“Good day?” she called out.
“Hello, Marthe.”
It was Élisabeth. Marthe had not seen her sister since her wedding day sixweeks earlier. With the memory of Nicolas stirring in her heart, part of Marthe yearned to run to Élisabeth and tell her all the thousands of little things that had happened to her since she’d left to be married—how her husband hummed while he worked and she could not decide if it was endearing or annoying, how difficult it was to live under the widow’s critical gaze, how she had not bled this month and had been sick every morning for a fortnight.
Élisabeth stood in the hallway, dark circles under her eyes, her hands twisting together. Something about the gesture triggered Marthe’s impatience. She would not forgive her sister’s deception too readily.
“Good day, Élisabeth.”
“You will not call me Lili?” Élisabeth smiled, a ghostly twitch that did not light her face.
Marthe held her head high. “Not at the moment, no.” They stood in silence until Marthe could no longer bear the void between them. “What are you doing here?”
“The nuns said I could attend Apolline’s wedding. They have not granted me permission to leave the farmhouse since the day Jeanne Roy married; I’ve been kept back so that I might show my contrition and contemplate the Seven Joys of the Virgin…” Her voice trailed off, her head hung in misery. She took a breath and tried again. “I came to town early, with Rose and Lou, to see you. I’ve asked them to give us a moment alone…” Élisabeth’s hands were frothing furiously now. Marthe wanted to reach out and calm them, to halt her sister’s distress. “Because I know… I know the nuns are not the only ones I have angered.”
“No, they are not.” Marthe remained resolute, placing her hands on her hips.
Élisabeth fell silent again, staring at the floorboards as the wind wailed outside. Marthe frowned and tapped her foot, wondering how long she could hold out. Her anger had melted away long ago, it always did. But her sister ought to suffer a little longer for the lies she had told.
“Do you think me wayward, Marthe?” Élisabeth said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Marthe hesitated. “You were certainly led astray.”
Élisabeth looked up, suddenly urgent. “The Devil comes for wayward girls, does he not?”
“Our Lady in Heaven! How am I to know what the Evil One does?”
Élisabeth nodded, her hands still twisting. “I am sorry for what I did. I should have told you the truth about the curse. And about my wish to go home.”
“It is an impossible wish,” Marthe said gently. “You must know that.”
“I do. I do know it. Yet I cannot help wishing it.”
The sisters stood for a moment, the silence around them growing again. The skin around Élisabeth’s eyes was blotchy and her lashes damp. She hesitated for a moment, and then the words tumbled from her mouth.
“Marthe, I am suffering. My anguish is so great, I fear I must be possessed. A wicked spirit has surely made its home inside me, I can feel that it has. Some days the beast leaps and dances so much I feel that I might faint.”
Marthe glanced over her shoulder towards Maman Poulin’s half of the house, pulling Élisabeth into the workroom. “You seem thinner, but nothing worse than that. Put these wild thoughts of possession out of your mind.”
“My bones have grown sharp, it is true. No matter how much bread and lard I eat, the demon inside me consumes it all.”
Marthe settled her sister onto a stool by the edge of the hearth while she searched carefully for her words.
“I am fortunate in some ways,” she said. There was an easy answer to Élisabeth’s riddle, and she needed her sister to see it. “We have all the bread we could ever want to eat. We also have meat or fowl several times a week. And there’s a pig in the yard that will see us through the winter.”
“You have all the luck of the stars.” Élisabeth looked mournful and Marthe felt a twitch of frustration.
“You could be as lucky! When Rose and Lou last came to town they told me there’s a good man, a habitant, who wanted to marry you. Why did you refuse him?”
Élisabeth squeezed her hands together. “You know I cannot marry.”
“Because of Rémy?” Marthe’s voice was sharp.
“Because ofme. I think… Iknownow that I will never marry Rémy.” Élisabeth’s voice wavered. “But even if I resign myself to living on this island for the rest of my days, how could I wed Francoeur, knowing that I am cursed?”
Marthe furrowed her brow. “I told you. Ask Jeanne Roy for a simple or a charm to help you.”
“I missed my chance. She was never alone. And now she has vanished.”
