Miss

Grybas scrambled to make room for her lying next to the bald

man. The baby was handed up.

“Lina, please,” Mother said, passing the pink child to me. I

held the bundle and instantly felt the warmth of its little body

penetrating through my coat.

“Oh God, please, my baby!” cried the woman, looking up

at me.

The child let out a soft cry and its tiny fists pummeled the

air. Its fight for life had begun.


viii D A N I E L J A M E S B R O W N

WHO’S WHO

FA MILY

Joe Rantz: Abandoned throughout his childhood, he quit trusting people until he found rowing, which forced him to put his faith in his crew.

Harry Rantz: A mechanic and inventor, he left his son Joe to live on his own, then reconciled with him later in life.

Thula Rantz: Harry’s second wife and stepmother to Joe, she once had hopes of becoming a famous musician.

Joyce Simdars: The teenage girl who sang along with Joe in the back of their school bus, she became the joy of his life and, eventually, his wife.

THE BOAT

Roger Morris, Bow: Quiet, strong Roger Morris was one of Joe’s first friends at the University of Washington.

Chuck Day, Seat Two: A quick-tempered prankster built of pure muscle, he worked with Joe at the Grand Coulee Dam.

Gordy Adam, Seat Three: A former salmon fisherman who grew up on a dairy farm, he earned the nickname “Courage” because he rowed one race with his thumb cut to the bone.

Johnny White, Seat Four: Shorter than Joe, but thin and strong, he graduated from high school two years early. In the summer of ’35, he toiled at the Grand Coulee Dam with Joe and Chuck.

T H E B OY S I N T H E B OAT ix

W h o ’ s W h o

Jim “Stub” McMillin, Seat Five: A six-foot-five beanpole who never gave up on a race, he worked his way through college, just like Joe.

George “Shorty” Hunt, Seat Six: The chatty former high school sports star would eventually be named one of Washington’s greatest oarsmen.

Joe Rantz, Seat Seven: Although he’d never rowed before college, the years he spent logging, digging ditches, and building roads built the muscles that made him a powerful force in the boat.

Don Hume, Stroke: A curly-haired kid who never showed pain, he was nearly too sick to stand before the Olympics, but he still helped lead the boys to victory.

Bobby Moch, Coxswain: The brains and strategic genius of the boat, he helped the crew find its swing in a series of come-from-behind victories.

COACHES

Al Ulbrickson: A well-dressed former champion oarsman himself, the varsity coach achieved his lifelong dream when the boys took gold in Berlin.

George Pocock: The British boatbuilder designed and built the boys their winning shell, and also gave Joe and the coaches valuable advice about the nature of the sport.

Dawn row on Lake Washington.

T H E B OY S I N T H E B OAT 1

Prologue

This book is a true story. It was born on a cold, drizzly, late spring

day, several years ago, when I climbed over a split-rail cedar fence and made my

way to the modest house where Joe Rantz lay dying.

Joe was my neighbor Judy’s father, and she had asked me to come down and

meet him. I knew only two things about him when I knocked on her door that

day. I knew that in his midseventies he had single-handedly hauled a number of

cedar logs down a mountain, cut and split them by hand, then built the nearly

half-mile-long pasture fence I had just climbed over. And I knew that he had

been one of nine young men from the state of Washington who shocked both

the sports world and Adolf Hitler by winning a gold medal in rowing at the 1936

Olympics.

When Judy opened the door and ushered me into her cozy living room, Joe

was stretched out in a recliner with his feet up, all six foot three of him. He had

2 D A N I E L J A M E S B R O W N

P r o l o g u e

a thin white beard, and his eyes were puffy. An oxygen tank stood nearby. Rain

flecked a window that looked out into the wet woods. A fire was popping and

hissing in the woodstove. Jazz tunes from the 1930s and 1940s were playing qui-

etly on the stereo.

Judy introduced me, and Joe offered me an extraordinarily long, thin hand.

We talked for a while. Joe’s voice was thin and reedy, not much more than a whis-

per. When the conversation began to turn to his own life, I leaned closer and

took out my notepad. I was surprised at first, then astonished, at what this man

had endured and overcome in his life. But it wasn’t until he began to talk about

his rowing career that he started, from time to time, to cry. He talked about

learning the art of rowing, about the sleek and delicate wooden boats known as

“shells,” about tactics and techniques. He told stories about long, cold hours on

the water under steel-gray skies, about smashing victories, and about marching

under Adolf Hitler’s eyes into the Olympic Stadium in Berlin. But it was when

he tried to talk about “the boat” that the tears really welled up in his bright eyes.

At first I didn’t know what he meant by “the boat.” I thought he meant the

Husky Clipper, the racing shell in which he had rowed his way to glory. Then I

thought he meant his crewmates. Eventually I realized that “the boat” was some-

thing more than just the shell or its crew. To Joe, it was something bigger than

that, something mysterious and almost beyond definition. It was a shared expe-

rience, a golden moment long ago, when he had been part of something much

larger than himself. Joe was crying partly for the loss of that moment, but much

more for the sheer beauty of it.

As I was preparing to leave that afternoon, Judy removed Joe’s gold medal

from the glass case against the wall and handed it to me. The medal had vanished

once, years before. The family had searched high and low, then given it up for


lost before they finally found it, buried in some insulating material in the attic. A

squirrel had apparently taken a liking to the glimmer of the gold and hidden the

medal away in its nest. As Judy was telling me this, it occurred to me that Joe’s

story, like the medal, had been squirreled away out of sight for too long.

I shook Joe’s hand and told him I would like to come back and talk to him

some more. I said that I’d like to write a book about his rowing days. Joe grasped

my hand again and said he’d like that, but then his voice broke once more. “But

not just about me,” he whispered. “It has to be about the boat.”

A Washington crew working out, circa 1929.

The Washington shell house, 1930s.


1Only Nine Seats

On a sunny October afternoon in 1933, two young men, taller

than most, hurried across the University of Washington’s campus. The school

was perched on a bluff overlooking the still waters of Seattle’s Lake Washing-

ton. A gray, overcast morning had given way to a radiant day, and students were

lounging on the grass in front of the massive new stone library, eating, chatting,

and studying. But the two boys, both freshmen in their first weeks of college, did

not stop. They were on a mission.

One of them, six-foot-three Roger Morris, had a loose, gangly build, dark

hair, and heavy black eyebrows. The other, Joe Rantz, was a pencil tip shorter,

but more solidly built, with broad shoulders, powerful legs, and a strong jaw. He

wore his blond hair in a crew cut and watched the scene through gray eyes verg-

ing into blue.

The boys, who had recently met in engineering class, rounded the library


and descended a long grassy slope. They crossed Montlake Boulevard, dodging

a steady stream of black automobiles. After a few more turns they followed a dirt

road running through open woods and into a marshy area at the edge of Lake

Washington. As they walked they began to overtake other boys headed in the

same direction.

Finally they came to a point of land jutting out into the water. An odd-

looking building stood there, an old airplane hangar covered with weather-

beaten shingles and inset with enormous windows. The sides slanted up toward

the roof. At the front, a wide wooden ramp stretched from enormous sliding

doors to a long floating dock. Lake Washington spread out to the east. The canal

known as the Cut stretched to the west, connecting to Portage Bay and the calm

waters of Lake Union.

A crowd of young men, 175 in all, milled about nervously. They were mostly

tall and lean, like Joe and Roger, though a dozen or so were noticeably short and

slight. And they all shared the same goal. They wanted to make the University of

Washington’s freshman rowing team.

A handful of current team members, older boys wearing white jerseys

emblazoned with large purple Ws, stood with their arms crossed, eyeing the

newcomers, sizing them up. Joe and Roger stepped inside the building. Along

each wall of the cavernous room, the long, sleek racing shells were stacked four

high on wooden racks. With their polished wooden hulls turned upward, they

gleamed in white shafts of light that fell from the windows overhead. Faded but

still colorful banners from rival colleges hung from the rafters. Dozens of spruce

oars, each ten to twelve feet long and tipped with a white blade, stood on end in

the corners of the room. The air was dry and still. It smelled sweetly of varnish

O n l y N i n e S e a t s



and freshly sawn cedar. The sound of someone working with a wood rasp came

from the back, up in a loft.

Joe and Roger signed in, then returned to the bright light outside and sat on

a bench, waiting for instructions. Joe glanced at Roger, who seemed relaxed and

confident.

“Aren’t you nervous?” Joe whispered.

Roger glanced back at him. “I’m panicked. I just look like this to demoral-

ize the competition.” Joe smiled briefly, too close to panic himself to hold the

smile long.

For Joe, more than anyone else there, something important hung in the balance

that day, and it was more than a spot on the crew. He already felt as if he didn’t

fit in with most of the other students on campus. Most of the young men around

him were city boys dressed neatly in freshly pressed woolen slacks and expensive

cardigan sweaters. Their fathers were doctors and lawyers. They were mostly un-

bothered by the problems plaguing so much of the country that fall.

America was in the fourth year of the Great Depression. Ten million

people had no job and no prospect of finding one. No one knew when the hard

times might end. As many as two million people were homeless. In downtown

Seattle that morning, hungry men stood in long lines waiting for soup kitchens

to open. Others prepared to spend the day trying to sell apples and oranges for

a few pennies apiece. Down by the waterfront, in a crowded shantytown called

Hooverville, mothers huddled over campfires and children awoke in damp

cardboard boxes that served as their beds.


Joe himself had been on his own for years, with no one at home to sup-

port him. Every day he wore the same old wrinkled hand-me-down sweater

and the same dusty old shoes. He had worked for a year after high school to

save up enough money to pay for his first year of college. Yet his savings were

probably not going to last. If he ran out of money, there was a good chance he’d

have to drop out of school, head back to his small, bleak hometown, and look

forward to a life of odd jobs, foraging in the woods for food, and living alone

in a cold, half-finished house. A spot on the freshman crew could prevent that.

Each rower was guaranteed a part-time job on campus. That job might just

bring in enough money to get Joe through four years of school. Then he could

earn an engineering degree and find a good job. If all went well, he could marry

Seattle’s Hooverville.


his high school sweetheart, a bright, pretty girl named Joyce who stood by him

no matter what.

But making the team was not going to be easy. Within a few short weeks,

only a handful of the 174 boys gathered around him would still be contenders

for seats in the first freshman boat. That was the one Joe felt he needed to be

in to guarantee his place on the team. In the end, there were only nine seats in

the boat.


Harry, Fred, Nellie, and Joe Rantz, circa 1917.


2A Dream Life Shattered

The path Joe followed down to the shell house that afternoon was

only the last few hundred yards of a much longer, harder, and at times darker

journey.

Joe was the second son of Harry Rantz and Nellie Maxwell. Harry was a

big man, well over six feet tall, large in the hands and feet. He was a tinkerer and

inventor, a dreamer of big dreams. In his spare time he loved to work with his

hands and build contraptions of all kinds. He fiddled with machines, took apart

mechanical devices in order to understand them. He even designed and built his

own version of an automobile from scratch. Nellie Maxwell was a piano teacher

and the daughter of a preacher. They had their first child, Fred, in 1899. Seven

years later, looking for a place where Harry could make his mark on the world,

they headed west from Pennsylvania, crossed the country, and settled down in

Spokane, Washington.

The town was surrounded by ponderosa pine forest and open range country.


A D r e a m L i f e S h a t t e r e d

The summers were crackling hot, the air dry and perfumed with the vanilla scent

of ponderosa bark. In the autumn, towering dust storms would blow in from the

wheat country to the west. The winters were bitter cold, the springs stingy and

slow in coming. The Rantz family moved into a small frame house on the north

side of the cold, clear Spokane River, and Joe was born there in March of 1914.

Harry set up an automobile shop. Each morning he rose at four thirty to go

to work, and often he didn’t return home until well after seven in the evening. It

was hard work, but his business did well and he was able to buy his family nice

things. Nellie taught piano to neighborhood children and doted on her sons, lav-

ishing love on them and watching over them carefully.

On Sunday mornings the family attended church together, then spent the

day relaxing. Sometimes they just walked into town to buy freshly made peach

or strawberry ice cream. Sometimes they drove out to a nearby lake, where they

could rent boats and explore the shoreline or spend a hot afternoon swimming or

sitting on the grassy banks enjoying a picnic. But the best part for Joe was when

they went to Natatorium Park in the cool shade of the cottonwood trees down by

the river. Something interesting and fun was always going on there. They could

watch a baseball game or listen to a John Philip Sousa band concert. What Joe

particularly loved was when his parents would put him on the park’s spectacular

new carousel and he could ride, whirling around and around on the back of a

carved tiger or elegant horse under the carousel’s dazzling lights.

But when Joe was just about to turn four, this dream life shattered. His

memories of what happened next were a kaleidoscope of broken images. He re-

membered his mother standing by his side in an overgrown field, coughing vio-

lently into a handkerchief, and the handkerchief turning bright red with blood.

Young Joe.



He remembered a doctor with a black leather bag. He remembered sitting on a

hard church pew swinging his legs while his mother lay in a box at the front of the

church and would not get up. He remembered lying on a bed with his big brother,

Fred, perched on the edge. He remembered Fred talking softly about dying and

about angels and about needing to go to college and about how Joe would have

to go east to stay with relatives in Pennsylvania. He remembered sitting quietly

alone on a train for long days and nights, with blue mountains and green muddy

fields and rusty rail yards and dark cities full of smokestacks all flashing past the

window by his seat. He remembered meeting a woman who said she was his aunt

Alma and then, almost immediately, becoming terribly sick. He remembered ly-

ing for weeks in a bed in an unfamiliar attic room with the shades always pulled.

No Ma, no Pa, no Fred. Only the lonely sound of a train now and then, and a

strange room spinning around him. Plus the beginnings of a new heaviness, a

feeling of doubt and fear pressing down on his small shoulders and congested

chest.

As he lay ill with scarlet fever in the attic of a woman he did not really know,

the world he had known back in Spokane dissolved. His brother had gone off

to finish college. His mother was dead of cancer. His father had fled to Canada,

unable to cope with his wife’s terrible death.

A little more than a year later, in the summer of 1919, his brother called for him,

and five-year-old Joe rode the train back across the country again all by himself.

Although he was only twenty, Fred had married and found a good job, and he

took care of his little brother for the next two years. By that point, their father,

Joe’s mother, Nellie.


Harry, had returned from Canada, married a young woman named Thula La-

Follette, and built a new house in Spokane.

For Joe, that meant still more change. Soon he was moving to another new

home, living with a father he hardly remembered and a stepmother he did not

know at all. But at least it was a real home, and in time this new life began to feel

normal. The house was spacious and well lit. Out back there was a swing with a

wide seat big enough for him and his father and Thula to ride three at a time on

warm summer nights. He could walk to school, cutting through a field where he

would sometimes snatch a sweet ripe melon for an after-school snack. He dug

long, elaborate underground tunnels in the vacant lots nearby, and spent long,

cool afternoons in them escaping Spokane’s searing, dry summer heat. And the

Harry in a car he built.



new house was always filled with music. Harry had kept Nellie’s most precious

possession, her piano, and he delighted in sitting at the keys with Joe. Harry

pounded out popular tunes as his son, perched on the bench next to him, glee-

fully sang along. Although she was an accomplished violinist, Thula did not join

in. She didn’t like the often corny music Harry and Joe chose, and she was not

particularly happy to have Nellie’s piano in her house.

In January 1922, Harry and Thula had a boy named Harry Junior, and the

following year they had another son, Mike. With his family growing and more

mouths to feed, Harry had to take a job at a gold mine in Idaho some 140 miles

away. He’d work there during the week, then make the long drive home on the

weekends.

During one of these weekend visits, in the middle of a dark, moonless night,

nine-year-old Joe suddenly awoke to the smell of smoke. He heard flames crack-

ling somewhere in the house. He snatched up baby Mike, grabbed Harry Junior,

and stumbled out of the house with his little half brothers. His father and Thula

burst out of the house in singed nightclothes a few moments later. Once he saw

that his boys were safe, Harry dashed back into the smoke and flames. Several

minutes passed before he reappeared. With the fire raging behind him, he was

pushing Nellie’s piano inch by inch out through a garage door. He had risked his

life to save the last thing he had left from his first marriage. Now, as Joe stood

and watched their home burn to the ground, he had that same feeling he’d ex-

perienced in his aunt’s dark attic years before. The same coldness, fear, and in-

security. Home, it was beginning to seem to him, was something you couldn’t

necessarily count on.

George Pocock, Rusty Callow (Washington coach before Ulbrickson), Ky Ebright, and Al Ulbrickson.

The Passion

of Dolssa

v ik ing

a nov el

by Julie Berry

VIKING

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

375 Hudson Street

New York, New York 10014

First published in the United States of America by Viking,

an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2016

Copyright © 2016 by Julie Berry

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech,

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE

Printed in the USA

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

For Teofilo Ruiz and Mark Gregory Pegg,

with deep gratitude,

and for Phil,

who makes all things possible

c on t e n t s

Map: Fransa, Provensa, & Aragón

Part I: 1290

Part II: 1267

Part III: 1241

Part IV: 1267

Part V: 1290

Part VI: 1214

Dramatis Personae

Author Note

Glossary

Sources and Where to Learn More

Acknowledgments

“Sin is the cause of all this pain, but all shall be well, and

all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

—Julian of Norwich, fourteenth-century mystic,

and the first woman known to write a book in English

From Revelations of Divine Love, Chapter XXVII

Whatever we inherit from the fortunate

We have taken from the defeated

What they had to leave us—a symbol:

A symbol perfected in death.

And all shall be well and

All manner of thing shall be well.

—T. S. Eliot, twentieth-century poet,

quoting Julian in his poem “Little Gidding”

L12 9 0

The Passion of Dolssa 1

L FRIAR ARNAUT D’AVINHONET

The Convent of the Jacobins, Tolosa

I must write this account, and when I have finished, I will burn it.

Mine is the historian’s task, to record the events of the last century, showing God’s mighty hand in ridding these southern lands between the Garona and the Ròse rivers of the heresy of the Albigensians.

I am asked to show future generations how God’s justice was carried out by the crusade against these so called “good men” (bons omes), “good women” (bonas femnas) and “friends of God” (amicx de Dieu), and how the inquisitions that followed, wrought by my brother Dominicans, finished God’s holy work. The col-lected records of more than half a century of inquisitorial toil are

mine to examine: transcripts, testimonies, and confessions from a generation now all but extinct.

When searching out a history, sifting through a thousand facts and ten thousand lives, one often uncovers pieces that do not fit. The prudent choice is to cast those details aside, like chaff into the fire. The story must be understandable. The moral should be clear.

Perhaps I am not a prudent man. I found pieces that haunted me, voices echoing from parchment leaves that would not let me sleep at night. I could find no rest until I searched out the truth, studied what I could learn about those involved, and found a way, with, I pride myself, a minimum of invention, to make the pieces fit. If only for me.

There are those who would say this record casts doubt upon the righteousness of the Church’s work. Which is why this book, written for my private satisfaction, must not outlive me.

I myself have never been an inquisitor. I was, I confess, not cut out for it. But I was a patient laborer in the fields of knowledge, and so to Tolosa’s archives I was sent after my university studies in París. Here I have spent nearly thirty years.

It was in the days when Count Raimon’s daughter Joana still ruled as Comtessa de Tolosa, before Provensa came under the rule of the king of Fransa, and when I, myself, was new to this vocation, that the bishop of Tolosa, himself a former inquisitor of renown, came home to the Convent of the Jacobins to spend his final days.

It happened that I served in the hospice one evening. The ail-ing bishop began to speak to me. He seemed impelled to tell his


tale. He confessed to a secret doubt that had plagued him through-out his life—unease over whether he had done God’s will in one particular case. I reassured him with all my heart that he had done his best to serve the Lord. He thanked me with tears. In the morn-ing, he was gone.

Some months after, I found papers belonging to a priest in a seacoast vila, a priest known for composing sacred songs of great beauty. The papers made it clear he was not their author. A woman had written them, and with them, a curious and troubling account of her own spiritual journey. Names and places in the woman’s account reminded me of the old bishop’s testimony. And so I won-dered.

Later still, a lengthy narrative from a friar in Barçalona fell into my hands, painstakingly recorded. The pieces of my mystery at last began to fit. I puzzled over its connecting threads. Finally, and perhaps, rashly, I decided to stitch the pieces together, however clumsily, and record it. The gaps and errors in the sewing are my own; of its overall completeness, however, I feel certain. These voices from the past had arisen like ghosts demanding to be heard.

This, I will confess, is one of the secret thrills of my historical work. But listening too closely to those voices, in these times in which I live, may also be its most terrible danger.

L12 67


L BOTILLE

I swear to tell the full and exact truth about myself and others, living and dead. Why keep secrets? There’s no

one it would help. The dead are all I have to talk about, anyway. What harm can there be in telling their stories now? They are safe, beyond reach.

There was a time when my name was Botille, when I lived with my sisters and our old Jobau. We lived by our wits, and great buckets of nerve, and anything—anything—we could steal, or sell.

Like most in Provensa, we’d seen hunger and illness. We’d grown up in Carcassona, a city broken by the crusaders before we were born. But what was yesterday’s war to little girls? We’d lost

6 J U L I E B E R R Y

our mother. That was all we had room for. She left each of us her love, her reputation, two sisters, and Jobau. And one silver crucifix to share.

We begged for our dinner and stole washing from peasants to clothe little Sazia. We huddled together to keep warm at night. Jobau’s drinking and his temper harried us from town to town at the hands of the bayles. We were wanderers, survivors, always searching for a home.

We thrived upon it. Greedy little urchins, foolhardy little thieves.

Now I see we were magic, my sisters and I. We laughed at ourselves, at Jobau and the world. Nobody’s ever made me laugh like my cynical little Sazia could. You wouldn’t think it to know her now. We gave Plazensa, the eldest, fits of rage with our cheek.

Life was sweet, though I doubt we realized how much. Home was each other. Not walls, but the adventure of the search to find them.

Our wanderings led us to a small seaside town called Bajas, and there, among vintners and fishermen, we saw an opening and decided to seek a home. We washed our faces and combed our hair and tried to make something more of ourselves. We swore we’d give up thieving. We’d grown old enough to know it was safer to be inside the law, and the arms of the vila, than out of them. We took over an old derelict tavern and dared to run it.


Plazensa’s brewing, our scrubbing, Sazia’s fortune-telling, and my hustle brought customers in. We began to feel that we might belong, and others counted us among their neighbors and friends. Finally and forever, I believed, we could be safe.

Then I met Dolssa.

L12 41


L DOLSSA

T he summons came from Dominus Roger, him who’d baptized me and taught me to reverence the body and

blood. Our own parish priest came to lead me to the cloister of the abbey church of Sant Sarnin, the great cathedral of Tolosa. The inquisitors wished to speak with me.

My mother turned pale. She pulled me into her chamber under pretense of wrapping a scarf around me.

“Daughter, hear me quickly,” she said. “Answer as little as possible. Don’t upset them. Say nothing about your preaching, and certainly nothing about your beloved.”

I would have none of this. Who were they, that I should fear them?


“Speak only as you are,” was her warning. “A modest and true Christian maiden. Be humble. Be still.”

“But Mamà,” I said, “Why would I be otherwise?”“My darling,” she pleaded. “You don’t fear them, but you should.

Inquisitors have made Count Raimon send hundreds of heretics to the fires. Their verdicts—not even he dares resist them. Not anymore.” She rested her forehead against mine. Anguish poured off her. “You were too young to know all that happened during the war years, and even since. Your papà and I shielded you from it as best we could.”

I was aghast. “What has that to do with me, Mamà? I’m no heretic! Is that what you believe of me?”

“Hush!” Mamà glanced at the door. “Of course you’re not. You know how I feel. But you are different. You are . . .” She hesitated. “Your words give you authority. You have believers. This is some-thing the inquisitors can’t ignore.”

“My beloved does not fear them, nor keep silence,” I told her.The waiting priest tapped at the door. We both felt caught.

Mamà’s whisper became an urgent breath in my ear. “Youth makes you bold. Love makes you trusting. But it is madness to provoke these inquisitors. They will not like what you say about your love. Not when you’re so young, and a girl.”

I waited for her to finish. There was no point in vexing her. But she knew she had lost.

“God knows I will stand by you, come what may.” Her grip upon my arms was tight. “For my sake, guard your tongue to guard your life, my daughter.”


THE TESTIMONY OF LUCIEN’S WITNESSES

I: Dolssa de Stigata, the Accused

The Cloister of the Abbey Church

of Sant Sarnin, Tolosa

Y ou wish to speak with me, Friar Lucien? Prior Pons? My priest said you wished to ask me questions.

I have seen you, Friar, in the street. You pass by our house often.

Tell me, what it is like to live in a convent? To take holy vows along with others? I’ve often wondered.

My mother prayed and planned for me to enter the cloister. The thought was sweet, in a way. But my beloved told me my path was different. Silence does not serve his purpose for my life. He asks me to tell others about our love.

All right. You shall ask the questions, and I will answer.Oc, I reject all heresy and false belief, and cling to the true

Catholic faith.


Oc, I swear to tell the full and exact truth about myself and others, living or dead.

Non, I have never seen a heretic. I do not know any of the bons

omes nor bonas femnas that are called heretics. I have lived a very sheltered life in my parents’ home. Non, I have never listened to their preaching, nor helped them, nor fed them, nor carried gifts for them. How could I? I rarely even leave my house, Friar.

I am eighteen years old.My name, as you well know, is Dolssa de Stigata. My father

was Senhor Gerald de Stigata. He was a knight. He died five years ago last spring. My mother is Na Pitrella Braida de Stigata. I live with her and our few servants in my father’s ancestral home here in Tolosa.

I, preach?In my home, oc. I have shared my thoughts with relatives and

friends on a few occasions.That is where you heard me? Through a window. You saw me.I preach that my beloved Christ is the ardent lover of all souls.

That he stands beckoning to all God’s children, to come taste of his goodness. To be one with him, as he is one with me.

Why do I preach this? Good friar-preacher, you who wear the mantle of Blessed Dominic the Preacher, I could ask the same of you!

Oc. In this room, questions are yours to ask.I preach because my beloved calls me to. My one desire is to

shine his love into the world.


What?Oh!Oc, since you ask, I’m laughing. How can I not? You wondered,

how do I know the devil hasn’t tricked me? I can only answer, if it is the devil who teaches people to trust in the love of Jhesus, then what, I wonder, should we call men of the cloth like you?

Far less impertinent, good friar, than you calling my beloved a devil. Remember who my beloved is.

Plainly, friar, I am a femna, and yet I speak. I do as my beloved urges me to do. Who shall forbid what my beloved commands?

Oc, Sant Paul said it was a shame for women to speak in church, but I do not speak in church. I worship in church, and I speak in my own home, as a Christian woman is free to do.

But oc, you guess rightly. If my beloved bid me to speak in church, I would do it. My beloved is greater than Sant Paul. Sure-ly, you would not argue that an apostle’s words are greater than the Lord’s? The apostles didn’t listen to Santa Maria Magdalena, either, though she was right when she told them she had seen her Lord risen from the tomb.

You accuse me of heresy.Oc, I am listening. I’ll give you my answer.I can no more retract or deny what I have said about my be-

loved than I could choose to stop breathing. Against my will, breath would flow into my lungs; against your will, speech will flow from them also. If you seek to silence me, I will only cry more


urgently. My beloved’s praise will not go unsung, not so long as I have breath.

Oc, I know who you are. I know what you claim you can do to me.

How can I fear you with my beloved beside me? His arm is mightier than all flesh, and I know he will protect me.


BOTILLE

A struga picked, of course, the worst time possible to tell me.

We wore our hair dandled up in rags to keep it off our hot necks, allowing the sun to burn our sweaty skin. Our oldest, flim-siest skirts we had pulled snug between our legs and pinned to our backs. There we were, thigh-deep in juice, stomping, squashing, mashing the cool, slimy grapes under our heels and deliciously through our toes, while the harvesters clapped and laughed and sang to Focho de Capa’s fidel. It was a party. A frolic. And a bit of an exhibition. Astruga’s thighs—purple, even—were nothing to be ashamed of, and as for mine, skin was skin, wasn’t it? The sky was blue, the air was hot, the sea breeze stirring our little vila of Bajas


was playful, and the splashing new wine was sweet on my lips, its perfume rich enough to knock me over and drown me happily in the old winepress.

And that was when Astruga told me she was pregnant.Not in so many words, of course.“Look at the buffoons.” Sweat rolled in rivers off her wine-red

cheeks. Jacme and Andrio had linked their beefy, sun-tanned arms and were now swinging each other in idiotic loops, bawling out their song, while the other men slapped themselves and howled, and the married women shrieked with laughter. Jacme and Andrio were great laughers, those two.

“They’re a pair, all right,” I said. My thighs ached from all the stomping, but the music compelled us onward. I’d waited years for my turn in the press. I wasn’t about to flag now.

Astruga showed no signs of slowing. She leaped like a salmon through her sea of sticky wine. Always a restless one, Astruga. “I need one.”

Maire Maria! She needed a man. Today, not tomorrow. I sighed. Harvest frolics were known for this. All those tozẹts with their lusty eyes upon her, her buoyant chest bouncing practically into her eyeballs, and her skirts tucked up and pinned over her bot-tom . . . Of course she would feel herself in a mood to pick one of these young men, like a grape off the vine, and crush him against the roof of her mouth.

Across Na Pieret di Fabri’s neat vineyards, chestnut trees blazed with fall color, while dark, narrow cypress pines stood


sentinel. Past the trees was the village proper, Bajas, crowning its round hilltop like a bald man’s hat, and beyond it, the brilliant blue lagoon of the sea, my sea, that cradled and fed tiny Bajas, and con-nected her to the entire world.

Paradise had stiff competition in our corner of Creation.Jacme chose that moment to scoop a handful of pulpy juice

out of the vat and pour it down his throat. Purple dribbles bled into his stubbly beard. He winked at us, and old Na Pieret de Fabri, whose vineyards these were, whacked him harmlessly with her hat.

I looked at all our sweaty purple tozẹts. Great overgrown boys they were, though I supposed I must call them men. “After we’re done, you can take your pick of omes.”

“Botille,” Astruga said, her smile still as bright, “I need to speak with you.”

I lowered my weary leg and caught my breath. I knew what those words meant.

Astruga capered like a baby goat, kicking up her heels and splashing wine into the open, leering mouths of the tozẹts dancing around the vat. And now I knew why, why she’d bribed Ramunda, whose turn in the winepress it ought to have been, to give her this chance to bounce and spin in her purple skin for all Bajas to see. She needed a husband, and fast. Perhaps, she had reasoned, if she played today well, she could find herself one.

Or I could. For that was my job in Bajas. Most tozas helped the family business of catching fish or harvesting salt. Some spun


wool or silk; others wove baskets, or helped their papàs and mamàs fashion clay pots. Countless others grew vegetables and tied and trimmed grapevines.

But I, I caught suitors, harvested bridegrooms, wove dowries, fashioned courtships, grew families, and tied and trimmed the unruly passions of our hot-blooded young people into acceptable marriages. I brought them all to Dominus Bernard’s altar in the end. Only sometimes, as now, with a baby on the way, I did not have the luxury of time to plot and plan.

I watched Astruga’s eyes linger on Jacme’s broad face.“Jacme?” I whispered.She shrugged. “He’ll do.”I danced a little closer to her. “Is it he?”She looked away, and shook her head.I danced in a circle around her. If she wanted my help, she’d

best not turn her eyes away from me. “Who is the father?”She turned the other way, like a naughty little toza who won’t

confess to stealing the honey.“Tell me,” I pressed. “I have ways of making the father marry

you.” And I did. My sisters and I—we had ways all our own.The high flush in Astruga’s cheeks cooled. “Not this time, Bo-

tille.”Ah. He was married already, then. Well, no matter; Astruga

was young and fresh. Weren’t all the tozẹts adoring her even now? This would be easy for me.

“Are you working on another match right now?”X


“Maybe.”“If you marry off that cow Sapdalina before me, I swear, I’ll

claw her eyes out.”It was Sapdalina’s troth I was working on, and while I wouldn’t

call her a cow, per se, she was a challenging case. At least she wasn’t pregnant.

“That would hardly be fair to Sapdalina,” I observed.Her angry face fell. “Oh, please, Botille. I’ll do anything.

You’ve got to help me.”Astruga’s skirt came unpinned and sank into the wine. She

squealed and snatched it up, then thrust the soiled cloth into her mouth to suck out the blood-dark juice. Just then the church bells rang, and she let the skirt fall once more.

I looked toward the village, with its white stone walls, its ris-ing houses ready to teeter and topple one another, and the brown square bell tower of the church of Sant Martin.

She’d shown me what, if I hadn’t had a head full of wine and fiddle tunes, my instincts should have smelled before Astruga had even spoken a word. The fruit growing in her vineyard was planted by a handsome rake, a delightful talker, a charmer if ever there was one, and the source of all my best clients. I owed him, really. Al-ready a growing list of roly-poly babies had him as the papà they would never know.

Dominus Bernard, Bajas’s priest at the church of Sant Martin.

X


“Acabansa! Finished!”Focho de Capa, self-proclaimed lord of the revels, scooped a

ladle of syrupy juice from the vat and drank it with a great flourish. “Bon an!” A good year, good for the grapes.

We climbed out of the vat. Itier pulled us each out by the wrist onto the platform next to the press and planted wine-stained kisses on our cheeks. We climbed down the ladder. Astruga let herself be seized about the waist by frizzle-headed Itier and led off to the table that had been set up, overflowing with bread, cheese, salmon, and roasted vegetables. I lingered behind to wipe a bit of the juice off my arms with a rag Na Pieret di Fabri handed me.

Widow Pieret’s eyes were still as blue as la mar, though her face was brown as carved chestnut and creased with as many deep grooves. Her husband, related to the lords of Bajas, had been a vintner, but his death, five years back, left Na Pieret to manage his great vineyards alone. It had been a terrible blow. Still, Na Pieret, who had never been weakened by childbearing, had borne up under the burden admirably. But today, though she smiled, she seemed tired.

“What is it, ma maire?” I genuflected, a courtesy owed to a great lady of advanced years, but then I rose and kissed her cheek. All old women were “my mother,” but Na Pieret was someone I could almost wish were my mother.

“Ack! You are covered in viṇ.” She patted my cheek. “Smart Botille. Not a thing happens in this village but what you have a hand in it, is there?”


“Oh, pah.” I unraveled the damp rags from around my hair. “I won’t take the blame for everything.”

Na Pieret leaned against the handle of her cane. I noticed her head quiver slightly. “I need your help, Botille.” She spoke quietly. “I can’t run the vineyards anymore.”

I saw how much it hurt her to speak these words, though she said them simply and without self-pity.

“But your hired help, surely. They do the work for you, non?” I looked over to the feast table, where half a dozen of her hands lounged, stuffing their faces. “Are they lazy? Do they steal from you? Sazia and Plazensa and I can put a stop to that. We’ll teach them a lesson—”

“No, no.” Na Pieret squinted her eyes against the rays of the setting sun. “They are only as lazy as any other laborers ever were. No, they are kind to me.”

“Then what is it?”“I need a strong back, and eyes I can trust. I need someone

who cares about the grapes like they are his own. But you know I have no children to entrust them to.”

The wine on my skin had dried to a slimy, sticky sheen, and I began to itch. Hot breezes from the south did nothing to help.

“My mother had two daughters,” Na Pieret went on. “My younger sister died last winter, leaving her two sons orphans, seven leagues from here, in San Cucufati.”

“Oh?”She nodded. “I want you to bring them to me. I will give


them the farm, and they shall become my sons.”Seven leagues? I pictured myself traveling seven long leagues

with two quarrelsome little eṇfans in tow. What did she think I was, a nursemaid?

“How old are they?”Na Pieret pursed her lips. “They were sturdy, useful children

when I met them last,” she said, “thirteen years ago.”I smiled, and looked over at Astruga, busy stuffing a piece of

bread into Itier’s mouth. “Is either of them married?”“Botille!” Na Pieret laughed. “You haven’t become one of the

desperate tozas yourself, have you?”“Non, Na Pieret.” I took her by the elbow and steered her to-

ward the table. “But there are always plenty of them about, and now I have two more husbands to offer them.”

Na Pieret tapped my forehead with her swollen knuckles. “Only see to it you don’t marry off my new sons to any of the silly tozas.”

I shoved a half-drunk Andrio aside to make room on the bench for Widow Pieret to sit. “That, ma maire,” I said, “is a promise I doubt I can keep.”


DOLSSA

I was a young girl when my beloved first appeared to me. Just a girl of no consequence, the child of pious parents

who were much older than most. Mamà used to say I was her mir-acle eṇfan, the fruit of prayer, just as the prophet Samuel had been. I was happy in my home, and much loved.

Mamà dreamed for me the heaven of the cloister. Nothing would have made her happier than to see me take a nun’s vows. Papà, however, envisioned the joy of family. He wanted grandchil-dren, and a legacy for his home and name. Poor, gentle Papà would not live long enough to see such a dream. He died not long after my visions first began. I don’t know how I would have endured the loss, were it not for my beloved’s secret visits.


We mourned Papà many days. Kinsmen and neighbors came to grieve with us, and condole with my widowed mother. Already they began to speak of me, in whispered voices, as a holy maid-en, because I went so often to church. They cupped my cheeks in their hands and spoke blessings upon me. Some were faces I knew, but most, I didn’t. It took me by surprise, seeing so many people claiming Papà’s friendship and commemorating his life. Where were they during that life? Why didn’t I know them? Of course, I’d only known him in his later years. He’d lived a full life before I came along.

I knew Papà had gone to God. But I would miss him so.“See how she does not cry,” a cousin of Mamà’s whispered to

her sister. “She’s serene as an angel.”I was only shy.“Oc, see the pious sweetness of her gaze,” said the sister. “Like

one of the blessed saints.”I watched my mother, wishing she’d stop talking to all these

family strangers.There was a man there, tall and grim. He spoke to my mother

in a low voice. I went to her side and slipped my hand in hers.“Bound for the church,” my mother was saying. “It’s out of the

question.”The man’s eyes examined my face. “She is very young.”I inched back behind Mamà.“She will be a nun,” my maire said firmly. “It is already set-

tled.”

X


The tall man tipped his hat to my mother. “My sorrow for your loss.”

I didn’t understand then what he must have been asking. I only knew that I would never be a nun. A bride of Christ, oc, but the cloister could never enclose all my love. It was too vast, too deep for such walls, such silence, such seclusion.

I left my maire’s side and went and lit a candle for Papà. How I would miss his step in the hall, and his laugh at dinner. I was thirteen, and now Mamà and I were left alone.

Not long after mon paire died, the fires began. What once were sweet visions now burned in my soul, in my brain, in my blood. My beloved, pouring his presence over me, consumed me with his love. I couldn’t sleep. I could scarcely eat.

Mamà thought I mourned Papà. It was easy enough to let her think that.

The world grew dull to me. Tolosa, the vibrant pink city, the trobadors’ own rose of Europe, became dismal, tired, and brown. My will to remain in it grew slack.

My beloved was my great romance, and—impossible mira-cle!—I was his. He caught me up on wings of light, and showed me the realms of his creation, the glittering gemstones paving his heaven. He left my body weak and spent, my spirit gorged with honey.

There are no words for this. Like the flesh, like a prison cell,

X


so, too, are words confining, narrow, chafing, stupid things, incapa-ble of expressing one particle of what I felt, what I feel, when I see my beloved’s face, when he takes me in his arms.

There is only music. Only light.And no one may take it from me.

I told no one what was happening to me. My beloved was the most private secret of my soul.

Mamà began to speak of the abbey for me, and I refused to go. We quarreled bitterly, and grew cold with each other. At length she relented, with a heavy heart, and began to speak cautiously of me marrying. If I would not fulfill her dreams for me, I supposed, she was willing to concede that Papà’s hopes had been honorable. There was a kinsman, she said. A goodly man, well respected. He had asked Papà about me once, and Papà had been pleased. In a panic I told her my heart was already taken. At this she became sick with worry that I had sinned. So, at my beloved’s urging, I told her the truth about us.

She believed me. Relief made it easy for her to believe. Her maternal pride thrilled to think of me as being touched by divine grace. The next evening, she brought a cousin over to hear my tale. I wasn’t happy, but I was glad enough to have the anger between us abated that I told my story anyway.

The next evening, Mamà brought another friend, and her cous-in brought two others.

X


I was troubled, so asked my love for guidance. He asked me if I would, for his sake, tell many about the loving kindness he’d lav-ished upon me. Within a week our house was full to overflowing. I found myself, against every instinct—for I would far rather have remained in my room, in the solitude where my beloved could find me—speaking to houses full of listeners, night after night.

I began to venture out of doors more, not to preach, but merely to taste the world, see the city bloom in high summer. I smelled fresh breezes blow across the winding Garona River, and watched larks flit about the porticos of Our Lady de la Daurada.

But I also saw a city still bruised and bleeding from years of crushing war. I saw souls darkened by loss and bitterness in the crusades. I saw faith destroyed after the brutality we’d endured in its name. And then I understood why my beloved had sent me.

So I opened my mouth to teach the only lesson I knew. Of love everlasting, of mercy reaching beyond the prison walls of death, of the glory that awaits us when we die.

What a feeling it was, after a lifetime lived in my parents’ house, to be part of the world and make a difference in it. To do something, however small. To speak, and be heard, if only in my own home. I thought I would speak in the city squares, but Mamà forbade it. “You do not dare do such a thing,” she said. “This city is full of inquisitors, combing through the people for hidden heresies. To preach on the street is to arouse their alarm.”

It didn’t matter. People came. People sat outside and listened under windows. Just so, I later learned, did one eager young in-


quisitor and his elderly companion sit and listen. I didn’t know it at the time.

I preached almost daily. One day, I remember, I saw the tall man who had come to our home when Papà died. He sat and lis-tened to me speak. His face was so grave, he frightened me. Af-terward, while the other guests mingled and broke bread, he ap-proached and thanked me for my holy message. He offered me a pair of apricots. They sat so temptingly soft in his hand—did he know I couldn’t resist apricots?—but I said no. A storm cloud moved across his eyes. He bowed and walked away.

Not long after, Friar Lucien de Saint-Honore began to preach in the square closest to our home. His voice was musical, but his accent was French and northern. He had keen dark eyes that missed no detail. Were he not a tonsured friar, he might have been a comely man.

Day after day he returned, raising his voice of warning. I could hear him from the upper window where I sat. We must flee the treacherous heresy, he said, that entwined itself around our way of life—the false beliefs that slithered through the grasses of our fair Provensa, with false teachers leading people away from the true faith and toward unholy rituals and vows. Lucifer’s enticements, he warned, were no less beguiling today than those he’d planted in the Garden. The heretics, those false teachers of no authority, were serpents, and we ignorant Tolosans were Eve, deadly fruit poised and resting upon our lips.


Upon my lips.In our Father’s house, I told the believers, there is never alarm,

but only gladness, love, and peace.Not long after that, the interrogations began.

ONE

My father was a plant hunter—an adventurer—and

I saw little of him my first fourteen years, even

less the next two, but after I turned seventeen

he became my whole world.

He returned home once a year or so, as was his promise to

our mother, venturing to our house in Kent each Christmas

bearing strange gifts, such as a cachepot filled with prickly

cacti, a geode—a large rock that split open to reveal a crystal

treasure within—a brass ship’s compass, and once a hessian

sack of foul-smelling compost, which my father called bat

guano. All things a boy might love, but certainly not a girl,

my mother said. And we were a house filled with girls, each

of us named after a flower. There were nine sisters, all born

around the same time, begotten during my father’s annual visit

home. I came to regard Christmas as a herald, trumpeting the

arrival of yet another sibling in late summer, most likely a girl.

One more flower to add to a bouquet already bristling with un-

wanted blooms.

9780451474117_ForbiddenOrchid_TX_3P_revised.indd 5 1/4/16 11:18 AM

6

One would think my father would be happy in a house

surrounded by females named after flowers, but women and

flowers are not the same. No matter how much rose attar eau

de toilette or lavender powder we wore, we could not compete

with the real thing. Flowers lured my father to faraway lands

filled with savages, barbarian princes, exotic ladies in silk

saris, and even marauding cannibals. My father wrote to us of

his time tramping up and down hill and dale, canoeing rush-

ing rivers and climbing rocky mountain passes in search of an

elusive bloom heard of but never seen by a Westerner. His plant

hunting continued through my childhood until September of

1860 when my father met his misfortune. Not through the

poison-tipped arrow of a pygmy warrior, but by his own mis-

calculation. His headstrong behavior had come home to claim

its due. Or so my mother said. My father said nothing.

The last time I saw him was in 1859 when he came to

Christmas toting a large, mysterious box wrapped in brown

paper. The year the youngest, Dahlia, was conceived. And the

year I was sixteen.

Mamma always looked forward to Papa’s visit, growing

more and more excited as the date drew near. Instead of vis-

iting the church every day, as was her habit, she spent those

hours at her sewing basket, updating her wardrobe in the lat-

est style. When the day approached, she sat near the window

peering out at the street, waiting for Papa to arrive. He had

always walked from the train station before, but this year he

arrived in the back of a delivery cart, his long legs dangling

down, his arm across the reason for the cart: the package

wrapped in brown paper and tied with rough twine. Although

Papa dressed in an elegant tartan waistcoat and a black coat,


7

his bushy beard, befitting his status as an explorer, always

gave him a raffish look.

Mamma rushed outside and threw herself in Papa’s arms.

And as usual, after a cursory hello to us, he whisked Mamma

off, and we did not see them again until lunchtime.

“That shan’t last long,” Violetta said, her face grim. “If this

rapprochement continues to Boxing Day, I shall be surprised.”

“Violetta,” I chided. But she didn’t respond. Instead she

plonked herself down at the piano and began playing Brahms’s

Piano Sonata no. 3, crashing her hands down on the keys a lit-

tle harder than Mr. Brahms required for the somber piece.

Although Violetta was a devotee of gothic novels, she didn’t

often have fits of melodrama. But over the years she had

stopped believing that our parents’ affection toward one an-

other would endure. Their love balanced on a knife-edge, and

it took little to make it topple to the ground. I suppose Violetta

remained cynical because it was too painful to wish for some-

thing that could never be.

Two days later, on Christmas morning, Papa presented the

mysterious package.

He stood, his strong hands clasped behind his back, his eyes

shining, as he watched my little sisters strip the brown butcher

paper away to reveal a domed box made of glass, filled with

miniature plants, dainty furniture, and tiny handmade twig

dolls. There were ferns, mosses, and jumbles of strange-looking

plants, including a clump of tangled roots that perched atop a

little carved statue’s head like a wig. Peony, Lily, and Delphine

stared at the box, unable to make either head nor tail of it.

“Well now,” Papa said. “How do you like that, my girls?”

“What is it, Papa?” six-year-old Lily asked.


8

Papa looked taken aback. “Isn’t it obvious?” he said in a

booming voice. “It’s a dollhouse. I made it from a Wardian case!

An absolute miracle of an invention. Plants can travel across

oceans in Mr. Ward’s cases remaining as fresh as the day they

were collected. They are the very reason why your papa is the

success he is.”

Lily’s eyes filled with tears. The other two hid behind my moth-

er’s skirts. Two-year-old Fleur didn’t care one way or the other.

She remained on the floor, happily banging blocks together.

My mother frowned at the little glasshouse. “Reginald,” she

said. “Is this the . . . dollhouse?” I could hear dismay prickling

through her voice. I knew she had written Papa a letter asking

him to purchase a dollhouse at Hamley’s toy shop in London

for the little ones.

“I thought the girls would prefer this, my dear,” he said. I

could see the doubt in his eyes. My heart cracked a little to think

of his hands, so deft when handling delicate blooms, clumsily

dressing the twig dolls in little scraps of material, gluing acorn

caps to sticks, all in the hope of pleasing his daughters. He had

no inkling that the contents of such a dollhouse would be torn

to bits under my sisters’ eager hands. Their fingers, sticky with

jam, would smear the glass, and the little dolls would be lost

amongst their jumble of toys in the nursery.

“It’s a little fairy garden, Lily.” I knelt next to her and put

my arm around her thin shoulders. She shoved her fingers in

her mouth and looked at me, her chin quivering. “Can you not

see the little fairies Papa has caught for you?” She pulled her

fingers from her mouth and reached out a curious finger to

touch the glass. I folded it back down. “Mustn’t touch, darling.

Mustn’t disturb the fairies.”


9

“Fairies,” she repeated. Her breath fogged the glass. “Where

are the fairies?”

“Just there, darling.” I pointed at the sticks. “Can you not

see them hiding?” Lily leaned closer. Peony and Delphine crept

out from behind my mother and joined her, staring into the

tiny jungle.

“I thought little girls would like such a thing, Elodie,” Papa

said to me later.

“It’s lovely, Papa. They are only young and don’t understand

how to look after such a treasure.”

It was a kind gift, made from my father’s heart, but I was

sure I was the only one who saw it as such. My mother, con-

stantly disappointed by my father, saw everything he did

as a slight. But I didn’t blame her. Papa could be a difficult

man.

Mamma had married my father when he was a student at

Oxford, studying to become a priest. She was a bishop’s daugh-

ter, and for her the church was everything. But Papa, like

many men of the church, studied the natural world as a fancy.

Inspired by the writings of Mr. Charles Darwin, he went on

a voyage to the Canary Islands of Spain, where he collected

cacti. He was so good at acquiring plants that he was hired by

wealthy men to gather plants for them to display in their fash-

ionable glasshouses. Papa turned away from the church and

from God and to a life of plant hunting. The year he turned

away from the church, Mamma lost her firstborn, a son. Since

then she has only given birth to girls, and Mamma believes this

is God’s way of punishing Papa.

Later on Christmas evening, Mamma and Papa had a hor-

rible row. It was over the simplest thing: Mamma’s choice of


10

wallpaper. Mamma had recently papered the youngest chil-

dren’s room in a brilliant and beautiful shade of green, like the

brightest emerald. Mamma had been proud of the room, but

Papa was incensed. As soon as he laid eyes on the walls he tore

the paper down, exclaiming and shouting. Mamma followed

behind him, shrieking and grabbing at his hands.

“Poison, this is poison, don’t you understand?” Papa said,

tearing a long strip of paper down, exposing the whitewashed

wall behind it. Some of the paper clung stubbornly to the walls,

as though taking my mother’s side.

“How can you say such a thing?” Mamma said, sinking onto

Lily’s bed in a flood of tears. “It’s beautiful. Why do you ruin

everything that’s beautiful?”

Papa stared at her, stricken. He started to speak and then

saw me standing in the doorway. He straightened up. “Elodie.

My dear. Do you understand why I took the paper down? Do

you know what makes this paper green?”

I stepped inside the room and looked at my mother. Her

eyes were red from crying. “I . . . from the green dye, I expect,

Papa,” I replied hesitantly.

“This brilliant green can only be gotten from copper arse-

nite,” he said. “As I have told your mother repeatedly.” He cast

an angry look at her.

“Arsenite?” I repeated.

“Arsenic. Poison. The paper puts off vapors that can cause

constriction of the throat. And then death.” Papa shook the

clump of paper. “This . . . this prevalent color, most likely pa-

pering acres and miles of British walls, will kill people. Mark

my words. I told your mother no when she wrote to me with

her request to paper the room, but she’s only gone behind my


11

back . . .” Papa’s words trailed off, and he looked down at the

crumpled paper in his hands.

“No one believes that is true,” Mamma said through sobs.

“The paper man said he’d eat a pound of it himself.”

Papa’s face turned red with rage. “If the blaggard were here,

I’d cram a pound of it down his throat!” he shouted. “And how

can you take his word but not mine?”

I stood there, a few feet inside the room, unable to speak, al-

most in a trance, viewing the tableau as someone else would see

it. Mamma sitting on Lily’s bed, her bell-shaped skirts flowing

over the tiny mattress, staring down at her slippers in despair.

Papa, standing with one hand braced against the wall, a wad

of green paper in the other, and an expression of anger mixed

with confusion on his face. My parents were both beautiful:

Mamma with hair light as a sunbeam, Papa’s dark as a raven’s

wing. Mamma lovely and delicate, Papa handsome and strong.

I used to think my parents were Staffordshire porcelain dolls

come to life, stepping down off the mantelpiece, hand in hand,

to become human. But now I think there was a mistake. The

dolls were mismatched, created in different workshops but yet

placed inside the same box.

I knew then that they really weren’t arguing over wallpaper;

I knew they were arguing over something that was far deeper

and far more destructive.

Mamma went to her room and shut the door behind her.

Papa closed himself in the children’s room and finished strip-

ping off the paper. My sister Violetta and I took all the children,

frightened by the shouting, into our bedroom and made them

beds on the floor and read them stories until they fell asleep.

Unable to sleep myself, I went to the kitchen and made a pot


12

of tea. I’d forgotten my slippers upstairs with the children, and

so my feet were bare on the cold tiles. I sat on the chair and

tucked my feet under my nightgown, cupping the mug in my

hands.

“Father is beastly,” Violetta said. She stood in the doorway

holding my slippers in her hands, her long dark hair hanging in

a braid over one shoulder. “Is there any tea left?”

I pushed the pot toward her. She handed me my slippers and

then went to fetch a cup from the scullery. Presently she re-

turned, and I poured her tea.

“Papa isn’t beastly, Violetta,” I said. “He feels the wallpaper

is poison, and I’m inclined to agree with him. But I do think he

was wrong to rip it down like that. He should have been more

tactful.”

Violetta snorted. “Tactful? May as well ask a monkey to be

tactful.” She blew on her tea and took a cautious sip.

“That’s unkind. Papa thought the children were in danger.

Mamma saw her beautiful paper in ruins. The two had their

own views on the matter, and they are both very passion-

ate people. It was inevitable that they should become overly

emotional.”

Violetta eyed me over the cup and then sighed. She set her

teacup down and dragged her shawl around her shoulders.

“How can a color become poison? It’s absurd!”

“How can water become poison? How can gas become poi-

son?” I said. “There are many things we don’t understand. Papa

is a man of science, and he loves beauty, despite what Mamma

says, so he’d be the last person to destroy something if he didn’t

think it important to do so.”

“He did it to hurt Mamma,” Violetta said, unwilling to see


13

any other side in the matter. She picked her cup up. “And I

shan’t forgive him. I hope he never comes back.”

“Violetta!” I chided, but she turned her face away.

My heart ached over the division of our home. I tried to

make it better, but the cracks were too wide, too difficult to

bridge. But I knew myself. I knew I would not stop trying.

Papa left the following morning, saying nothing to my

mother and only a cursory good-bye to us. The little ones’ eyes

grew wide when Papa approached to kiss them, so he let them

be. Violetta bobbed a curtsy and kissed his cheek, but her face

was stone. I alone saw him out.

He held his hat in his hand, an old felt homburg that looked

as though it had been sat on once too often. “You understand

me, don’t you, my dear?” Uncertainty skittered over his face.

“You understand why the paper had to go?”

“I do, Papa.” I hadn’t the heart to tell him he should have

been gentler and kinder when tearing the paper down. I knew

that worry and fear can make people act in ways they wouldn’t

ordinarily.

He smiled, and it was the saddest smile I had ever seen. He

put his battered hat on his head and fumbled in his satchel,

pulling out a book. He handed it to me. “I meant to give this

to you on Christmas morning, but I wasn’t sure your mother

would approve.”

The book Papa handed me was called On the Origin of Species

by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured

Races in the Struggle for Life by Charles Darwin.


14

“Have you heard of this book, Elodie?” Papa asked, his face

eager. “Mr. Darwin published it in November. Quite extra-

ordinary. I went round to the bookshop and secured a copy,

and I’m quite glad that I did. The book sold out immediately.”

He took the book back and flipped through a few pages until he

found the one he wanted and turned the book to face me. “Here

Darwin makes a case for transmutation of species through nat-

ural selection. He says that every plant is shaped perfectly for

its own pollinator, the two evolving side by side. That every-

thing on the earth evolves according to its needs.”

I took the book from him, glancing at the page he had

sought. I had heard of this book. The deacon of our church,

Bernard Wainwright, had preached a sermon against it re-

cently, claiming that Mr. Darwin was trying kill God. I should

have handed it straight back to Papa, but I wanted to read it. I

wanted to read it very much, if only to see what all the fuss was

about. I had been taught that God had created the world and

all the creatures within it. But I also knew that people had dis-

covered ancient creatures not mentioned in the Bible, in rocks

throughout the world, even in our own England. These crea-

tures no longer existed, and no one could explain them. Many

people, even those in the church, were saying this proved sto-

ries in the Bible were meant to be parables and not to be taken

literally.

My father had met Mr. Darwin many times. His home,

Down House, was not far from our own, and both he and Papa

belonged to the Geological Society. Like my father, Mr. Darwin

had once been very devout, and a clerical student. But after he’d

made his voyage on HMS Beagle, he became critical of the Bible

and thought all religions might be valid, not just Christianity.


15

I hugged the book to my chest. Papa had always been very

free about sharing his books with us, encouraging us to ex-

plore his library. Our parish school taught us girls the very

basics, with an emphasis on religion and housewifery, and only

until we turned thirteen. Papa hated that our education was so

sparse, so he had a standing order with a London bookseller

who sent us several books each month. I alone received them to

unwrap the brown paper and twine and to shelve them by cate-

gory, carefully writing down the titles in Papa’s library journal.

Violetta availed herself of the novels, but I loved the books on

geography and natural history. My favorite book was an enor-

mous leather-bound atlas that sat perched on a stand near

Papa’s desk. I spent hours turning the pages and then locating

the countries on his globe, spinning it round slowly, reciting

the names of the countries—exotic names like Ceylon, Malaya,

and Zanzibar—wishing that I might someday see them for my-

self. “Thank you, Papa. I would love to read it,” I said.

He tapped my nose with his forefinger, smiling. “Perhaps

do so when you’re on your own. Your mother is angry enough

with me as it is. I don’t think she’d like you to have such a

controversial book.” He kissed my cheek, put his hat on, and

climbed into the waiting carriage. The horses stamped their

hooves and chewed their bits, eager to be off. The carriage

driver spoke gently to them, waiting for my father’s command.

Papa let down the window and leaned out. “Look after your

mother and sisters for me, Elodie. I’m leaving for China next

week to collect plants.”

“Isn’t China quite dangerous right now?” I asked. The

Second China War, sparked by China’s seizure of a British mer-

chant ship, had been ongoing for several years, and although


16

China was a large country and Britain was prevailing, I wor-

ried that Papa might be swept up in the violence.

Papa waved his hand. “Oh, no. I’ll be moving through the

interior, well away from the action. The China War is not a con-

flict of the common man but rather one between the emperor

and the West. Some of the villagers won’t even know there is a

war ongoing. I’ll be perfectly safe.”

“How long will you be away, Papa?” I asked, dreading the

answer.

“I plan to return in October.”

“Perhaps you will be home in time for my birthday.”

“Your birthday?” Papa furrowed his brow. “Yes, of course,

your birthday is in October, is it not? The twenty-seventh, I

believe?”

“The first,” I replied.

“Yes, yes of course. The first.” He thought again. “I’m not

sure, but I will try. I will write to you all, but remember it may

take months for the letters to reach you. I don’t want for you to

worry, but if anything goes awry, you can write to Sir William

Jackson Hooker at Kew, and he will assist you in my stead.”

“Are you collecting for Kew now?” I asked, thrilled at the

thought of Papa working for such a venerable institution.

“I have collected for Kew for the past several years.” He

smiled. “Only don’t tell my employer. I don’t think he’d like to

know he’s not my only priority.”

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, held the largest collection

of plants in the world. Plant hunters traveled to the far reaches

of the earth to discover new wonders for the garden. The most

exotic of these lived in a marvel of glass and iron engineer-

ing called the Palm House, which resembled an upside-down


17

ship. Inside, massive palm trees from faraway lands towered

over delicate flowering plants below. Visitors stepped over the

threshold, leaving cold, rainy England behind, and into a warm,

steamy rainforest, the mist gentle on their faces and the scent

of the jackfruit trees and flowering vines filling their senses.

Or so I’d read. I’d never been to Kew, which lay in Richmond

upon Thames, an hour’s train journey away. Indeed, I’d never

left Kent in the whole of my life. Edencroft was my life and al-

ways would be. I would have loved nothing more than to see

Kew for myself. Dash it, I wanted to go farther than Kew. I

wanted to feel a real rainforest’s mist on my face and smell the

jackfruit trees in their native land and not in a glasshouse, no

matter how marvelously built.

“I long to go with you, Papa,” I blurted out.

“Oh, my dear,” Papa said, his voice wistful. “If you were a

boy, I’d take you with me directly you asked.” He smiled. “The

things I would show you! But alas, such adventures are not for

you. Besides, I need you here to look after Mamma and the

girls. You are my eyes and ears whilst I’m away, and I depend

on you to remain my steadfast and dependable Elodie.”

I felt ridiculous for showing Papa my heart and for making

him voice what I loathed to hear: Because I was a girl, I would

always fall short in father’s eyes. I would never be able to make

up for the loss of my brother. I would never be able to walk by

his side. The only way I could make him proud was to remain

home, locked like a fairy doll inside of a glass Wardian case,

looking after the other fairy dolls. I looked down the road that

led to the train station, unable to meet his eyes. “I know, Papa.”

“Please tell your mother . . .” He hesitated and glanced at her

bedroom windows, where the drapes remained closed. “Never


18

mind. Good-bye, my dear.” He tapped the roof of the carriage

with his walking stick, and the driver clucked to his horses.

“Good-bye, Papa.” I stood on the gravel drive and watched

until the carriage had crested the hill and disappeared down

the other side.

The weather was threatening snow, the sky grim and fore-

boding. I went inside and up to Violetta’s and my bedroom. I

tucked Mr. Darwin’s book on top of my wardrobe, behind the

ornate carving where no one would look, to read later. Then I

went in search of the little glass dollhouse, finally finding it

in the scullery. Our maid had placed it on a high shelf next

to a stack of saucepans and copper bowls. I stood on a stool

and fetched it down, trying not to jostle it and upset the plants.

I carried it to my bedroom, where I placed it on my dressing

table. I looked at the little dolls, the wee twig figures with the

faces drawn on and little dresses made from scraps of hessian,

and I couldn’t help it. A great sadness overtook me, and I cried.

I cried for my father’s kind gesture, so misunderstood, and for

my mother’s broken heart, but most of all I cried for myself, be-

cause I wanted my papa.

I wouldn’t see or hear from my father again until April of

1861, when the bailiffs came to take our possessions away.


TWO

My sisters had no interest in my father’s gift, so

I alone cared for the little glasshouse, which

I kept on a shelf in our bedroom. But I didn’t

mind. The house and its contents stirred a fancy

for plants I’d long harbored. A small conservatory attached to

the back of our house had lain neglected for years, storing bro-

ken furniture, chipped crockery, and piles of old newspaper. In

early February of 1860 I decided to return it to its former use

as a greenhouse. I carried out all the rubbish and burned it on

a bonfire, and washed the grime and soot off the windows, let-

ting in a flood of sunshine. On my hands and knees, I scrubbed

years of dirt off the flagstone tile floor until the former pattern

shone through—a handsome red-and-gold diamond pattern in-

laid with a twining green vine.

An old dilapidated fountain sat in the middle of the room. It

was fed and powered by a small stream outside, and I wanted

to see it moving again. I had no idea how to fix such a thing,

but I had nothing to lose in trying. So I took it apart, drawing


20

a diagram of where everything went so I could reassemble it. I

cleaned all the bits and pieces with a small wire brush and put

it back together. While the little children and Violetta waited

inside, watching the fountain for signs of life, I removed my

shoes and stockings, tucked up my skirts, and waded into the

cold stream to locate the pipe that led into the conservatory. It

was blocked with leaves and a dead frog, and so I pulled these

out, wincing just a little when my fingers brushed against the

frog’s slimy skin. The water rushed into the pipe, and I heard

the cries of delight from the children and the flowing of the

water as it fell from the tiers of the fountain

I consulted my father’s books about plants in his study to

learn about botanical collection and cultivation. Bit by bit, I

filled the room with pots of ferns, fuchsias, and primroses. The

conservatory was my refuge, and when I was in it, I felt closer

to Papa. Some of the plants, I found on my walks through the

nearby woods. As I dug them up, I pretended to be plant hunt-

ing with Papa, discovering a new fern and exclaiming over it. It

was a silly game, I knew that, but it comforted me.

Summer came and went, and Papa failed to acknowledge

Dahlia’s birth in mid-September, but that was not so unusual. It

took at least three months for mail to reach us from the Orient.

That, coupled with Papa’s remote locations, meant we knew

we’d hear from him rarely. We had already received the usual

wodge of letters, all at once, when they arrived on a homebound

China clipper in late spring, but we’d had nothing since then.

Mamma had a difficult time giving birth to the baby, la-


21

boring long and suffering more than she ever had before. Her

stoicism and practicality had grown with every pregnancy and

delivery, but there was something different about this one. She

wanted Papa by her side, and nothing Violetta or I could say or

do would comfort her. The village physician, Dr. Thumpston,

visited her late in the day, hours after her waters broke, and

dosed her with some sort of medicine, which calmed her for

several hours but did nothing to bring the baby forward.

Late in the night, in her delirium, she called out to Papa time

and time again, waking the children. Violetta and our maid

tried to keep the little ones occupied in their nursery while I

tended to Mamma, but her cries were so loud that the girls be-

came frightened.

In the early morning I put my cloak on and hurried out to

fetch Dr. Thumpston, who was not pleased to be drawn away

from his breakfast table.

“She’s been laboring harder than ever, Dr. Thumpston,” I said

as we walked back to our house. “Calling out for my father.”

“Of course,” he replied, huffing to keep up with me. “Of

course she would. Any woman who has been abandoned by her

husband would do so. She is suffering from melancholy. If she

would only try to turn her attention to her baby, she would be

delivered of it immediately.”

I stopped walking. “I apologize, Dr. Thumpston, but did I

hear you quite correctly? Did you say my father abandoned my

mother? How did you come of this knowledge?”

The doctor took advantage of our pause to set his bag onto

a nearby stone wall and lean over to catch his breath. Our vil-

lage doctor was an elderly man, and not given much to smiling.

He was as stout as he was tall, and Violetta had remarked on


22

several occasions that his dour countenance coupled with his

penchant for dark brown suits gave him the appearance and

personality of a block of wood.

He cleared his throat several times before answering. “I

have no direct knowledge of this, but anyone possessed of

sense could see that your family has been abandoned. Is your

father currently present? From what I understand, he has not

been home for some time.”

“My father is in China, sir,” I replied. “His occupation bids

him to be away from home for a goodly length of time. He has

not abandoned my mother any more than a naval captain or

soldier has abandoned his.”

“Is your father a naval captain or soldier?”

“No, he—”

The doctor interrupted my reply with a glare, and the words

stuck in my throat. “I have not the time nor the inclination

to debate this with you.” He stood upright, collected his bag.

“Now, do you wish me to deliver your mother of this child, or

shall I return to my home and finish my breakfast?”

I shook my head. “I do apologize. Of course, let us proceed.”

As we walked along, the doctor puffing at my side, I couldn’t

get the word the doctor had used out of my head—abandoned.

With the use of forceps and chloroform, Dr. Thumpston

coaxed forth our new sister. After my mother had a cursory

look at the child and named her Dahlia, Dr. Thumpston dosed

her with another cup of medicine, and she fell into a sleep that

did not abate for days.


23

When Mamma had failed to rise from childbed after the cus-

tomary fortnight, Dr. Thumpston prescribed Collis Browne’s

Chlorodyne to help her exhausted nervous system recover, but

she seemed drained of all life. She wanted to lie abed, rousing

only to attend church, and even then she was in a daze, mum-

bling into her folded hands during prayer and staring round

her with wide eyes during the lesson.

Because Mamma was unable to look after herself, much less

an infant, Violetta and I minded the rest of the children while

a nurse hired from the village saw to Dahlia. The doctor, snap-

ping his bag shut and handing over another bottle of Collis

Browne’s Chlorodyne, said she would recover soon and that we

shouldn’t worry, but as the days drew on, I began to feel as

though my mother and father were both gone. And never com-

ing back.

When my seventeenth birthday arrived in October, Mamma

was too ill to assist me in changing my wardrobe, so on my

own I lengthened and widened my skirts by sewing on a wide

flounce and donning one of my mother’s cage crinolines. It

took me a little while to get used to my new silhouette, and in-

deed I had to move many of my plants up to a higher shelf so

I wouldn’t turn them over while I worked. The first morning I

wore my new clothing down to breakfast, Violetta jumped up

from her place and hugged me hard.

“I forgot it was your birthday. You should have said some-

thing, Elodie,” she said. “I could have baked something special

for tea.”

“Never mind, Violetta,” I said, stepping back from her em-

brace and taking my seat at the table. At seventeen I was now

an adult, and fripperies and birthday sweets were for children.


24

“I could have at least helped you with your skirts.”

It was sweet of her to say so, and I could have asked her to

help me, if only to have someone to talk to while I sewed. But

more and more I was learning that I preferred to do things on

my own, and I found that I liked my own company more than

anyone else’s, which worried me. I wasn’t sure why I felt this

way, but even with my sister, my dearest friend, I felt somehow

wrong and awkward in her presence.

I used to have a friend from school. Her name was Cordelia

Brooks, and we had shared everything together, but just before

Dahlia was born I started to draw away. She stopped believing

me when I told her I had to go home, had to see to the children.

Her feelings were hurt, and soon she stopped handing me sweets

from her father’s confectionary shop after church, stopped ask-

ing me to visit, stopped speaking to me. It was as though we had

never known each other at all. It was my fault, and I knew it. So

now, at church, our gaze would meet for a brief moment before

she looked away, pretending she didn’t see me.

I felt no one could understand me because I didn’t under-

stand myself, and I didn’t know how to explain it. So I chose to

be alone than confront this new truth.

My days continued on, one sliding into the next, their very

sameness blurring them together. Rise, wash, help our maid,

Mary, start the fires, see the little ones dressed, the middle ones

off to school, sit with Mamma, fetch the children home from

school, help Mary prepare tea, feed the children, wash the chil-

dren, put them to bed, sit with Mamma. And again and again.

In between all of this I managed to snatch time in my conserva-

tory or an hour outside the village searching for new plants. If I

hadn’t had those little respites, I would have run mad.


25

October drew on, and Papa hadn’t returned to England. Nor

had we received answers to our letters or word of his where-

abouts. Mamma grew more and more despondent as her letters

went unanswered and no word came from him. She stopped

asking after the mail, and with each day’s passing she seemed

to get a little worse. I couldn’t help but think Papa’s pres-

ence would help her greatly. In early November I wrote to Sir

William at Kew, who replied that he had not heard from my

father, either, nor had he returned on the ship he’d booked

passage on, which had returned to England in late September.

But Sir William noted that the China War had clogged corre-

spondence coming out of several treaty ports in that country,

and that my father might be on his way home as he wrote. I

shouldn’t worry, he’d written.

But he might as well have told me to stop breathing. This

was the longest we’d ever gone without hearing from Papa, and

the fact that he hadn’t gotten on the steamship alarmed me. I

knew in my heart that something was wrong.

Mamma’s illness and my father’s disappearance had become

the talk of the village. It seemed that we were either the family

to pity—ten females on their own without a man to help them—

or the family to scorn: what moral misstep had Mamma made

that had caused my father to abandon her without a word?

Why had she not made a home of perfect peace to encourage

Mr. Buchanan to stay with his family?

It was impossible to walk to the village without being stared

at or tutted over. Our situation made Violetta so angry that her

repeated slamming of our bedroom door caused the plaster

over the lintel to fall away and reveal the lath beneath.

“He’s missing,” I told Violetta, insisting she listen. “He’s not


26

abandoned us. I’m sure he remains in China. Somewhere.”

“Then why hasn’t he written? Why hasn’t he sent word of

his whereabouts?” Violetta was sitting in the window seat on

the upstairs landing, her knees tucked up under her skirt and a

book facedown on the embroidered cushion.

“Perhaps he cannot,” I said. “Perhaps he is in a very remote

area.”

“Do you know what one of the Thatcher girls said to me

today?” Violetta turned away from the window, her face rigid

with anger. “Suzette—the one with the blonde ringlets and

front teeth as large as headstones. She said she’d heard that

Papa had the bailiffs at his heels, and that is why he remains

abroad. She asked me if that was the truth. I said nothing. I

snubbed her and left her standing there with her ridiculous

mouth gaping like a trout’s.”

I sat down next to her. “You should take no heed of such gos-

sip. Who cares what they say or think? It doesn’t make it true.”

“But what if it is true?”

“Dearest, there is no proof to this. We have money aplenty

and nothing to worry about on that score.”

Violetta scowled out the window toward town as though she

could hear what the people were saying that very moment. As

for me, I went on enduring the unwanted attention of the vil-

lagers and hoping desperately that Mamma heard none of it.

Christmas was a grim affair.

With Papa still in China and Mamma still unwell, Violetta

and I did what we could to make the holiday merry for the chil-

dren. But even little Delphine knew something terrible had

taken hold of our parents. All the girls, save Fleur, Chrysantha,

and Dahlia, who were too young to understand, played with


27

their Christmas dollies quietly, declining to pull their crack-

ers and picking at their plum pudding. The pantomime at

the church hall on Boxing Day was the only thing that made

them laugh, apart from nine-year-old Calla who was terri-

fied of Clown, and shrank down in her seat and hid her face

in my shoulder whenever he appeared, finally giving way to

tears when Pantaloon and Clown began chasing Harlequin and

Columbine. I took her home at the interval, leaving Violetta

and Mary to mind our remaining sisters.

When I arrived home with Calla, the afternoon post had

been. On the hall table amongst the jumble of dolls’ clothes and

frayed ribbons sat a letter addressed in copperplate and affixed

with a wax seal stamped with the word kew. It was addressed to

Mamma, but I knew it could only have come from Sir William

Hooker, the director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, whom

Papa had left as his proxy.

I sent Calla up to the nursery to play with her doll and then

turned the letter over in my hand, considering whether to give

it to Mamma. If Sir William knew of Papa’s whereabouts, I

wanted to know it first so I could prepare her if the news was

bad.

I took it over to the window, where some light from the af-

ternoon winter sunshine streamed through, and broke the seal.

December 26, 1860

Dear Mrs. Buchanan,

I have received word that Mr. Buchanan had been caught up in some conflict in


28

September while collecting specimens for Royal Bot anic Gardens, Kew, and was taken prisoner along with several other Englishmen. I understand he had been injured, to what extent I am not privy, but I’m told reliably that his healing is ongoing and that he will make a full recovery.

Mr. Buchanan is returning home on a st eamship as I write and should be arriving in England in early February. I will keep you apprised of any further news. If there is anything I can do for you or for your family, please do not hesitat e to ask.

I remain your humble servant,Sir William Jackson Hooker

Relief and fear filled me in equal measure. Papa had

been injured. How badly? And then a very selfish idea oc-

curred to me, one that made me so ashamed I blushed with

the thought of it. If Papa was injured, then he’d be forced to

come home, at the very least so we could nurse him back to

health, but maybe he would be so happy here that he would

remain. Forever.

I folded the letter and went upstairs to Mamma to tell her the


29

news, hoping that she’d be able to comprehend. All the while I

chided myself for my wicked thoughts.

I sat on the side of Mamma’s bed, where she lay staring up

at her canopy. “Mamma,” I whispered. “Papa will be home in

February. I’ve had word from Sir William at Kew.” I held the

letter up. She turned her head, and for the first time in months,

smiled.

January of 1861 came and went, and Sir William wrote

that Papa’s ship would be docking any day. As the first week

in February unfolded, Mamma took to sitting in her window,

staring down the road, waiting for Papa to arrive.

The second week of February drifted past, as did the third.

Finally we heard from Sir William, who told us that Papa had

arrived in England, taken a cottage in the grounds of Kew, and

had chosen to remain. He was suffering from melancholy and

wanted time alone, Sir William wrote, promising that he would

keep us apprised of any further news.

“Why don’t you go to him?” I asked Mamma. “Convince

him to come home, where we can look after him.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t agree with the way your father has

lived his life. His headstrong behavior caused his troubles, as

ever. I’m weary of trying to convince him to stay home and to

stop taking chances, but I can’t nail his boots down.”

“But Mamma, maybe—”

“No, Elodie. I’ve always held your father by a gossamer

thread. The last we saw one another, on that ill-fated Christmas,

I felt that thread begin to sever. Don’t you understand, Elodie?

He’s chosen. He wants to live apart, and I will not give up the

little pride I have left by begging him to return.”


30

“I’m so sorry, Mamma.” I hugged her close.

She kissed the top of my head. “I tell you, my daughter, do

not fall in love with an adventurer. Your heart will never stop

breaking.”

Mamma left her window, returned to her bed, and refused

to rise.


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