Marit had said the next day would be hot, hot enough to soften even the clouds. I cling to that word. Morning. A new day.
One of our neighbors was the wealthy farmer Lehmann, a close friend of the reeve. He owned cows, sheep, goats, chickens and geese, bees, several cats, and even a wolf he had tamed, though the whole village feared it. Alina often played on the farm, watching the farmer’s wife milk the cows, playing with the boys and with the cats. Only the wolf was forbidden. We got along well, and once, after I prepared a paste that helped the farmer breathe freely again, his wife thanked me each week with a bowl of milk and honey. “Spread that across your chest, nice and smooth, it will do you good,” I had told him in our tongue.
In the mornings, when the rooster crowed, I mixed the milk with honey, oats, and in summer with blackberries. Matthes and Alina loved it. For us, the word “morning” had been a promise. Sun over the fields, a steaming pot over the fire, Matthes and Alina’s laughter, bright as dew in the light.
Now the word morning sounds like a thornbush, split and broken in the summer wind.
The kitchen smells of sea buckthorn and lye. Marit has scrubbed the floor, and though I miss the rushes, I savor the cleanliness. I sit in the wide chair she calls a rocker and study the sheet of paper the printer has spat out. On it, sharp and flawless, the mark beneath my breast: an eye, two circles, a tree, a shooting star. No larger than a breadcrumb.
Matthes bore the same mark. Hidden beneath his collar, at the nape of his neck where no one should see it.
Through the open garden door my gaze wanders into a world so strange it makes me feel fragile in it. Gulls cry in the sky. Marit’s roses breathe their scent, orange and proud. In the distance lies the sea, the only thing I still know. It shimmers in the morning like molten tin.
“You remember it?” Marit kneels beside me, pointing to the symbol. Her hair falls loose across her brow, her eyes warm but worried.
“Matthes had it… yes.” My voice thins to a thread. “But me? No. I cannot recall.”
“Perhaps the memory will return when it is needed,” Marit says.
I collapse inward. “Where is Matthes? I want to see him.”
“He isn’t here, love.”
“But… where am I?”
“On Rügen.”
“No!” I spring up and run into the garden. This, Rügen? I was born here, Alina too, Matthes as well. “Our land, ringed by water,” Father had said. But this? “Rügen is an island of salt and wind, of hooves and gull cries. Not smooth streets, not stinking carriages without horses.”
I pull Marit toward me. Why does pity fill her eyes?
“The houses are timber and clay, thatched roofs that smell of grass in summer. Over the hearth, an iron trivet, herbs in the smoke.” I drag Marit with me into the kitchen. Standing before her, I press my hand to my chest. “I am the one who heals. With salves, with brews, with roots of magic. I ease the maidens’ pain when the child in the womb lies crosswise. I am a healer.”
The thought steadies me.
“And Matthes is a fisherman. The sea is his brother. When he comes home, he smells of storms. His hands are rough as the nets, his heart soft as a child’s hand.”
Tears sting my eyes. Marit’s gaze says nothing. “On the last day, when they came for me, Matthes promised he would follow. That his would be the last face I saw. But he did not come. Something dark had changed him.”
I tremble. “Only the reeve was there. The priest. And the hooded executioner. No Matthes. No village. Only a raven over the gallows, the wet wood beneath my feet. The rope tightening, tighter still. Air cut away. Blood pounding in my head. And then, darkness.”
Marit turns aside. I force her to face me. “Then where am I? Why am I here?”
“You are on Rügen,” she whispers. “It is summer. And the year is 2025.”
The number buckles my knees. 2025. Did I survive the gallows? Did God’s hand let me fall through time?
“My last memory is 1489,” I whisper. “Yes, the monk said it. 1489. Can one fall through years as through water?”
Marit folds me in her arms. “Surely not, dear Sina. There will be an explanation. We’ll find it.” For a moment I rest my head on her shoulder. Only feeling. Not thinking.
“Katja, Sven, and Konrad will come tomorrow,” I hear her say. “You’ll tell them everything.”
I nod. But will they believe me? I think of the pond near Garz where we scrubbed the laundry. If a stranger had come to us then and said she was from another time, we would have laughed her out of the village. Or the miller’s wife would have drowned her.
“Listen, Sina,” Marit says, “I have to go into the village for flour. We’ll bake herb bread tomorrow. We’ll grill. Do you want to come?”
“I’ll stay.”
The door closes behind her. I notice the packet of meat in the cupboard and take it out. Marit has been so kind to me, I want to help her. Meat must be kept in salt or it will spoil. Outside, a sack marked “Rock Salt” leans against the wall. White as snow, with a bluish shimmer. Strange salt, I think, but perhaps that’s how it is here. I lay the meat in a zinc tub and cover it with salt until it disappears beneath the grains.
Satisfied, I nod to myself.
The sun presses heavily through the window. I feel the urge to relieve myself. But the large white hole Marit wanted me to sit on fills me with dread. A basin that swallows everything. Never.
Beneath the window I find a jug and a bowl. I bolt the door, do what must be done, and pour the contents out through the window.
Relieved, I wander back through the rooms. For the first time, I hold my head high. Then I see it in the mirror on the wall… myself.
I flinch. Who is that? I know mirrors only in silver or in water. But this glass shows the world in all its colors. Only me it does not show.
I see the sallow skin, the straw-blond hair, the narrow lips. I lift my shift. Small breasts, yellowed skin, the mark with the eye, the circles, the tree. A mole at the ribcage.
“That is not me,” I whisper. My gaze in the mirror, strange eyes wide with terror. This body is not mine. It is a garment someone has slipped over me.