When it was over, Maria lay too exhausted to even move beneath a heap of every scrap of fabric that could be spared to keep her warm, and the new baby girl had been tightly wrapped and was being held by Jakob near to the fire. Friedrich was just glad Maria had had three weeks of good food before the birth; he really didn’t think she would have survived this one without the extra nourishment. She’d gone into labor the previous afternoon, and it had gone on until well after sunrise.

He was just as tired, since he had served as midwife. He was slowly eating vegetable soup and drinking herb tea, his first meal since she had gone into labor. And he really wasn’t thinking of anything else when the knock came at the door. Before he could say anything, his second oldest, Johann, jumped up to answer it.

And fell back again, in astonishment and fear, as the terrible woman in black and one of her dogs pushed their way in.

She closed the door behind her and surveyed them all with an icy glare.

The children all froze in terror; the tall woman was no less forbidding and formidable in broad daylight than she had been by night. The dog didn’t growl, but he didn’t have to; he looked like a black wolf, which was more than enough to make the children try to inch back until they were squeezed into the corner farthest from her.

All but Jakob, who remained where he was, by the fire, the baby clutched in his nerveless hands.

Before Friedrich could utter a word, the woman looked around the room and spotted Jakob and the baby. In four strides she had crossed the room, then bent and snatched the baby out of Jakob’s arms.

“I’ve come for your part of the bargain, Friedrich Schnittel,” she said. “And now I’ll be gone.”

And with that, she turned, stalked out the door, and left.

Maria fell into hysterics, of course—he hadn’t told her about the bargain. When he explained, she only became more hysterical, weeping and pushing him away until he just gave up trying to reason with her, and, for lack of anything else to do, made sure the children were all fed. As they all ate, she cried herself into a sleep that was less sleep than collapse, and he stared at her white, tear-streaked face and wondered where the girl he had fallen in love with had gone.

When Maria awoke, she refused to speak to him. After a while, he got tired of the silence and decided to make another visit to the garden. The terrible woman had not put an end-date on her part of the bargain, and he was determined to get as much out of it as he could.