Many on board were Portuguese refugees who had paid whatever price necessary for their passage, as they pursued an escape from persecution for their faith. Jews were not allowed in Spain or Portugal, or in England or France, and so they had set off for the New World, practicing their religion in secret until the time came when they at last found a place that offered a safe haven. Those who crossed the ocean wished to have the freedom to be true to themselves. For now, they were simply called the Portugals. They had brought dried codfish with them, and cheese made with thistle powder to set it rather than jelly from the hooves of animals, the rind covered by paprika to prevent rot. Maria learned their language, for she had an ear for such things, and made certain to help those women brought low by seasickness, with a spoonful of ginger paste and a slice of orange, carefully doled out to the ailing women and their children, for even the smallest taste of fresh fruit was a tonic. She listened to their stories, and observed them when they lit a candle on Friday at sunset, for candles were dangerous at sea, just as religion was dangerous on land.

At night Maria wrapped herself in her cloak and watched the stars appear in the sky, one by one at first, then whirls of constellations pricking through the darkness in a brilliant ceiling of light. How immense and beautiful the world was, especially to a girl who had never even been to town while growing up, never seen a shop or a market or a church filled with people as the bells rang on Sundays. She wished that Hannah could stand beside her on the deck of the ship and feel the future as she did, as a place where a woman might command her own fate. She was grateful that she had been found in that field of snow, and raised by a woman who was truly kind, just as she was grateful that her mother had given her the gift of sight. What was before her was still a mystery, even when she looked into the black mirror, for she had changed her fate when she came to cross the sea, although some aspects of the future remained the same: the daughter she would have, the man who brought her diamonds, the snow in the branches of the trees. When she saw bits and pieces of the time to come, she knew she would find the sort of freedom her mother and Hannah hadn’t known. There had always been women who commanded the same talents as Maria, and most had taken refuge from the world so they would not be tested by drowning. If a witch floated she was proclaiming her pact with Satan. If she drowned she was innocent, for all the good it would do her to be dragged, lifeless and bound, from the depths of a river or pond, often wearing iron shoes nailed to the soles of her feet. Maria’s predecessors would have thought her mad to be so far out at sea, with nothing but the waves around her, but she was convinced she had nothing to fear from water, only from men who saw evil where there was none.