The creeping feeling in her belly returned.
She was not on the farm at Saint-Philbert. There were no fires to light, no bread to knead. Her father was not yet a year in his grave and her mother long before him. She blinked away an uninvited image: Papa’s blood, spilling onto the cottage kitchen’s stone floor. Her linen cloth, insufficient to mop it all up, growing wet and heavy the more she tried. Marthe’s anguished wail.
Élisabeth sat bolt upright.
She was in a remote farmhouse on the edge of a vast forest in a strange, new land. All feeling of warmth collapsed as the alarming jabs in her stomach grew more severe.
After two months at sea, she had arrived at the edge of the world, to the holiest place on earth, yet she was still cursed. She knew nothing had changed; couldfeelthat nothing had changed. Indeed, it was worse, for like the nuns of Louviers, had she not begun to show signs of demonic possession? Whatelse could explain the feeling of being repeatedly punched in the gut, as if a stag were ramming his mighty antlers against her torso? And on the ship, the priest said the nuns he exorcised had great strength, but also extreme fatigue. Throughout the last weeks on the ship, she could hardly lift her head from her bed! Was it not a sign of possession? During those wretched days and nights, had she not been tormented by devilish dreams? Being stripped naked and pricked with needles from Marthe’s trunk, conversing with demons dressed in velvet robes, being laid down on an altar to be kissed below her skirts, the way Rémy had once done.
She pinched her arm to see if she felt pain. It hurt, that was good. But perhaps she should take a needle to prick her body? Would piercing her skin be a truer test of a demon’s control? She wished she’d remembered more of what the old priest had said about the symptoms the nuns had experienced. Contortions and convulsions, yes? She circled her knees underneath the blanket to test their grace, and found her limbs still moved with ease.
The churning of her legs woke Marthe.
“Good morning.” Marthe sighed, her dimples deepening as she greeted the day. “I had forgotten what it feels like to wake in daylight.”
Élisabeth did not reply. They were no longer in the ship’s damp dungeon, but she was still mired in darkness. Though, perhaps she should not have expected to feel differently so soon. She had not yet heard Mass or taken communion. Would receiving the sacrament exorcise the curse, here in the holiest village in the world? She tried not to think about what Michel the cabin boy had said, that Ville-Marie was a wild frontier town filled with wolves.
“Lou,” Marthe whispered. “Lou.Marie-Louise!”
Their friend was fast asleep in the straw mattress next to them, her mouth open, hair mussed across her face. Next to her lay Rose, then Apolline and Claire and all the others asleep on pallets laid out on the dormitory floor. They had collapsed in exhaustion and relief the night before, after the nun hadescorted them through the woods and they’d been given fresh bread and meat for the first time in two months.
Marthe prodded Lou’s arm with her toe. “Wake up.” She tiptoed over to do the same to Rose. When neither moved she tripped over them to wake the other brides, like a fairy tapping them with a wand to release them from their slumbers.
Heavy footsteps sounded on the wooden stairs. The nun from the previous night appeared, accompanied by a younger woman in a similar habit.
“You appear to be lively and ready to work.” The nun pressed her lips together and looked around the room. “We’re going to start with the laundry and cooking.”
“Excuse me,” Rose said, raising her hand in the air hesitantly. She received an unforgiving look from the nun in return. “Where is Mother Bourgeoys? When we signed up for Ville-Marie we were told that we would be in her particular care.”
A murmur rose across the room. On the ship the Montréalistes had talked about the bargain that they had struck: greater wilderness in exchange for greater tenderness. Marguerite Bourgeoys, they were assured before they left, was as kind as she was devout, and if they agreed to come all the way to the edge of the world she would take care that they were matched to even-tempered husbands who weren’t quick to reach for the birch rod.
The nun held up her hands. “She does not live here on the farm. Though you will not find her at her home in town either. She has returned to France on a mission for our congregation.” The nun raised her voice above the alarmed whispers. “Mother Bourgeoys has entrusted your care to us. I am Sister Gagnon. This is Sister Brodeur. You needn’t worry. Together with Sister Crolo—who is already out in the fields—we will teach you all you need to know before you marry.”
“Who will help us find husbands, though?” Marthe asked.
“It is not difficult to find willing bachelors here at any time. And this year they’ve been given an incentive to marry especially quickly.”
Rose’s hand started to rise again; Sister Gagnon ignored it and continued.
“The intendant in Québec has decreed that if the bachelors haven’t got wives by the first of September they won’t be given a licence to hunt and trade.” She squared her shoulders. “I’ve written to tell him that doesn’t give us long to get you ready for life on a homestead, but Intendant Talon appears less concerned about you poisoning your husbands with badly cured pork than in making sure you bear sons for the colony as soon as possible, so we’ll have to make do with the time that we have.”
“Who is Intendant Talon?” Apolline asked. “And why should he want to rush us into marriage?”
The old nun shrugged. “The rules are the rules. And his edict was clear. No wife, no fur trading licence. Seeing as he’s the one who runs the fur trade and the courts—the men must do as he pleases.”
“But the first of September is three weeks hence!” Lou repeated in shock.
“Precisely. That’s why you need to rise and breakfast right away. There’s much to learn in a short time.”
The room erupted into excited chatter. Rose hopped onto Lou’s bed and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Now remember, we shall look for a kind, tall one for you, and whoever is his closest neighbour for me. If all the tall ones are sullen or have excessively bad breath, we shall look for one who is shorter and softly spoken for me, andhisneighbour for you. Either way, we shall never be parted.”
Élisabeth sat on her straw mattress, listening to the other girls. She could not let her own dreams of marriage vanish. She twitched her legs, checking them once again to see if they were free from a demon’s grasp. She had to get to the village and receive the holy sacrament as soon as she could.
“Excuse me, Sister Gagnon,” Élisabeth called out. “When shall we go to church to attend Mass?”
“There is no church as yet in Ville-Marie,” Sister Gagnon informed her,then turned to address the entire group. “Now, your trunks were off-loaded from the ship at dawn and the carter has just arrived with the lot of them, so I’ve asked our engagés to bring them up—”
“But, Sister!” Élisabeth surprised herself by interrupting. “How is there no church?” Her voice began to falter. “Where… where is there a holy place to confess our sins? To take communion?”
