The colour drained from Thea’s face. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said. Johann began to cry again.
Christiana held up a hand, staring at Thea. A moment passed between them, and then Christiana rushed to the hearth, grabbing Thea’s shoulder to block her as she lunged to the fireplace. I moved too, scrambling to my feet as though I could stop her, as though I had the power to protect Thea from Christiana and her outrage. But I could do nothing. Christiana extended her free arm through my protesting body and pulled out the Book of Moses from the keep hole.
‘Christiana,’ Thea began. ‘It’s not –’
Christiana, one hand still gripped around the fabric of Thea’s blouse, looked up, face lit with a look of triumph and horror. ‘You lied. You did all those things.’
‘I didn’t.’
Christiana hesitated, chin trembling, then let go of Thea and flicked to the title page. She read it, and then flung the book furiously into the fire. A cloud of ash rose as it landed, embers scattering into the room.
Thea jumped back from the flurry of sparks, one hand wrapped around her mouth, the other holding Johann to her shoulder. She was shaking.
No, I thought. No, no, no. I stooped to the fire and tried to pull out the book. My fingers raked through the coals without so much as stirring the ash.
No, she needs this. She needs it.
‘Your mother is a liar and so are you.’
Thea moved to take the book from the embers but Christiana grabbed her again, pushing her away. She levelled a finger at Thea’s mouth. ‘You bewitched him.’
‘What?’ Thea murmured, hands around her son. She was white.
Christiana stared at her. ‘Hans,’ she said, voice suddenly small and plaintive and broken. Then, as the book began to smoulder on the coals, she turned on her heel and strode out the door.
Thea placed Johann in his crib and rushed to the fire just as dark, acrid smoke began billowing from the hearth. She reached for the book but as she gripped the leather and pulled, the pages fell out and immediately blackened on the coals. They curled into ash before my eyes.
Thea sank to the floor, binding in hand. She was too late. Johann’s crying turned to insistent, choked screams.
I kneeled next to her. The paper was not catching properly, it was darkening, charring into ash without the reassurance of a hot, bright flame, dissolving into a noxious smoke, now pouring from the hearth. Thea closed her eyes against the sting of it.
‘It’s gone,’ I said quietly. As if she heard me, Thea threw the cover back into the fire with a sob.
She began to cough. Already the room was hazy with fumes. Thea placed her arm over her nose and mouth and slowly pushed herself up to standing. Johann was coughing now, too. I watched her look around for wood, for kindling, for anything to build the fire with and stop its low smouldering. Finding nothing, she picked Johann up from his crib and walked out the open door of the cottage. I followed her as she stumbled to the woodpile beside the fowl house, lungs racking. She lowered herself to the chopping block and wiped her streaming eyes with her sleeve. The baby was breathing quickly, eyes scrunched shut. Behind us, black smoke was issuing through the open door and out of the chimney, reeking of pigskin and something dark and fatty and spoiled, like marrow burning in the bone.
Sawn branches were piled high against the side of the fowl house. Settling Johann against one shoulder, Thea placed the hem of her apron between her teeth and started filling it with kindling, reaching into the heap for the driest wood.
There was a low, eerie growl nearby.
I turned my head as Thea did, saw the same feral black cat staring at the woodpile. Her back arched, tail on end, tipped in white. She yowled again, and then, spitting, streaked off into the bush behind the cottage.
Thea’s eyes widened in surprise.
‘Hans’s cat,’ I whispered to myself, and then I heard Thea suddenly, sharply, inhale. The apron hem fell from her mouth, the kindling tumbled to the ground. She staggered backwards in a quiet, urgent scramble, one hand still tight around Johann.
I saw it then.
A sheened coil within the wood heap, a small brown head swaying.
Thea brought her struck hand to her heart, staring at the brown snake that was already sliding from the stacked kindling, was already winding into the landscape, absorbed into it.
Oh God, I thought. Oh God, what has happened?
The moment Thea returned to the cottage, the book smouldering on the coals burst into flame. The air inside, thick and poisonous, began to clear.
Thea was pale. Her hair was unwinding from her braids. She paced the room, taking her hand from Johann’s back to examine the strike marks on the flesh of her palm. Then, as if deciding, she set Johann back in his cradle and washed the wound in water from the jug on the table. Johann continued to cry, quivering fists above his head, as though he knew what had happened and was already railing against it.