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Chapter 2

Lotte

I swear on my oath.

I will not—You wouldn’t—Did my mother

She will not—I’d rather die.

I saw nothing.

I never—If you don’t, I’ll always—How could you—

You will never understand—

“Get up, you slothful girl.”

In the restless moment before sleep dropped away, Lotte couldn’t be sure if that voice was in her mind or not. But as she fought her way to consciousness through the cacophony in her head, she realized that none of the ghosts of the briar pit sounded as strident as Sister Brigitta.

The shovel-faced nun was glowering at her from the top of the briar pit, outlined by the beginnings of daylight. She looked indignant to find Lotte there. As if she wasn’t the one who had thrown her down there in the first place.

Lotte didn’t get up. She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes. She wasn’t sure how many hours she’d slept and how many she’d just lain with her eyes closed, hoping sleep might claim her. Between the icy stone floor and the voices of the dead, the briar pit wasn’t exactly the place for a good night’s rest. And from counting her meals, one a day, last night marked her sixth night down here.

Her punishment was seven nights.

Seven nights for talking back to Sister Brigitta.

Seven was a holy number among the Sisters of the Blessed Briar.

Where the convent now stood had once been the tower of an immortal Bergsra. Thousands of years ago, the Bergsra had given shelter to a young princess fleeing marriage to a cruel prince. The prince’s men had besieged the tower for seven days in a vain attempt to retrieve the runaway princess. For seven days, the immortal Bergsra and the princess had watched as foolish mortal men tried to break open the tower with foolish mortal tools.

Seven days until his patience had failed.

The immortal grew a thick wall of brambles around his tower, ensnaring the attackers, piercing their bodies with thorns and binding them with branches. Their dying screams lasted seven more days. The princess drowned them out by playing the harp. And in the tower forever surrounded by brambles and bodies, the Bergsra and the princess lived many years in peace.

Until mortality claimed her too, and the Bergsra abandoned the tower, a crumbling monument to his love for a mortal girl.

Now all that was left of the tower was this pit filled with briars that couldn’t be felled, and the voices of the men who’d died.

By my oath, I will obey.

She tried to push the voice away.

“Why should I get up?” Lotte still didn’t move. Didn’t let on how badly she wanted to be free of the briar pit and the voices. The Bergsra of the Blessed Briar hadn’t been one for mercy. And neither, in Lotte’s experience, was the high holy woman of his order. Which meant there had to be another reason her sentence was being cut short by a day.

“Because I am ordering you to,” Sister Brigitta snapped. “And obedience to your betters is a virtue the lesser should learn.” The lesser . The words shouldn’t have stung the way they did after sixteen years. “Besides, you have been idling down here for days while my blessed sisters break their backs for the festival.” Ah, there it was.

“So you’re letting me out a day early because you want me to spare your holy hands and have me lug things down the hill for the festival.”

The Blessed Sisters were the only people whose minds Lotte couldn’t overhear. Sister Dorothea, who had been high holy woman before Sister Brigitta, had explained to Lotte that was because Lotte’s curse was to overhear corrupt thoughts. The Sisters had sworn their lives in service to the immortals, and in doing so, their vices were absolved. But Lotte didn’t need to hear Sister Brigitta’s mind to know the truth. The flicker across the holy woman’s face betrayed her, and Lotte felt an angry burn of satisfaction, even though she knew she would pay for the impertinence.

“It is amazing,” Sister Brigitta said slowly, unknotting the briar belt she wore around her middle, “that one born with nothing but a curse from a mother who didn’t want her could be so ungrateful for all she has been given. You would benefit from some humility today.”

Lotte’s bare legs still stung from the smack of the briar belt as she made her fifth trip from the convent down toward the half-timbered houses of Gelde.

The cold teeth of early spring nipped at the fresh welts, mud sucked at Lotte’s feet, and the plates clinked in precarious balance, making every trip through the drab landscape painstakingly slow.

In summer, the village of Gelde shone.

The sun-drenched golden wheat that made up the village’s livelihood haloed it, like all of Gelde had been touched by a holy light. But for months after the harvest, those same fields were nothing but a dun expanse of soil. It didn’t matter how many oil lamps and colorful streamers were put up around the square, the village still felt dismal. And the smiles didn’t cut through the murky thoughts that slid out of people’s minds, Lotte’s curse gathering them up eagerly.

She dropped the pile of plates on one of the trestle tables with a deliberate clatter. Sister Eva shot Lotte a chiding look. But she was new enough to the convent not to feel at ease scolding Lotte yet. Instead she turned away, green robes hemmed with brambled embroidery swishing imperiously.

With no other Sisters in sight, Lotte leaned against the trestle table, resting her cold aching body and squeezing her eyes shut. Slothful girl , the Sisters would say if they saw her. What chance do you have of breaking your curse if you indulge your vices so?

The chatter in the square this morning was still muted and clouded with the scraps of sleep. But inside Lotte’s mind, it was a carnival of voices.

Lotte could usually handle the constant hum of other people’s thoughts that ran at the back of her mind. But there were rarely this many people in Gelde.

Today the men of the village, alongside the workers who came into town for the season, would finish sowing the wheat fields for spring. The seasonal workers were men who couldn’t find work in the cities, come to the countryside for a few weeks of pay and full stomachs. When the work was done, they would pile back onto the rattling buses to Walstad or Grenz or some other city. But tonight, before they were sent on their way, Gelde would celebrate. Every house would bring their best dish, Hehn’s Bakery would make cardamom rolls, and there would be beer from the brewery. And the Sisters would gift the seasonal workers with a small piece of the briar to bless them.

And when they were gone, their thoughts wouldn’t crowd Lotte’s mind like this.

One seasonal worker in line at Hehn’s Bakery was noticing the way Lotte’s skirt rode up while she leaned against the table. From another man, she saw a flash of her bare knee reflected back at her. She saw in their minds how her ill-fitting smock strained across her body. Lotte could hear the hunger in those flashes. Even now, edges of other, more dangerous thoughts drifted close.

In all the noise, Lotte didn’t sense Estelle until her hand closed around her wrist.

“Guess what I just saw in the bakery,” Estelle hissed conspiratorially into Lotte’s ear. The warmth of Estelle’s palm felt scalding against Lotte’s skin. The cold of the pit had sunk into her for the last six days. But if Estelle noticed that Lotte’s skin was freezing to the touch, or that she hadn’t been to the bakery for days, she didn’t show it. The sudden contact of Estelle’s hand on Lotte’s arm flooded her mind with her friend’s thoughts. And those thoughts were not consumed with where Lotte had been, only with what she wanted to tell her.

“What did you see?” Lotte stayed close to her best friend as they wove out through the crowd, the other voices beginning to fade from Lotte’s mind as they went.

“No.” Estelle pretended to pout prettily. “You have to guess.”

Lotte knew what Estelle had seen. The second her friend had grabbed her hand, it had tumbled eagerly out of her mind and into Lotte’s. But Estelle didn’t want Lotte to guess correctly. She wanted to draw things out, basking in the attention of a secret, until she gloatingly dropped her morsel of information. And life was always easier when Estelle got what she wanted.

“Was it shocking?” Lotte played along.

“Scandalous!” Estelle clutched imaginary pearls.

“You covered the dough and for once in your life your mother didn’t shift the cloth a quarter of an inch as if you’d draped it wrong?”

Estelle scoffed. “That will be the day.”

“Your father actually had something unkind to say about someone?”

“I think my mother will stop correcting my every gesture long before that .”

Lotte could feel the cold of the briar pit ebbing away in Estelle’s presence. She’d been locked away six nights, with no company except ghosts. But right now, it felt like they were back at school, seeing each other every day, joined at the hip so tightly none of the other girls could fit into their little world.

Finally, Estelle’s seams burst with the gossip. “Henriett came in to get rolls for breakfast, and guess what she was wearing?” This time she didn’t wait for Lotte to guess. “It was one of the new dresses that Mr.Hinde ordered for his daughter .” Henriett was a few years older than Lotte and Estelle, but they’d once all been piled together in the same small village classroom to learn what they could before they got jobs or married.

When Henriett had left school, it was to wed Lennart Hinde, the wealthy widower who owned the biggest house in the village. Everyone had toasted the health of the young bride and her not-so-young groom. Everyone had smiled and congratulated them and danced and consumed the food and beer that Mr.Hinde paid for. And all the while, Lotte could hear every single one of them thinking that it hadn’t even been a full season since the first Mrs.Hinde had died. And besides that, Henriett wasn’t nearly fit to raise a stepdaughter who was only seven years younger than she was. The girl couldn’t cook or sew for goodness’ sake, but all you had to do was look at the neckline of her wedding dress to guess that Lennart Hinde hadn’t married her for her housekeeping.

The caravan of unkind thoughts behind the warm words had left Lotte feeling restless and irked.

The Sisters were always telling Lotte to repent. To discard any piece of her that was less than virtuous. But Lotte could hear in the minds of others how viceful they were.

Their thoughts were petty and rageful and jealous and greedy. And their words were so dishonest as they smiled in Henriett’s and Lennart’s faces.

And yet Lotte was the only one who was cursed?

She was the one who scrubbed convent floors until her hands bled, who slept half her nights in the briar pit, who had to spend her life in the convent until she was virtuous enough for her curse to lift. Why should she have to fight to be more virtuous than them? She heard it. How they enjoyed stoking the fires of their nasty thoughts in private, thinking no one knew.

But Lotte knew.

And as they watched Henriett whirl in her wedding dress and crown of flowers, curls splaying out around her joyously, Lotte indulged her own viceful tendencies. She had plucked a thought out of Estelle’s mind and whispered, “I’ll bet you she’s already with child. That’s why he has to marry her.”

Lotte knew that Henriett wasn’t, but a spike of vindictive joy had shot out of Estelle’s mind in answer, crowding out the intense burning jealousy of seeing Henriett and her stupid flat freckled nose marry the wealthiest man in town. Knowing she was the one who deserved a lavish wedding, a husband who could keep her as a housewife with soft hands. Instead of a future spent rising before dawn to work in her parents’ bakery, getting tough forearms from kneading dough and flour stains on her plain dresses.

“I was just thinking that!” Estelle hissed back, slapping Lotte’s arm conspiratorially. That had been enough to draw a Sister’s gaze as they melted into a puddle of giggles at the edge of the crowd. Lotte had spent the whole night scrubbing dishes after the wedding in punishment.

It had been worth it.

It was always worth it to have those moments of belonging.

The only good thing that had ever come out of Lotte’s curse was the ability to make herself into the person Estelle wanted as a friend. Every day, over and over.

Now Lotte fell back into their pattern since childhood easily. “I’ll bet you Henriett gave him the wrong measurements deliberately when he put in the order.” That was a bet Lotte would have won. She’d overheard the scheme in Henriett’s mind when she’d been walking the order form to the mail truck last month. She was angry that her husband was buying new dresses for his daughter and not his wife. So all she did was tweak measurements. Enough that they would be foolishly big on her husband’s daughter but fit Henriett like a glove. The girl could have the dresses when Henriett was good and done with them.

She’d dropped the order in the mail truck and turned away. And it had occurred to Lotte that she could fix this. She could snatch the envelope back out and right this wrong. Spare Lennart’s young daughter the humiliating moment of excitedly pulling on a dress only for the anticipation to turn to disappointment when the sleeves dangled past her wrists.

But that would be pointless.

The Sisters had made sure to remind Lotte every day that, in spite of her best efforts, she was far from good . Doing a kindness for Lennart Hinde’s daughter wouldn’t change what she was.

Besides, no one had ever rescued Lotte. Not a knight like in the stories of old. Not an immortal Bergsra shielding her in a tower from her enemies. Not even a well-meaning cursed girl from a selfish stepmother. No one had ever shielded Lotte from anything.

Estelle’s face split into aghast delight at Lotte’s “theory,” and that was enough to overcome any guilt as they sank down onto the garden wall behind Mrs.Mueller’s house. Absently, Estelle pulled a parcel from her pocket, wax paper wrapped around two cinnamon buns from the bakery. She handed one to Lotte, who tore into the still-warm pastry, sugary cinnamon steam rising from between the curls of dough, her empty stomach growling. They both swiftly dissected their pastries, Lotte handing the soft middle to Estelle and taking the flaky outside from her, even though she preferred the middle too, as they lapsed into the comfortable ritual they’d had since they were six years old.

But even as they ate their pastries, Lotte could hear the gnawing resentment at the back of Estelle’s mind. She should be the one with dresses from the city. She suited city fashions better than Henriett did anyway. Lotte was searching for something in Estelle’s mind to draw her out of her indignation when she caught the last edge of her spiteful thoughts.

It won’t matter soon anyway.

When I’m in Walstad with Konrad, I can have all the dresses I want.

Thoughts didn’t come like words did. Not slow and orderly, telling only the part of the story the teller wanted known. They tumbled out whole, messy and honest. In a blink, Lotte knew everything Estelle had been up to for the past six days. As if Lotte had been there and not locked in the briar pit.

Estelle had noticed the handsome blond-stubbled seasonal worker when he came into the bakery for his daily ration of bread. And when he flashed her a smile that made her insides turn over, she’d given him a spiced apple tart for free. They’d been stealing moments together ever since. In the shadows behind the barn after a day of labor in the fields. But still, she had held back…hesitating to give herself fully to a man who would be gone in a few days.

Until he’d said the words that won her over.

When we get back to Walstad.

And suddenly, Estelle didn’t see a man anymore, she saw the city.

Tomorrow, while the town slept late after tonight’s festivities, she’d slip out, take a seat on the bus that was carrying the workers back to the city. She’d cleaned out the money her parents kept hidden below the floorboards in the bakery and given it to Konrad for safekeeping. That would keep her going until she got a job. Something glamorous, like the cigarette girls she saw in the magazines. Or a waitress in one of the clubs, where she might see the Holtzfalls.

Estelle was leaving Gelde, and everyone in it, without a second thought.

Not even one for Lotte.

And she was smiling in Lotte’s face. Like she had smiled in Henriett’s face at her wedding.

She dusted sugar off her hands, saying something about needing to get back to the bakery before she got in trouble.

As Estelle stood to go, the warmth of her fled, and Lotte felt the cold of the convent crawl back over her. But now it stretched out ahead of her for years and years. Of being left behind again. Of being alone again.

And Lotte knew she couldn’t allow Estelle to leave.