“He took the cross from our altar and charges a guilder to touch it. Marie van der Blein got pregnant off it.” Griete leans in. “So is it true, or not?”
“Is what true?”
“What they say about you.”
“That depends what they’re saying.”
“That you’re raising the dead.” She gestures out the window. “Causing the rain.”
“Griete ...”
“They say you cure livestock of rinderpest.” In Griete’s voice is an accusation:You never used to heal cattle.
“Then they know more than I do.”
“Aleys,” Griete says, “are you some kind of saint?”
“No!” It comes out sharper than she intends.
“How do you know?”
“That I’m not a saint?” Aleys is momentarily stunned. How would she know? “I’m just not, that’s all.”
“But you can do miracles, anyway? When you want?”
“Griete, no. I mean, it’s hard to explain.” She flails for words. “It’s just that sometimes something comes over me.”
Griete squints. “That sounds like a yes.”
“It’s not my doing. I can’t ask personal favors of God.”
“Why not? Everyone prays for something.”
“Yes, but ... this is different. It’s God’s will, not mine.”
Griete draws back, disappointment on her face. “I was hoping you could help.”
“With what?” She can’t be sick. Her sister is healthy as a horse.
Griete hesitates, and Aleys wonders if she blushes. “You see, I want ... I want Pieter Mertens.”
Aleys gasps. The man she jilted for God? “Griete, not him. He denied Papa the license.”
“We broke the contract, Aleys. Besides, you humiliated him. What else was Pieter going to do?”
Pieter? There’s more going on than she’s saying.
“Plus,” Griete continues, “now that you’re, well, all saintlike, he’s glad he didn’t marry you.”
Is he, now? “Griete, be careful.”
“Aleys, don’t you see? I want this. I can do what you couldn’t. It’s my turn to help the family. Plus”—she grins—“he’s quite handsome.”
“Griete, he’s not pious.”
“Aleys, we don’t all want what you want.” She twists her ring. “What you want scares me.”
Griete’s question lingers in the air. Could Aleys request a miracle, personally? There are moments in chapel, with everyone staring like they expect her to levitate, that Aleys wishes she could fly to the rafters like Christina Mirabilis. Just for the fun of it, to watch Katrijn’s jaw drop. Thereisone healing she really would like to try, though she doesn’t want witnesses. So on the way to morning prayer, Aleys feigns that she left her rosary beneath her pillow. Katrijntsks her impatience, as if to say,Some saint. Aleys turns back from chapel. The courtyard is empty but for rows of linens. Water seeps from the hems of the sheets, peppering the dewy grass. Finally, she finds Marte pinning up the last of the laundry.
