“Well enough,” I reply, letting her peek into the frayed basket.

“The fish are being coy with everyone these days,” she says. Her nose wrinkles. “What is that spiky thing? Is it even a fish?”

“I’ll find out when I scale it.” I feel my face grinning like the village idiot’s. “You look well. How is your mother? Doing better, I hope.”

The light in her eyes dims a little. “She’s still abed. I pray she’ll recover, but I don’t think my prayers are worth much.”

“I’m sorry. That must be very hard, looking after her as well as keeping your other, uh, duties.”

“I am content with it. God may wash us all out to sea tomorrow.”

That damn admonition again. It floats everywhere here, dripping from the slate roofs and rolling along the cobblestones. There’s no escaping it.

“If there’s anything I can do to help, Agnet. Sit with your mother or fetch peat for the fire. Anything.”

“That’s kind of you,” she says. The breeze ripples up from the sea and blows her hair over her eyes. When Agnet smiles, she reveals a wide gap between her front teeth. She’s overly mindful of it, but it is her best feature. She’s about to say something when a voice bellows along the quay for her to quit dawdling.

“Goodbye, Kaspar.”

Gathering her skirts, she hurries along the pier to the vessel at the far end, where Gunther is hollering for her. Her husband these last twelve months. They married a fortnight before Midsummer when the fishing was plentiful.

3

3

“IS THIS A JOKE?” asks my sister. “What am I to do with this?”

She grimaces at the paltry contents of the basket. I shrug. “This is what they had.”

“Father won’t be happy with this.”

“Is there anything he’s happy with?” I take the sharpest knife in the kitchen to clean the fish. “Where is Father?”

“In the church,” Bryndis says. “Sligo came to see him. He said it was urgent.”

“What was so urgent?”

I square my sister with a look. This could be bad news, but she dismisses my alarm. “He didn’t say,” she says.

Bryndis dabs a wrist against her brow. It is washing day, and she’s been toiling over a hot cauldron all afternoon, scrubbing and wringing our garments. Bryndis is seventeen, the oldest sibling. She has our mother’s dark hair and impudent nose. Mother claimed that her family was descended from eastern royalty, exiled here to the north because of some palace intrigue. I do not know if this is true, but she fervently believed it. Bryndis, I think, wants to believe this claim, also. She certainly acts regal in the way that she orders my brother and I about. Since Mother’s disappearance, Bryndis has taken on more of a parental role in our home. Or that role was yoked around her neck by default.