Twenty-Three

When at last she is churched, and their son blessed, Henne allows Ida’s children to visit. Ilse seems older already, her cheeks thinner, and she looks more like her mother than ever. She cries into the baby’s swaddling, and Lisbet whispers to her that she, too, lost her mother. That Ida is in Heaven, and watches her, and is proud. That Ilse has a friend in Lisbet, in Nethe, that they will make sure she never feels alone, or anything less than loved. The younger children are only bewildered, and Rolf will bear no damage from it at all – Lisbet promises herself she will make sure of it. She feeds him what milk her boy leaves spare. Sometimes she brings both babies to her breasts and lets them twine fingers like twins as they drink. She will keep Ida alive for all of them, hold them in the sort of safety Ida bestowed upon Lisbet.

With Henne busy sowing the soil, Daniel Lehmann assisting him, Lisbet and Sophey and Nethe have hours in each other’s company. Though Sophey is not softened by the events of the summer, she is smoothed, and the beginnings of friendship form between them, perhaps even love. But it is Nethe who Lisbet cleaves to, who gets her through those impossible early days of grief and pain and ecstasy. It is Nethe who saves her, day after day, and it seems to Lisbet that slowly they are learning to carry their pain and their love between them, growing it large enough, strong enough, to bear all else.

They take to sharing a bed. Henne grumbles when the baby cries, and seems relieved when Lisbet suggest she moves to Nethe’s room. They wake in an exhausted cycle together, sleeping when the baby sleeps, talking when he feeds. Lisbet tells Nethe everything: about Eren, about her mother, even about the river. Nethe shares her and Ida’s earliest days, and their last hours, and they laugh and cry until their skin is raw.

It is one such night, the boy asleep at her breast, when Lisbet smells rain. Her senses are still heightened, and she feels a creeping pressure in her skull, scents that beautiful, clear bloom of an approaching downpour.

‘Open the shutters,’ she whispers, and Nethe throws them wide. The night sky is clouded, and Nethe holds her hand out.

‘Oh,’ she says, and comes to Lisbet, her palm outstretched. On it balances a drop of water. She smears it over Lisbet’s forehead, an anointment.

‘Here,’ says Lisbet, and holds out Heinrich. Nethe takes him, walks him to the window to show him the starting rain. Lisbet slides her legs from beneath the sheets. She has barely moved at the empiric’s orders, and feels her stitches pull. But there is not pain, only a dim ache. When Nethe turns she is already on her feet.

She exclaims in surprise. ‘Careful, Bet!’

Behind her, the rain catches some distant light and shimmers. Nethe holds out her arm to guide Lisbet towards the window, but she shakes her head, moving instead towards the door. Nethe mouths warningly at her, but Lisbet feels light, giddy.