While Maria was watching over the vastly improved Dekker girl, she came to understand what she wished to receive as her payment for this cure. She knew why the line on her hand ran identically to the doctor’s. She found paper and pen and ink in the minister’s study and stayed awake till dawn writing, producing a letter that was three pages long. By noon, Anneke was sitting up in bed, starving and calling for fish bone soup. She wolfed down buttered toast and was strong enough to bathe and have a change of clothes. The girl’s mother had been directed in what she must do should the disease reappear, and was aware that it might be a constant fight, though one she could win.

“Must you leave?” Hannah Dekker asked when Maria began to pack up.

“I have a daughter of my own,” Maria said. “And you know how to care for Anneke.” She asked if she might meet with the minister before she left for home.

“I’ve told him to give you whatever you ask for,” Hannah told Maria. “I am always indebted to you, no matter what you might need.”

“I might want something he doesn’t expect me to ask for.”

“No matter what it might be, it’s yours,” Hannah assured her.

The women embraced, for they had been through the darkness together and come into the light of day. It was true, when you saved someone, they belonged to you in some small way, but it was also true that you belonged to them. They would stay with you and enter into your dreams and your thoughts, as you would enter into theirs.

Maria found her way downstairs. She had not slept, or washed, or eaten; still she felt elated. She knocked on the door of the library, then ran a hand through her hair before entering when the minister bade her to do so. She thought of the girl she’d been, breathing in smoke, watching everything she had ever known and loved burn, knowing that Hannah Owens had saved her not once, but twice. That was when she’d made a vow that she would never watch another woman burn.

“I’m told I must give you anything you ask for,” Dekker said, gesturing for her to sit across from him. He was grateful to her beyond measure, but also glad that the ordeal was over and that Maria Owens would be leaving. “Name your price.”

Maria placed the letter on his desk. She had lovely handwriting and a fine turn of phrase. “I want this delivered.”

Dekker picked up the letter, but after only a moment, he turned to her, confused. “This is addressed to Governor Phips. Why are you handing it to me?”

“We share the same beliefs. Neither of us wishes for innocent women to hang.”