Free Thieving Forest by Martha Conway Page A

her, Lilith her younger sister who still lived in Philadelphia. She’d had the feeling of Lilith without thinking about it, so absorbed was she in the chick’s struggle. But Lilith never came to Severne. Maybe Susanna imagined her because back in Philadelphia Lilith had been her particular partner, cutting out old newspapers into houses and drawing in chairs and fireplaces and people. They played together behind the house, although now Susanna can’t remember what they played, only Lilith’s laugh like a hiccough.
    As she got older Susanna forgot to miss Lilith, but now, as she helps Liza prepare Aurelia’s body in the little room where Aurelia died, she finds herself hoping that Lilith will suddenly step through the low doorway with a heavy longing that she puts down to grief.
    Together Liza and Susanna undress Aurelia and cover her with a sheet. Then, delicately, as though Aurelia might care, Susanna uncovers only that part of the body she is washing. As the light crosses the room Aurelia’s skin seems white then gold then a dull yellow. Susanna helps Liza sew Aurelia into a new blue dress, because why should she be in mourning now? Her brushed-over hair nearly covers the bandage on her forehead.
    They bury her the next day in a thick pine box, and Jonas takes it upon himself to say a few words in lieu of a preacher: “And thus we give an end to her trouble and her life.” Susanna has to unclench her fist to throw in the dirt. She doesn’t feel alone, not completely, not yet, but she can sense it coming, like the wind.

    That night Liza sits with her in the little back room for a long time, both of them in nightdresses, and Liza wearing a very odd muslin nightcap set back on her head.
    Susanna holds a piece of paper on her lap, intending to write to Lilith. Instead she looks outside. A spreading bitternut tree grows right up against the tavern wall, and through the open window she can smell the tangy scent of its branches. Its roots are probably somewhere beneath her, right under the floorboards.
    “Some weather rising,” Liza says, looking out at the moon. Even sitting, her feet are firmly planted on the floor as if at any moment she might be called on to get up quickly. Susanna is glad of Liza’s company, maybe just the sound of another woman’s voice. She is used to her sisters all talking at once. Now it feels like she is sitting at a table with too many place settings. Both Liza and Jonas have told her that it isn’t her fault that Aurelia died but Susanna knows differently. She should have started sooner. She should never have stopped to rest, not even once. She stares at the blank sheet of paper. Now that it is before her, it feels too soon to describe Aurelia’s death in words.
    “I wish...,” she says, and then stops. There are a hundred things she wishes.
    Liza waits. She looks at Susanna and takes a pull from her pipe. After a moment she blows out the smoke in a long stream. Susanna watches it rise and spread.
    “I don’t know. I keep thinking. The last time I spoke to Aurelia I said nothing important, nothing at all. I wish I had told her something real. Talked about something important.”
    Liza pulls her pipe from her mouth and rests it on her knee. “That it? Well you don’t need to fret about that. Anything you might have said, she knew it when she woke up and saw you tending her.”
    “But I didn’t know it was the last time. That I wouldn’t get another chance. All I talked about was applesauce. I didn’t say anything that really mattered.”
    “She knew what mattered when she saw you there with her. Words aren’t any more telling than that.”
    Susanna hopes this is true. Outside the wind stirs up the branches of the bitternut tree. The leaves look like birds hanging on.
    “I want to put something to you,” Liza says after a moment. “Jonas and I been talking. If you want, after you fetch your sister from that missionary village, you could come back here. You both could. We