She rises and runs a hand along the clay pots on the windowsill. She chooses one and returns to her rocking chair.

“We can try this, but I do not know if it will remedy it. The thing’s venom is on your blood, and it is killing your hand.”

“And if this doesn’t work?”

“The rot will set in. The hand will have to come off before the venom creeps any further.”

It is Pip who makes a noise this time. He is usually lost in his own head, but not now. He looks terrified at the midwife’s proposed remedy. I shouldn’t have brought him here.

Hagar gets a piece of hardtack from the table and gives it to my brother. “Take this,” she says. “Wait outside.”

He does as he is told, gnawing on the biscuit. Hagar looks at me.

“When did she bite you? How many days?”

I’ve lost track of the days and my brain is too fuzzy for counting. “A fortnight? Why?”

Hagar frowns. “I know nothing of mermaid bites. Who does, really? But I would think that mermaid venom would act quickly. A day. Two at the most. It’s strange.”

“What do you think it means?”

She inspects the wound again, the ring of teeth marks. “She’s marked you for some reason. Perhaps she has something special in mind.”

I ask what this might be, but she refuses to speculate. Putting the pot of ointment in my hand, she tells me to run along and bother her no more.

***

Our woodshed is down to its last few splinters of pine. I will need to bring Pip with me to the forest to scrounge up more firewood. It is difficult enough to split logs with a dull axe but doing so one-handed is beyond frustrating. My cursing is interrupted when our neighbor, Magda Bergden, appears at the gate. She asks if I have seen her daughter, Heloise.

“I haven’t seen anyone, ma’am,” I say, standing another block on the stump.

The woman frowns. “She should have started the mending by now. Is she in the church?”

I check the church, only to find it empty, and return to the irritated mother. “Has she gone to the water? Or to the meadow, to pick berries?”

“She’ll get a good thumping if she has,” Magda replies. “The girl is not herself these days.”

Opening the rectory door, I holler out for my sister, thinking Bryndis might know, but there is no reply. When I holler again, Pip appears. He doesn’t know where our sister is. I ask if he has seen Heloise from next door, but the little turnip claims he doesn’t know anyone by that name.