Sister Franziska is the first to notice. With Lotte Jansen as midwife there have been no deaths—no infants, no mothers—going back to Hedda and her infant a year ago.
When Sister Franziska tells the other Sisters, they’re stunned.
“Of course,” they say, “but only in looking back.”
“I didn’t notice it till now.”
“No fresh graves since Lotte Jansen began to midwife.”
“Compensation for her terrible losses.”
“That’s why God is sparing her.”
“But for how long?”
“Until He has taken enough from her.”
“Who are we to question—”
“If we don’t, who will?”
As stories about the young midwife spread through the St. Margaret Home, the Girls come to think of her as their patron saint. They’re ready for a saint who soothes them, lightens their burden. What matters most is that the midwife will not judge them. The Girls believe it’s because she has done something far worse than they ever will. To give away one child to be adopted, two if you’re ill-fated to bear twins, is nothing compared to the midwife losing three children to the sea and throwing away the fourth. One St. Margaret Girl will tell a new Girl, and nearly all come to take for true that the midwife Lotte Jansen has sacrificed her children for them. Sinner and savior in one. You can identify with her. Though you’re not as craven a sinner. Or as selfless a savior. You have been longing for this saint, your own patron saint. You steal items she has touched—a comb a pencil a spoon. Stow them away. Relics.
Still, a few Girls fear the midwife’s power more than God’s. To Him they can pray for a stillborn; jump rope till they fall; probe with knitting needles to dislodge the parasite that has grafted itself to their insides; leap from the roof of the aviary and break both legs.
Sister Hildegunde paints countless versions of the mansion, some set on Nordstrand, some in Burgdorf where she grew up. Gradually those two landscapes morph into one: a sea that flows like a river; a river that fills the horizon. Dikes shelter both landscapes from floods. She gives the mansion wings so enormous she hears them flapping and feels blasts of wind. Barges and whirlpools she paints; flocks of nuns and flocks of babies; bridges and willows teeming with finches and monkeys and peacocks. What remains the same is how the mansion levitates on layers of mist.
“It doesn’t have to be like it was,” she teaches her students.
Inspired by the eternal feud between humans and sea, Sister Hildegunde finally captures the wild beauty of flooding in Hochwasser. If humans were to halt, the sea would surge forward, drowning their fields, their sheep, their families.
Hochwasser. And with it the abandoning of all you’ve worked for.
Hochwasser. It will herd you to the mainland, perhaps come after you as it often does in a nightmare.
Sister Hildegunde discovers Wilhelm in front of the dragon painting, looking up, though his hands cover his eyes.
“Such a funny dragon,” she says. “Let’s show our teeth to the funny dragon.”
Wilhelm watches her through spread fingers.
“Like this.” Sister pulls back her lips and hisses.
Wilhelm pulls back his lips and hisses. Drops his hands and hisses louder.
“Most excellent,” says Sister Hildegunde. “Now let’s roar at the funny dragon.”
“Moooooooo,” Wilhelm roars, eyes wide-wide open, roars like the dragon. “Moooooooo.”
And that’s how Sister Hildegunde will paint him, this boy facing a dragon, both roaring.