where he was, by the fire, the baby clutched in his nerveless hands.
Before Friedrich could utter a word, the woman looked around the room and spotted Jakob and the baby. In four strides she had crossed the room, then bent and snatched the baby out of Jakob’s arms.
“I’ve come for your part of the bargain, Friedrich Schnittel,” she said. “And now I’ll be gone.”
And with that, she turned, stalked out the door, and left.
Maria fell into hysterics, of course—he hadn’t told her about the bargain. When he explained, she only became more hysterical, weeping and pushing him away until he just gave up trying to reason with her, and, for lack of anything else to do, made sure the children were all fed. As they all ate, she cried herself into a sleep that was less sleep than collapse, and he stared at her white, tear-streaked face and wondered where the girl he had fallen in love with had gone.
When Maria awoke, she refused to speak to him. After a while, he got tired of the silence and decided to make another visit to the garden. The terrible woman had not put an end-date on her part of the bargain, and he was determined to get as much out of it as he could.
He was beginning to resent Maria’s attitude. The woman had been right, after all. If not for the food, Maria, the baby, or both probably would have died. And what about the eight other children? Didn’t they warrant some consideration too? Didn’t they deserve to have full bellies for once? Wasn’t one baby likely to die anyway worth bartering away to save the lives of his living children?
At this point, he was a little drunk on exhaustion himself, and a little reckless. And he went in—if not broad daylight, certainly just before sundown. By the time he got over the wall, he was . . . not exactly seething, but feeling far more the victim than the victimizer. And it occurred to him that if he could just get a glimpse inside that house, perhaps he could see that the baby was being treated in a manner far better than he and Maria could ever afford, and perhaps that might make the foolish woman see reason.
But as he approached the house—he noticed that the kitchen door was slightly ajar.
That’s . . . odd.
He made his way carefully to the door, and when nothing came out of it—especially not an enormous, possibly vicious dog—he pushed it all the way open.
Nothing. And there was no sound in the house, at all.
He ventured inside.
The kitchen was utterly empty. And so was the next room. And the next.
The caution ebbed out of him, and he began to prowl the entire house while the light lasted: all the rooms, downstairs and the two stories above. No furnishings, only a piece or two, like the great bed in one of the bedchambers, which would have been impossible to move. No sign that anyone had lived here, except for the absence of dust.
As he stood there in the empty house . . . a plan formed in his mind.
There was a gate to the garden; he had always come and gone over the wall, but now, he ran to it and forced the rusty lock and latch open. Then he ran back to his little room.
By this time, he was somewhat incoherent, probably wild-eyed, and talking like a madman. But that was no bad thing . . . the children looked at him with bewilderment and fear and did not ask him questions. With words and a few blows for those too stubborn to obey immediately, he gathered up the children and all of their meager possessions, forced Maria to her feet, and drove them out the door, down the street, and in through the gate.
At this point even Maria looked afraid of him and kept any objections to herself.
He locked the gate behind them all and herded them in through the kitchen door. “This is our home, now,” he said sternly. “At least it is until someone comes to tell us differently.”
The children made up the bed of rags and straw for Maria again, and she crept into it, shivering.
Once the family was installed in the kitchen—which alone was three or four times the size of the room they had been living in—he left them there, instructing Jakob to make up a fire with the plentiful firewood that was already there. Then he