Mathinna’s heart quavered.

The painter had captured something about her that she knew to be true but had not consciously understood. Wearing the scarlet dress had felt like a game to her, an elaborate charade. It was not a dress her mother would’ve worn, or any other woman on Flinders. It had nothing to do with the traditions she’d grown up with or the way of life of the people she loved. The dress was an impersonation.

But the truth was, her past was slipping away. It had been a year since she’d arrived in Hobart Town. She could no longer see her mother’s face. She couldn’t summon the smell of the rain in the Flinders cove, or the grainy feel of the sand beneath her feet, or the expressions of the elders around the fire. In bed at night she mouthed words in her language, but her language was disappearing. Mina kipli, nina kanaplila, waranta liyini. I eat, you dance, we sing. It was an eight-year-old’s vocabulary; she had no words to add. Even the songs she once knew seemed to her now like nursery rhymes filled with nonsense words.

Seeing herself on the canvas showed her how much her life had changed. How far she was from the place she’d once called home.

Government House, Hobart Town, 1841

Mrs. Wilson was in a foul mood, grousing about the day’s delivery, a random collection of ingredients that even a seasoned cook like herself was hard pressed to turn into dinner. “Turnips and gristle!” She bustled around the small space like a hedgehog in its burrow. “What the good Lord am I expected to do with that?” Rooting around in baskets, she found celery root and a few limp carrots. “Suppose I’ll make a turnip pudding,” she muttered, “and some crackling from this sorry excuse for a roast.”

Mathinna sat in a corner of the kitchen, as she often did, working on a floral needlepoint of dark green leaves and pink trumpet-shaped flowers. Waluka lay curled around her shoulders, his hot-water-bottle belly against her neck. She watched as Mrs. Wilson gathered ingredients, slapping lard into a cast-iron skillet, shaving bits of fatty meat off the hunk in front of her and tossing them into the pan. A maid came in with Lady Franklin’s tray from lunch, which only exasperated the cook further. “Don’t stand there gawping. Give that here! Move along!” She cleared a space on the crowded table, plunked down the messy tray, and shooed the maid out the door.

Neither she nor Mathinna noticed that spatters of lard, sloppily thrown toward the skillet, had landed on the coals and ignited a fire. The room filled with smoke.

Mrs. Wilson let out a cry and flapped her arms. “Don’t just sit there, child. Help me!”

Mathinna leapt to her feet. A spear of flame had jumped from the hearth to the wall and now lapped at a hand towel hanging to dry. She started to ladle water out of the barrel, then, realizing it was taking too long, grabbed a pile of dishtowels and dumped them into the water. She handed the dripping towels one by one to Mrs. Wilson, who used them to bat at the flames. When the towels ran out, Mathinna scooped water from the barrel with a small bowl and flung it toward the hearth. It was several minutes before the two of them, working feverishly, were able to extinguish the fire.