The women around her laughed.

“I’m begging ye,” Hazel said, ignoring them. She took a breath. “Think of Evangeline.” It was shameless to evoke their dead friend’s name, she knew. But Hazel had no shame. “Babies die every day in that place, and they’re dumped in a mass grave to rot. They’re not even given a proper funeral.”

Olive gave a loud, exasperated sigh. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” she said, rolling her eyes.

But the next morning, and each morning after that, when Hazel showed up in the courtyard, there Olive was, waiting with the other wet nurses and new mothers to walk to the nursery.

One day, walking beside Olive up Macquarie Street, Hazel spied a clump of sage by the side of the road and hurried over from her place in the line to pluck some leaves. As she was twining the leaves together and tucking them into her apron pocket, the convict behind her asked, “What’re ye doing with that?”

Hazel turned around. It was the woman with the white braid she’d seen in the courtyard when they arrived. “I’ll make a poultice,” she said. “For rash.”

“Ye know your milk is good for that,” the woman said.

Hazel glanced at Olive, who snorted. “I suppose I’m a walking miracle cure.”

This old woman was not a new mother or a wet nurse. “Are ye a midwife?” Hazel asked.

“I am. You?”

Hazel nodded.

“Working in the nursery isn’t much of a prize for anyone, but I thought I could be of use. Most convicts in the birthing rooms and the nursery have no experience. I do.”

Her name was Maeve, she said. Maeve Logan. She hailed from a landlocked part of Ireland called Roscommon. She’d always been outspoken, mouthy with complaint; some even accused her of being a witch, and maybe she was. Her landlord had died a day after she cursed him for starving his tenants. Though there was no evidence she had anything to do with it, she was charged with insurrection. Seven years. She’d been on Van Diemen’s Land for four.

Over the next few weeks, while Olive was with Ruby, Hazel began working with Maeve to improve conditions at the nursery. They boiled water to wash the linens and took them outside to scrub. They mopped the floors. To reduce fever, they bathed babies in water with lemon; for hives, they made a tea out of catnip. Maeve taught Hazel to identify local plants and showed her how to use them: Bark from the black peppermint tree could be brewed into tea for fevers and headaches. Sap from the white gum was good for burns. Juice from the hop bush plant soothed toothaches. Nectar from leatherwood flowers treated infections and other wounds.

Some of the native plants were dangerous—and dangerously tempting. In small quantities they produced a pleasant sensation, but if misused they caused hallucinations, or even death: yellow oil from the sassafras tree, the combination of ingredients that made up absinthe—wormwood, hyssop, anise seed, and fennel, marinated in brandy. Maeve pointed out a bush along the side of the road with fluted pale pink flowers hanging upside down. “Angel’s trumpet. Beautiful, in’it? Eating these flowers makes your troubles go away. Problem is, too much will kill ye.” She laughed. “It got its name because it’s the last thing you’ll see before ascending into heaven.”