“Our mother never wanted that for either of us,” she said calmly. She stirred the stew, knowing she must taste it to see what seasoning it wanted but having no appetite for the task. A memory came to her, and tugged her lips into a smile. It was better when they talked about the old things. “Do you remember what she did when the bee stung you?”

Bea shook her head sadly. “I don’t remember nothing of her. Just her shouting as the baby came, and then she was gone.”

“It stung your hand, and you cried and cried. She put honey on it.”

“And... and she said honey was the cure for a bee’s hurt.” She looked at Nan, startled, her face brightening. She loved these crumbs of memory. “I do remember! A cure for Bea’s hurt. She was clever, wasn’t she?”

Nan smiled. “Clever enough. You stuffed your hand in your mouth to suck off the honey, and we heard no more of your wailing. Well, until the next time you wanted honey.”

They laughed, and tried to remember more things together, more bits of shared life to stitch them closer to each other.

Chapter Twelve

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That night in the small room, Nan sent one blade after another into a head of cabbage. She was careful to throw gently and aim precisely, so that it was not cut to pieces and ruined. The Welshman and his friend had watched her like she had some kind of wondrous magic at her fingertips, but there was no more to it than what they saw with their own eyes: endless practice and repetition.

She was tempted to pull out the memory of his kiss, to hold it in her hand like a jewel and turn it this way and that so she might see every angle of it. In this house she was surrounded by lust, easy and comfortable, as ordinary as cabbage. It seemed to have nothing to do with her, until a stray sound of passion would drift to her in the night and she remembered his body pressing into hers, the stirring in her belly, the taste of his tongue.

But that was too much to contemplate now, when there were so many other things crowding her mind. She turned her attention to the target, and threw. She used the short blades from her arm brace, as she always did when she must pick apart a complicated knot inside her head.

A blade landed to one side of the jutting stem, and she considered her sister’s age. Bea was young enough; she might change. Another blade landed above the stem, and Nan thought of how she could not stand to stay in this house much longer, if men would think her body was for sale. Two more blades landed, two more doubts: she should have started looking for her sister sooner, she should not leave her here.