“Yes, much. Thank you. I’m so sorry. I’m done.”
I shake my head and tilt the open jar toward her, thelittle herring bobbing in their brine. “Eat, please.”
She sees the fish and recoils, waving her hands in front of her face. I pull out a herring and eat it myself, yanking the bones out by the tail before discarding them into the cove. She looks at me as if I’ve just bitten off her ear.
I used to do the same thing to Anna. She didn’t like slid either. I smile, but on the inside, the sadness is suffocating. I have to stop looking for the dead in the living.
“Are you sure you aren’t still hungry?” I try. “There’s more cheese.”
“No. I’ll be fine.” A sob swallows the wordfine. Her brow furrows and the skin under her lashes reddens; there are no tears, but she looks exactly like she should be weeping.
My hand flies to her shoulder to comfort her. When the girl catches her breath, she begins talking again, her voice almost a whisper. She doesn’t seem to mind me touching her. “I ran away from home.”
“Oh, Anna—”
The girl’s eyes fly to mine. “Annemette. How’d you—”
“I didn’t... I just... you remind me of someone I used to know.”
She coughs out a sob-laugh. “I wish I were that girl.”
“No you don’t,” I say quickly as this girl—Annemette—wipes her nose.
“Was her father a liar? Weaving tales about where he’sbeen and what he’s done, selling off all our livestock and not bringing a coin home?”
I shake my head because I don’t know what to say.
“I’ve had to sell half our fine things to pay his debt and put food on the table. I couldn’t take it anymore. I took off running over Lille Bjerg a day ago.”
Her words are off. They seem forced. I can’t help it—I stare at her face. I’ve seen thousands of faces since Anna failed to surface, but I’ve never seen one so similar. Never heard a voice with the same timbre. If I hadn’t touched her, if this girl weren’t clearly made of flesh and bone, I’d think she was a ghost.
She scrubs her face with her hands, nails clean and shaped. Her eyes blink open and then she takes my hands. “I’m terrible. Here I am, barging in on your breakfast, stealing your food, dumping my problems in your lap, and yet I haven’t even asked your name.”
“It’s Evie,” I reply.
“Evie,” she repeats, testing my name out on her tongue. “British?”
“Evelyn, yes. My mother fell in love with the name in Brighton.”
“I can see why.” Annemette smiles, her teeth clean and straight, like that of a princess or a dairymaid.
I tell myself again that she’s not Anna. She’s not even the girl from the porthole or the beach or anywhere else. She’s a farm girl from the other side of the pass. My cheeksgrow hot. Annemette squeezes my hands. “Thank you for your generosity, Evie—it’s a gift. Truly.” Her eyes sting red again and her lip trembles. “I doubt I’ll be so lucky again.”
I don’t know what to do with this openness. This odd feeling blooming in my stomach. “You really have nothing and nowhere to go?”
Annemette waves her hands across her body. “Only my clothes and my pride.”
I can’t explain this girl or my feelings or why I have the need to believe her, but I do. And I want to help. “Come with me.”
9
THE LITTLE HOUSE THAT MY FATHER BUILT ISN’T THATfar from Havnestad Cove—it’s practically waterside itself, the cottage at the end of a lane in the shadow of Øldenburg Castle. It backs up to a thatch of trees that buffer it from a rocky cliff jutting out into the sea.
“It’s so quaint,” Annemette says.
“It’s home,” I answer, and push through the front door. It’s been a long time since I’ve introduced someone to our tiny cottage. When I was little, we’d often take in children while their parents were away at sea. But that stopped after Mother died.
At the hearth, Tante Hansa is stirring something—by the smell of it, most likely the ham-and-pea concoction she brings to every Lithasblot to place beside the roast hog we have on the second day of the festival. Because “there can never be enough swine in this sodden fish market.”Hansa’s back is turned, and I feel the need to announce that we have company—it’s never safe for a witch to have no warning.
