The Glassblower(95)

The thought that she had at least escaped that misery was such a consolation that Griseldis suddenly felt guilty. She looked down at her sewing basket. Perhaps she should sew a dress for little Wanda. Or crochet her a vest. Ruth would be pleased.

A little more cheerful now, Griseldis got up and went to the bench with the chest beneath it to see whether there was any wool she could use. She was so absorbed in her task that she forgot Magnus’s letter for the first time in days. She had just pulled out a tangled skein of yarn and a crochet hook, shut the chest, and stood up when she glanced out the window.

There was a shadow on the road below her house.

Griseldis put a hand to her throat, and her heart began to pound.

Magnus?

No, there were two people. She squinted, trying to make out more details.

A man and a woman. They were moving very strangely.

Why were they so slow?

It looked as though the man could hardly keep the woman upright, as though her legs collapsed beneath her every few yards. Or were her old eyes deceiving her? Was there some other reason the woman was dragging her feet like that? Perhaps she was just drunk.

Griseldis’s hands clutched the hank of yarn. Should she go out and ask them whether they needed help?

She hesitated. The woman had a scarf around her head that hid her face. Perhaps they were vagabonds, thieves traveling the roads under cover of darkness.

Griseldis took a step back from the window. There was no doubt about it; the woman needed help and could not walk any farther. Maybe they were travelers who had been attacked on the road to Sonneberg?

She dashed out of her house and ran toward them.

The man looked like Magnus. Not very much, but for a moment . . . Griseldis stopped abruptly. Wasn’t that . . .

“Johanna!” She clapped her hand to her mouth. “Magnus!” Griseldis crossed herself.

For a terrible, long moment, time seemed to stand still. The only sound was Johanna’s whimpering.

Griseldis stared at the young woman, utterly at a loss. Then her eyes bored into her son.

“Magnus—for heaven’s sake—what have you done?”





8

Marie sat at her workbench, utterly worn out.

She looked at the front door to check again that it was closed and locked. Shouldn’t she head back upstairs to look after Johanna? To tend the wounds all over her body, even those parts that should have been hers and hers alone? When she thought of Johanna’s bruised breasts, Marie felt a current of panic surge through her all over again. She had never seen anything like it. She would have felt better if they had called the doctor, but Johanna wouldn’t allow it. She didn’t even want Marie to fetch Ruth. Or Peter.

“Not Peter, he mustn’t find out.” Johanna had spoken with difficulty, spitting out each word. Her lower lip was split and bloody.

“But Peter’s our friend. He . . . he can help,” Marie had answered. Even his mere presence would have been a comfort for her, but Johanna had shaken her head vehemently. “He mustn’t find out.”

Marie swallowed. How did Johanna imagine that was going to work? Griseldis and her son had eyes in their heads after all. Griseldis had taken Marie aside and whispered something about rape before Marie had even had a chance to see what had happened to her sister. By tomorrow morning, half the village would know. The thought of the shame it would bring on their house made Marie curl up inside.

She strained her ears to hear what she could upstairs, but it was all quiet. No whimpers, no voice calling her name.

Griseldis had offered to stay the night but Marie had declined. “If I can’t manage on my own, I can always fetch Ruth,” she had said, and the Widow Grün had nodded.

Undressing Johanna on her own, she had been horrified by what she saw. Both of them wept, and Marie knew that she would never forget the sight, not for the rest of her life. After washing the wounds with a chamomile infusion and applying a salve, she had dressed Johanna in the softest nightgown she could find. All the while, the look in her sister’s eyes had been as vacant as if she were no longer of this world. Though her every touch must have stung, Johanna had lain there lifeless as a doll as Marie tended to the wounds. Nor had she uttered a word about who had done this to her or when and where it had happened. Marie had finally stopped asking.

For a while she had sat next to Johanna’s bed, holding her hand. When Johanna finally drifted off into a restless sleep, Marie had gone downstairs. She needed a few minutes to herself or she would lose her mind.

Who was the man who had attacked her sister so brutally? The question went round and round in her head.

Helplessly she stared at Joost’s tools, which over the last few months she had made her own. What would Father have done in her place? Would he have fetched Peter? Or would he have respected Johanna’s wish that he must never find out?