When they reached the park, Hazel said, “I tried to see ye at the orphanage. They wouldn’t allow it.”

“I know.”

“They told ye?”

“They didn’t tell me anything. They locked me in a room. But you said you would, and I believed you.”

Hazel felt an ache in her throat. “How long were ye there?”

Mathinna wagged her head slowly, as if trying to remember. “I don’t know. I couldn’t even tell how much time passed.” She reached up and touched her head. “They beat me. Shaved my head. Dunked me in ice water. I don’t know why. They said I was insolent, and maybe I was.”

“Oh, Mathinna. Ye were a child.”

“I was.” Her voice trembled. She looked down.

Still are, Hazel thought. The crowd across the street had mostly dispersed, though some were still gaping at them. She motioned toward a bench under a gum tree, facing in the other direction. “Will you sit with us for a minute?”

Mathinna nodded.

On the bench, Hazel pulled Ruby onto her lap. Mathinna sank down beside them. Sun filtered through the drooping leaves and dandelion-like flowers of the tree above them, dappling their faces with light.

“When did ye leave the orphanage?” Hazel asked.

Mathinna lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “All I know is one day they pulled me out and put me on a boat back to Flinders. But it wasn’t the same. My stepfather had died. Influenza, they said.” She shook her head again. A tear slid down her face. “Most of the people I knew were dead. The rest were wasting away. And anyway I’d lost the language. I was too . . . different. So they sent me back.”

“To the orphanage?”

“Yes, for a while. Then to a wretched place called Oyster Cove. An old convict station. Everyone was sick and dying there too.”

Hazel looked into the girl’s glistening eyes. Tears welled in her own. “So how did ye end up here?”

“I ran away. Found work with a seamstress who runs a grog shop outside of town. She lets me rent a room.”

“And what do ye do for her?”

“Sew. Serve rum. Drink rum.” She laughed a little. “Go to bed and get up and do it again. The nights are long, but I sleep all day, mostly. For one thing, to avoid . . .” She gestured toward the other side of the road.

“People are rude.”

“I’m used to it.”

Ruby pointed at Mathinna’s necklaces. “Pretty.”

Mathinna ran her fingers along the shells. She seemed happy to change the subject. “My mother made these,” she told Ruby. “And your mother”—she raised her chin at Hazel—“stole them back from the lady who took them from me.”

Hazel winced a little. “I didn’t really steal them,” she told Ruby. “They never belonged to . . . that person.”

Mathinna bent toward Ruby. “Would you like one?”

Ruby beamed, reaching toward the necklaces.

“Oh, no. Ye really shouldn’t.” Hazel closed her hands over Ruby’s grasping fingers. She looked at Mathinna over the top of Ruby’s head. “They’re yours, Mathinna.”