It was night and too dark for sewing. But she took the stub of a candle and, crouching, lit it from the last few embers in the hearth. When she stood, she felt the cloak slip out of her hands. Above her, Catherine said, “Hold the candle while I sew for you, Joan,” because Catherine saw she wanted sleep.

So she raised the candle close to where Catherine’s needle moved, darting up and down like a silver fish, but not so close that she would set the cloak on fire, though she was tempted.

As she watched, she felt the candle wobble in her grip; her eyes closed, opened, closed again. She was falling asleep on her feet. Melted tallow dripped onto the cloth in a column of shining, pearly beads. “Careful,” Catherine said.

It was so still, Joan could hear her sister’s breathing. Neither of them spoke, until she saw that the flame was about to go out. Her pulse quickened. Before the last thread is cut, Joan thought, a wish must be made.

“Quick,” she said, a whisper in the near darkness. “You must say what you want. What you want more than anything else in the world.”

Her sister bowed her head, as if she were about to pray. She considered, then spoke quietly, unrushed though the flame was already dying. “I want to make a good marriage,” Catherine said. “Healthy children. One boy, two girls.”

It was a wish typical of Catherine: sweet-mannered husbands, rosy-cheeked babies, the peace of the hearth is the peace of the kingdom.

Then she turned to Joan. She said, “And you?”

In Joan’s hand, the flame sputtered before dying. She saw nothing but smelled smoke.

“I want…I want too many things.”

When the cloak was finished, she heard Catherine sigh. In the dark, her sister’s arm was like a swan’s neck. It wound itself around Joan’s shoulders and brought her close. Joan felt the top of her head kissed twice. “Have only good dreams,” Catherine said before she went upstairs to sleep.

The next morning, her father picked up the cloak and examined the place where the hole had been. He grunted.

“Soon you shall be a seamstress,” he told Joan. And for a whole week, there were no beatings. A record for Jacques d’Arc. For her, a small miracle.

Her story finished, she waits for Catherine to speak, to confirm the facts of her memory or to laugh at her for remembering wrong. But there is no answer.

“Can you bring me some water?” she says after a pause. “And is there anything to eat?”

When she turns her head to look, the corner of the unfamiliar room is empty. Outside, the town has become still. The sun has set; the light of the day is gone. From behind the wall, in another room, she catches the sound, like a strange humming, of someone softly weeping.

II