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knots. Then she turned Susannah around by the shoulders to face her.
    Susannah struggled to say the words. “Perhaps I will be gone a little longer than usual.”
    “Wait.” Marjorie crossed the room to the back door, where the cloaks hung on a peg. She lifted a gray shawl and Susannah’s cloak and carried them back to her. “Cover your hair. It stands out like a torchlight.” Susannah stepped toward her, and Marjorie crossed the ends of the shawl beneath Susannah’s chin, tucking them into the back collar of the cloak. Susannah leaned forward, pressing her cheek to Marjorie’s for the length of one long breath.
    “Good-bye,” she whispered.
    As she crossed the back of the property once again, the greenhouse loomed off to her left and reflected the afternoon sun. Susannah stepped inside and realized all at once that her cuttings and flowers and trees would desiccate in their clay pots, hostages behind the glass. All their striving for life would come to nothing without someone to bring them water. The herbarium too would remain incomplete. She felt the loss of it all but also a strange relief. Along with each specimen she flattened in the flower press, Susannah had preserved her anguish too. The herbarium was like a book of horrors, each page linked to a memory. The thought of abandoning it along with everything else thrilled her. She picked up her beloved Wakefield, its blue cover worn and soiled, and walked out.
    Susannah made it nearly all the way to the rectory without seeing another soul. The frosted grass crunched beneath her feet. When she was almost to Pearl Street, a spaniel emerged from the trees, its mottled fur the color of coffee and milk. A man followed closely behind, a musket slung over his shoulder and swinging against his hip as he walked. When he stepped onto the road his eyes met hers. Perhaps he saw fear there, for he nodded and bowed a little. “Ma’am,” he said, then kept on after the dog. When he had passed, Susannah craned her neck to see him once more, but he didn’t turn back.
    As the rectory came into view, Susannah wondered what would happen next. Sister Mary Genevieve hadn’t left any instructions. Would she be waiting? It was nearly dark now and she could hear creatures flitting across the canopy. Her breathing quickened.
    Just as Susannah was thinking of turning back into the darkness to wait, she saw the sister’s face appear in the glass pane of the rectory’s door. Susannah glanced across the clearing. It was empty. As she raced toward the door, icy drops of water began to fall from the sky.
    “You’ve brought nothing with you, I hope?” Sister Mary Genevieve eyed Susannah carefully in the darkness of the cabin once she had ushered her inside.
    “No, nothing but the clothes I wear,” Susannah said, the lie tumbling easily out. “And this book.” She held it out.
    The sister took the book from her and stared at it. “I can make good use of this, but you’ll need to leave it with me.” She set the book on the table and crossed the small room. She opened a trunk, pulling out a black wool gown identical to the one she wore and shook it out. “Here. Put this on. We don’t have much time.”
    Susannah hesitated, then reached for the laces at the back of her dress. With the injured fingers on her left hand still bound, she fumbled.
    Sister Mary Genevieve sighed. “Turn around. Hurry up.” Susannah felt the woman’s cold fingers at the nape of her neck as she released the collar buttons one by one. “I don’t have much hope for a successful escape if you’re a prisoner in your own clothing. You are certain you’ve brought nothing else with you?” the nun asked again. Susannah nodded, a feeling of dread in her stomach. When the nun lifted the dress over her head, Susannah concealed the lump on her chemise with her hand. The sister helped her into the black gown.
    “The life you have known ends today, and you must not carry any piece of it with you. Do you