The girl’s stepmother – Berchta – smiled tightly and stepped back onto the landing, a pair of bright eyes in the shadows.
The man took Holda’s hands and drew her to sit with him. ‘I know this must all feel quite sudden. We are a long way from Vienna, and this land is unfamiliar to you still, but I hope you will try to learn to like it, for my sake.’
She looked resolutely at her knees. ‘I want you to be happy, Father, but you are correct, this does seem sudden.’
‘Since we lost your mother, I have found myself lonely. I must admit what pleasure it brings me to have companionship once more.’
‘I worry what she wants from you.’
‘That is not something you need to think about, my dear. Look around you, she is hardly marryingmefor my wealth. If anything it is the reverse,’ he said with a bark of laughter. ‘She brings me a fine title.’
Then whatdoesshe want?I could see the question on Holda’s lips as it was on mine, but she held it back.
‘She wants what any woman wants,’ continued her father, ‘the protection of a man, a household to run, the safety of marriage. Something you will have for yourself soon enough, and then you will hardly need me.’
Holda said nothing but looked at her knees sourly.
‘Life puts things in our path, good and bad, and it is for us to make the measure of which it shall be.’
He patted her hand. I thought of my own father, and his rejection. Anger flared. Was he so blind to the sadness in her expression? To the loneliness?
Holda only nodded and let herself be kissed on the head. Leaning on the window edge, a stray lock of hair danced in the breeze while her father rejoined his new wife. Berchta considered Holda for a moment, assessing. Then she drew him close, speaking in soft, mellifluous tones and he stilled, eyes glazing over. They moved in sync for a moment, gently swaying on the spot, then he turned, walking slowly to the door.
‘I have business.’
Holda turned, frowning. ‘Father – I –’
‘Stay here,’ he said. His voice was flat and dull. ‘I have business.’
He didn’t look back once as he walked out.
Now Holda and Berchta were alone. A change washed over her, the mask of nonchalance slipping away as the predator emerged.
‘What did you say to my father?’ demanded Holda.
She folded her arms, jaw tight, in an expression that was achingly familiar.
Berchta positioned herself between Holda and the door, then asked, ‘Do you know how to spin?’
Holda blinked. ‘A little.’
‘Come, I will teach you.’ Berchta gestured to the great wheel. ‘A girl should learn useful skills.’
Holda hesitated for a beat, but allowed herself to be positioned at the spindle to work the thread and Berchta slowly began to turn the wheel. The spindle rotated, drawing fleece from the distaff and twisting it into thread.
‘Normally the spinner works both the wheel and the thread, but I will help you.’
Holda’s hesitation faded as the task of feeding fibre into thread at an even thickness absorbed her attention, and the glassy expression her father had worn crept over her face. Once she had it steady, Berchta transferred Holda’s other hand to the wheel so she was managing both at once. A slow golden glow began to build around the thread and the wheel, like warmth spreading out from a flame.
‘I’m going to share a secret with you: this wheel spins more than thread. Can you tell?’
Holda looked up. ‘Yes... it’s... heavy.’ A ball of thread was building on the spindle, the steady clack and whir of the wheel hypnotic.
‘You hold in your hands the heaviest thing there is: time. It weighs on us, doesn’t it? All the things we’ve seen. All the things we’ve done.’
Berchta joined her hand to the wheel, and drew out some gold, shimmering thing. Holda shuddered. ‘All our memories crowding us, like weights around our ankles.’
The gold mist swirled and formed into a scene, a woman reclined in bed, a young girl crying at her side, like statues of moulded sand. Berchta dragged her fingers through the golden dust, scattering the image and reshaping it. Now, an adult Holda stood beside a grave, a coffin lowering into it. Holda let out a sob.
