Marta had been half-asleep, exhausted from digging at the river, but she instantly was wide awake, shocked when she was instructed to reach inside her underthings and bring forth her monthly blood. She was modest and this aspect of being a woman brought her shame, even when it was private.

“I won’t!” she cried. Bleary-eyed, she appeared younger than her age, but her discomfort didn’t deter her older sister. Getting out of Berlin was the only thing on Ettie’s mind, and no shame would stop her.

“You’ll do it right now,” she said, intent on their success. “Or I’ll do it for you!”

Marta wept, not that it mattered. What they needed was blood, and although she seemed like a young girl, she was a woman. At last Marta turned from them and did as she was told, reaching into her undergarments.

“Place the blood inside the creature,” Ettie urged, bossy at the best of times, insistent now. When Marta balked again, Ettie tugged on her arm. “Do you want to live? We have no time to be ashamed.”

The younger girl did as she was instructed, whimpering as she smeared the blood into the indentation her sister had made in the clay figure.

Now they must circle the body they were creating. The circle would protect and complete the ritual. As they did so, Ettie recited the secret names of God she had heard her father and his students utter. She had spoken these words along with the men from her hiding place outside her father’s chambers, and she knew how intense such a recitation was. The name had seventy-two parts and was so holy that each section of the name scalded the speaker’s lips. Ettie had coated her lips with cooking oil to ease the burning. Everything she was doing was a sin and she knew it, but even angels, who had no inclination to evil, were imperfect, and she was nothing compared to them, only a girl who wanted to live.

“Forgive me,” she said to the Almighty, in the hope that He would hear her one small voice.

If she were a boy, perhaps her father would have heeded her words, and they might have created a golem to protect their family and his students and their neighbors and all of the Jews in the city. But of course her father would never have listened to her. Had he known of the existence of a golem, he would have destroyed it immediately. His own experience had made him distrust such creatures, whom he considered to be little more than demons. But perhaps a demon was needed to fight demons. Perhaps some sins were prayers sent up to the Almighty.