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She followed me, and in the kitchen, I made her sit. She blew on her hands while I put logs and a handful of wood shavings in the oven. From the tinderbox, I got the flint and steel and struck them against each other. A spark caught the shavings, and I blew on it until it rose into a flame. Filling the kettle, then a pot with oats and water, I asked Lilja, “Do you like apples?”

“Very much.”

“We’ll cut one up for the oats.”

She stood. “I can do that.”

I almost told her there was no need, but she looked so eager. I handed her a knife, then pointed at the basket in the corner. “Over there.”

While she selected one, I poured coffee into the pot. Back at my side, she held the fruit to her nose and inhaled. “I haven’t had an apple in a very long time. Are they also from your garden?”

“No. I trade hazelnuts for them with the shoemaker three houses down. They grow in his backyard.”

“You have good neighbors.”

“We help each other where we can.”

“I like that.”

I stirred the oatmeal while Lilja set to cutting the apple. Her movements were lithe and quick. Whatever it was she was fleeing from, she had certainly used a knife before.

Footsteps approached in the hallway, and Alma stepped inside. “Morning,” she said with a nod at me and Lilja as she hurried past us on the way to the back door.

“I’ll come over later to speak to your father about those markings,” I told her.

Alma looked to Lilja. “You’ll come too?”

“I’d like to.”

“Excellent. See you then.”

Then Alma was gone, sneaking like a cat the short way along the back alley and into her own bed before my uncle woke up. Lilja returned to her apple cutting. If she found it odd that Alma was leaving our house in the morning—and in the same dress as she had worn last night—she didn’t say so.

When Lilja was done, I slid her apple cubes into the oatmeal and gave it another stir. The kettle was boiling, and I poured the water into the coffeepot. Helena walked in just as I was getting the cups out.

“There you are,” I said in my wryest voice. “Just in time for breakfast.”

Helena grinned and rolled her eyes. “Not my fault you get up before the Devil puts his shoes on.” She grabbed three bowls from the cabinet. “At least this way it won’t be burned.” Oatmeal was indeed one of the dishes she always managed to burn.

Soon we were sitting at the table with a cup and a bowl each. “I was wondering if the princess of the house might have a nightgown, a couple of shifts, and dresses Lilja might borrow?” I said to Helena.

Helena feigned offense at me with a hand to her chest and funny expression, then turned her smile on Lilja. “Certainly. Is there a style you prefer?”

“As long as it has a high neck. I always get so chilled.”

As Helena took Lilja to her room for the clothes, I went to the shop and started a fire in the oven. The light outside was the pale blue of early morning. It was still an hour or so until the shop would open, and I sat down at my bench. The head of Anna’s doll was done. I had finished one foot and lower leg, and I began on the second. I liked to make them just slightly different since no person—even a newborn—had two identical feet.

I stood and turned when the door opened, brushing wood shavings off my clothes.

Lilja stepped inside behind Helena. She had on a dress in a peacock-blue wool serge I had only ever seen Helena in a few times. Over it she wore a matching mantle with ivory fringes and buttons in the front. It was closed all the way to the top of the collar. No doubt Alma had gotten both garments at a good price from some clothes dealer desperate for ready coin. She was an expert at bargaining.

Lilja’s hair was different too. She—or perhaps Helena—had pinned it up with a green ribbon. She looked just lovely, even if I had perhaps liked her just a mite better with her hair loose. She had the sort of hair that deserved to be admired.

Despite the mantle, Lilja walked to the oven and held out her hands. Helena got her sewing, and I continued on my doll’s foot. At nine o’clock, I showed Lilja how to unlock the door of the store and turn the sign in the window to open.

I had only just sat back down at my bench when the bell rang. “Come on,” I said to Lilja. “We’ll do this first order together.”

It was Mrs. Söderberg on the other side of the counter. She eyed Lilja with quite a measure of surprise.