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its direction and the cat jumps clear, landing deftly beside the table where it finds a scrap of suet.
    “Who fathered the child?” I ask. My mother stops and looks at me.
    “What kind of nonsense question is that?!” she says dismissively. “The entire village—” She throws her hand up in a sweeping motion.
    “She must have known,” I say.
    “How could she?” she says, then resumes sweeping. I remain silent, watch her move about the room, then grab the broom and force her to look at me.
    “What
exactly
did she say about the child?”
    My mother purses her lips and searches the floor with her eyes. I have a sense that Dora’s secrets are somehow trapped inside her, that once again it is my mother who must bring them forth into the world. Finally she raises her head and looks me squarely in the eye.
    “She said that it would kill her.”

Chapter Four
    I suppose that I have always been prone to melancholy. Even as a child they called me fanciful, for the world of my imaginings often seemed more real to me than any other, and it was certainly preferable. I was small and slight for my age, and as an only child was left to my own devices, for my mother’s work often took her away for long periods of time. So from a very young age I was accustomed to solitary play, but I was not alone, for I surrounded myself with fairies, spirits, and the like.
    My mother regarded my fancies as ungodly, though they did not concern her overly until I reached the age of ten. By then I had developed certain fears as well: wind, high places, and water were among them, so much so that for a time I would not wash, nor even drink, unless forced to do so. My mother feared my fluids were unbalanced, and for years she kept a close eye on all that came in and all that went out, giving me emetics, or tickling my throat with a feather, if she thought my humors were not soluble. Once she consulted a healer who was passing through on the road to London, and he told her to place a pan of urine beneath my bed at night, so that its odors should penetrate me while I slept. This we did for a time, until the stench became unbearable, or until she divined that the effect upon my humors was negligible. I never knew which but felt considerable relief when she finally abandoned the cure. In fact my health was generally better than her own, for in winter she often suffered colds, and twicewhen I was very young she experienced fits of the stone, which she passed after enduring many hours of agony in her bed.
    For a time in my youth I had visions in my sleep, and my mother sought advice from both a cunning woman and a clergyman. The cunning woman lived in a neighboring village and was known for miles around for her charms and prayers.
    She lived alone, her husband having died of smallpox, and people sought her out for all kinds of ailments, both physical and spiritual. I did not know her real name, but they called her Mother Hare, for she kept a rabbit’s foot around her neck at all times, along with a sacred cross, to bring her luck and ward off evil. Mother Hare was old but not crooked as so many are, and though her face was lined, her eyes were clear and bright, and her smile winning. She lived in a tiny cottage on the outskirts of the village, and existed on the gifts of those who came to her for help. My mother and I traveled by foot to see her, leaving early in the morning and arriving at midday, and carried two loaves of bread, some boiled fowl, and tallow candles as payment. I was anxious at the prospect of the visit, and walked slowly, my mother urging me on. But once inside her cottage I was instantly relieved, for she had an air of calm and quietude about her, the like of which I had not met before. I did not understand the prayers she spoke over me, for her words were intermixed with Latin, but I remember clearly the lay of her hand against my brow, smooth and cool like a cloth of fine white linen. Even my mother seemed affected by her presence,