A ribbon of birds rose and twisted in the sky, the tail of the flock rippling into the afternoon sun. Marthe watched them fly, thinking of the fat pigeons they should have for their dinner—if only she could pluck and truss the birds without Barbe Poulin commenting on the feathers she’d left on the breast. Theribbon arced and disappeared into the distance and Marthe felt a stab of despair. She wished she could fly away too.
A familiar figure crossed in front of the Place Royale and Marthe leapt at the diversion.
“Apolline!”
The older girl looked around and squinted into the sun. Marthe hiked up her skirts, and placing her foot in a patch of ice that had begun to melt, crossed the road.
“Look at the state of your shoes!” Apolline tutted. Marthe looked at her feet. How like Apolline to worry about mud on wooden clogs, as if a damp cloth wouldn’t make them right again in a moment.
“Don’t mind about my—”
“I wanted to catch you,” Apolline interrupted. “But we must speak privately. Come with me to Françoise’s home.” Without waiting for an answer, Apolline turned back in the direction she came from, towards Rue Saint-Gabriel. Marthe followed, intrigued.
“It’s been many weeks since you’ve been by the bakehouse,” Marthe said as Apolline turned off the main road. “I do hope you are still enjoying our bread.” She chided herself for sounding so desperate. Her husband had four hundred livres a year. If she hadn’t spent months dreaming of fur-lined riches, perhaps she would not feel their circumstances were wanting. But the widow had stolen her dreams, and now Marthe was set against both the widow and the fur trade.
“Yes, of course,” Apolline replied. “It’s nothing like what we had in Paris, but certainly better than I would have expected.” She pushed open the door to the sabotier’s shop; it had been some time since Marthe had been to Françoise’s home. She liked the bald cobbler her friend had married. Though he was older than most of the husbands, he had crinkles around his eyes from too much smiling.
“Françoise!” Apolline called out, and after a moment, the girl emerged from the back, tiny Thérèse right behind her.
“Ooh, Marthe. You must not have long to go before you deliver your child,” Françoise said.
“I’ll thank you to know I have more than two months left,” Marthe said through gritted teeth. Françoise gave her a curious look and Marthe regretted letting her temper loose.
“I’m sorry. I know I am rather large. I wish… I wish there was someone I could ask to be certain when I will deliver. If I count nine months from my wedding night, it should be the middle of May…” Marthe’s voice trailed off. She also wished Barbe Poulin would stop mentioning the size of her belly. A thought occurred to her. “Apolline, perhaps I could ask your husband?”
“Blessed Virgin, don’t even think of it! Le Picard only attends a labouring mother when she’s near dead and the father wants the babe cut out of her belly. Though in most cases the child follows her straight to Heaven.”
“Oh,” Marthe said weakly, sparing a thought for what it must be like to be married to a surgeon. Apolline’s husband’s wages must exceed that of a baker’s fivefold, but she didn’t envy her friend the screams from her husband’s patients when he pulled a tooth or cut off a limb. “I wish… I wish I could ask Jeanne Roy.”
“That is what I need to discuss with you all,” Apolline said, craning past Françoise and Thérèse. “Is your husband home?” Françoise shook her head and Apolline continued. “There is to be a search party organized. One of Jeanne Roy’s neighbours has gone missing.”
“Do you mean Lili’s husband?” Marthe said. “He is away on business.”
“Of course not,” Apolline said. “The entire village whispers about the nature of Francoeur’s mission. This is someone else. I do not know the man.”
“What concern is it of ours?” Thérèse asked. “If a man has fallen into the river or been buried under a carpet of snow, spring will soon enough reveal what winter has done with him.”
“I worry…” Apolline started. “I worry that a man’s disappearance might be seen as strange, given the times.”
She did not need to say more. The village was on edge, seeking signs of sorcery everywhere. Did Benoît’s cow sicken and die because it was old and had not enough feed over winter, or was it the work of witchcraft? Was Folleville’s oldest customer unable to lie with his wife because of drink, or had a spell been cast over his male member? A missing man could not now simply be dismissed as winter taking its wage. Not when he lived so near to Jeanne Roy.
“But Jeanne is not at home,” Marthe said suddenly. “She left in January to stay at the mission village at La Prairie. I spoke with her the day that she left with her Iroquois friend. She is likely across the river even now. She could have had nothing to do with her neighbour’s disappearance.”
Thérèse and Françoise exchanged a glance. “An Iroquois friend?”
Marthe nodded, thinking of how strange that seemed. The priests tried to convert the natives, and the nuns tried to educate them. But only Jeanne Roy tried to befriend them.
“My sister says that Jeanne Roy has a book of spells in her cabin. And all manner of devilish herbs. Not to mention that frightful doll. If the priest finds them—”
“She will burn,” Thérèse said, finishing Marthe’s thought.
Apolline drew a deep breath, and her face took on the look of prim self-assertion Marthe imagined she must have been born with. “We cannot know if she brought her magical instruments with her when she left for the mission village. I propose that we travel to her côte and rid the cabin of its effects. Bury them under the snow. Or cast them into the river.”
“What if someone should see us?” Françoise asked doubtfully.
“We shan’t be seen,” Apolline scolded her.
“I worry… I worry we will put ourselves at risk,” Thérèse said. “For someone who has not always looked so kindly upon us.”
