Prologue

Fouroaks, Georgia, 1880

Amy Jones sat on the floor. It was cold, just like the attic walls all around her, but the patch of sunshine that flowed through the window was warm. She nestled into it, the heat and light giving relief to her aching bones.

She had been freezing all morning while she sorted wool in the big cellar downstairs with the other women at the house. She curled up in the patch of sunshine and shut her eyes for a moment, the heat of it on her skin a wonderful sensation.

It was late afternoon, and she was through with her tasks for the day. There was just half an hour between now and the time she’d have to go downstairs for dinner, so she’d sneaked up here to do the one thing she enjoyed most; the one thing that gave her solace.

She opened her eyes and looked down.

The Bible was opened on the book of John, chapter nine. It was one of her favorite stories and she read it again as she sat there.

“His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’” She read the answer that Christ gave to that question.

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God would be displayed in him.”

She looked up from the page, heart aching. A tear formed in the corner of one of her dark eyes and she batted it away. She didn’t want to sob in case she was heard. But she couldn’t help her tears as the words reached into her heart and comforted her.

The man’s blindness was not a punishment.

She drew in a breath at the thought, as she always did. An affliction was no punishment. Disability was not the result of sin, but of God’s power. It was meant to make one different for a good reason.

And if the blind man was not blind for his sins, then she was not deaf for hers.

She sniffed. She had struggled with her hearing since her childhood, and over the last years, after having a terrible ongoing throat infection, her hearing had become even worse. Now, she could only hear if someone yelled at her, and even then, she could only make out a few sounds.

She put the Bible aside. Her tousled, dark hair had fallen into her eyes, and she tucked the curls behind her ears, reaching into her pocket for a grubby handkerchief. Laundry in Hillend Workhouse was done once a month and she’d been rationing her clean handkerchiefs so that she would still have one for the coming weeks. She balled up the handkerchief in her fist and looked down at the sunlit floor.

What does God have in mind for me?

She looked at the cover of the Bible where it lay closed in her lap. It was an old one—Pastor Edward had brought it here years ago, donating it to the workhouse somewhat ungenerously, because he needed a new one. Very few people read it or even knew it was here, but Amy read it every day.

The cover of the book showed an image of the Cross. Amy ran her finger over it. A burden and a salvation. Her deafness—was that a cross that she had to bear?

She leaned back against the wall. For as long as she could remember, she had struggled to hear things—though less so when she was younger compared to now—and it had become harder to bear of late.

“It is not because I am sinful.” She said the words aloud. Tears ran down her face. She knew that was not so, because Christ Himself had said so when he was asked by the disciples.

He did not think she was sinful.

She saw the door opening and she straightened up, putting the Bible back carefully on the shelf. Mrs. Emms came in hurriedly. She was somewhere in her fifties and the mother of several children, some of them around Amy’s own age of fifteen.

“Amy! Come! Dinner…Matron…late.”

Those were the only words she could make out as she watched Mrs. Emms’s moving lips. She guessed what Mrs. Emms meant and replied to her.

“And I’ll miss dinner. I know,” Amy replied. “Thank you, Mrs. Emms.”

As she stepped forward, she realized that she was swaying and disoriented. It wasn’t just the contrast between the light coming through the window and the sudden darkness of the rest of the room, but also because she had eaten so little that day. Her head hurt but her stomach had long ago stopped hurting.

She went to the door and she and Mrs. Emms hurried down. As they rushed down the stairs, Matron was coming up the hallway. Amy stiffened as the woman looked at them. Her iron-gray hair was pulled back in a bun. Her face—severe and expressionless—surveyed them both.

Amy could not understand the words Matron was saying—though the woman enunciated very clearly, making her easy to lip-read, Amy chose to look away and thereby only follow the one or two sounds she could hear. She felt Mrs. Emms’s hand tighten on her arm and she knew that whatever was being said was cruel.

It usually was.

She looked over at Matron when the sounds had stopped. The woman’s eyes regarded her with utter distaste. Amy felt herself shrivel inside. She was worthless. That was what that look said. She was worthless, cursed—sinful.

For a moment she forgot all about the words in the Bible and felt shame twist in her belly. She wished she could just disappear. If only she could, the world would be a better place.

She was a sinner—a cursed sinner. Just like Matron said.

“Come on.” Mrs. Emms shook her, bending so that Amy could see her lips. “Let’s go and eat.”

Amy nodded. When Mrs. Emms made it easier for Amy to read her lips, it was possible to understand her. Like the rest of the inhabitants, Mrs. Emms had always known that Amy had difficulty with hearing. Someone, at some stage during Amy’s early years there, must have told her. Even so, Mrs. Emms was difficult to lipread, but nonetheless someone Amy trusted. She walked with the older woman to the dining room.

In the dining room, half a dozen women sat lined up in rows. Girls of Amy’s age and younger sat with them, making the entire population of the room around thirteen people. She and Mrs. Emms increased the count to fifteen. Amy hurried to a bench at one of the rough wooden tables and sat down. Beside her, Becca, Mrs. Emms’s youngest child—just five—almost fell off the bench beside her. Amy reached for her and grabbed her, helping her into place. The little girl looked up at her through a tangle of greasy blonde hair, her face still stained with soot from cleaning the fireplaces.

Her lips moved and Amy smiled back. The little girl was too listless for talking, just swaying on her seat, her eyes dull. She looked straight ahead as Matron brought out the food.

Amy breathed in. The smell of the food was heady in her nose. Gruel, a little oily, a little rancid, but still like ambrosia after a hard day’s work. She was given bread with it—two slices of hard, dry bread, which again felt like heaven on her tongue.

The food was gone too quickly, and Amy knew the secret was to chew it as long as possible. They all did—all of them older than five had learned to sit and eat until the very last minute, until they were told to leave the dining room. Then they might have the illusion that they weren’t hungry, that they had eaten well.

Amy sat and ate until Matron came back. Amy saw her shout something, but when Matron repeated it, she looked away so that she wouldn’t understand. Whatever it was, she didn’t want to know more than she had to. If it was an order, she could simply copy the other people. It was one of the only times she was grateful that her hearing had almost gone.

She stood when the others stood and followed them out of the room. As she went into the hallway, she spotted Mr. Rowell, the clerk, who came once a week to check the account books with Matron. He had a pleasant face—a retrousse nose, wide eyes, and a friendly mouth.

“Good evening.” She read his lips. He, too, was easy to lipread—so much so that they could talk as if she could hear him. He had always known about her difficulty with hearing, thought now that she thought about it, she didn’t recall having to tell him. She supposed Matron must have told him the one time she’d had to send Amy to fetch him for a meeting. He had never held it against her, though—or even mentioned it—and always treated her as though she was a person equal to himself. In fact, he even deferred to her when it came to the tallying.

She liked Mr. Rowell a great deal.

“Good evening,” she replied.

He waved and she nodded to him as she went to the stairs. She could see Matron stiffen, and she was sure the grumpy woman didn’t approve. Matron would have been horrified to know that Amy had once helped Mr. Rowell with the accounts. Amy had a good head for numbers and could do tallies faster than he could. She hoped Matron wouldn’t be angry with Mr. Rowell for smiling.

Amy followed Mrs. Emms up the stairs to the dormitory. The women and girls all slept in two long, low rooms that were above the dining room. Mrs. Emms with her children, and Maye, Dorothy, and Beulah in one room, while six other women and girls were in the other room.

Amy’s pallet bed was near the end, in the corner—the children had the beds under the window, where they could get the most air and see the stars at night, but Amy’s bed had the wall beside it and a little more space that she could call her own. For that, she was grateful.

She took off her shoes and shrugged out of her faded linen dress and into her nightshirt before rolling up in her blankets. It was summer, and the room was hot, and for that she was grateful too. She rested her head on the pillow and, as she fell asleep, she said a prayer, asking God to show her how she might live a better life.

As her thoughts lengthened, they wandered past the constant presence of her own fear and guilt, and her own questions about her parents, and she imagined a woman tying a little knotted bracelet around her arm. It was the bracelet that she had with her under her pillow—the only thing from her former life, the only clue to her identity and who had left her at the workhouse. In her dream-like state, the woman tied the bracelet tight about Amy’s wrist and kissed it. Then, as Amy was trying to puzzle that out, to understand why anyone would do that, she fell even more deeply asleep.

Chapter One

Fouroaks, Georgia, 1888

Amy straightened up. Her back ached. She winced as she almost knocked her head against the cupboard door. She sometimes forgot that she’d grown—though at twenty-two years old, she was still slight. Much smaller in stature than Mrs. Emms or any of her older daughters.

She looked around the room. It was the kitchen at the Hillend Workhouse, and she had just been scrubbing the floor. It was her job, since she hadn’t managed to take on any employment outside the workhouse—not even a few odd jobs. She had simply been given the task of cleaning the place. All the other work, like washing wool or spinning, went to the other women who Matron deemed more likely to be able to find employment outside the house.

“All done?” the cook demanded. She was a short, round-faced woman with a confrontational temperament. She knew Amy was almost deaf and had a habit of bawling at her loudly, as if the volume could somehow make any difference. Amy could have told her that if she spoke more distinctly, she could have lipread her. But she knew that trying to explain would make no actual difference. The woman wasn’t a bad sort, just ready for a fight and impatient. Amy nodded.

“All done,” Amy repeated.

The cook nodded. “Good!” she said loudly. She gestured to the hallway. “Just there…done.”

“Thank you,” Amy said. She lifted the bucket and walked out into the hallway. She would mop the corridor between the kitchen and the dining room, and then her cleaning would be done for the day. She could feel an ache in her back, and she couldn’t wait to be through with the work. She pushed the mop along the hallway and then, back protesting, carried the bucket into the courtyard and emptied it out. She stood there, the sunshine pouring down onto her face.

It was summertime, Amy’s favorite time of year. The sunshine soaked into her skin, and she shut her eyes, loving the feeling of the warm rays touching her. She ran a hand through her hair—it was soaked in perspiration, and she hoped she would have time to wash it. For all that Matron was so particular about the inhabitants “not being filthy or hosting vermin,” she still gave them too little time to wash, and soap was rarer than gold.

Amy stood in the sunshine, letting it ease the pain in her back, and then slowly walked inside. She stood in the hallway, sun-blind for a moment, and then she saw Matron at the end of the hallway.

One of the village men had arrived with a delivery of sacks of produce for the kitchen, and he pushed a handcart down the hallway ahead of Matron, going from the front entrance to the kitchen. He was bringing flour for the kitchen, and he slipped on the floor where Amy had cleaned, the handcart hitting the wall as he fell. Amy could hear the grating sound of the cart wheels and some of his yells.

“What is the meaning of this?”

Amy flinched. She was standing across from Matron and she could read her lips well enough. She felt her lip tremble. Suddenly the unfairness of the situation was too much for her.

“It’s not my fault,” she said. “I washed the floor. It’s my job.” She could feel tears hot on her face and the Matron’s own face stiffened.

“You defiant girl!” she exclaimed. Amy saw the words clearly on her lips. “All you needed to say was an apology. How dare you argue with me? I am in charge here. I take care of all of you. It is the charge God has laid on me, to mind you sinners, to reform you! And yet you defy me!”

Amy swallowed hard. She knew that Matron was embarrassed—both because of the accident that had befallen the delivery man, and because Amy had dared to talk back to her. The deliveryman, an older man with a weary face, looked horrified, and then looked at the floor. Amy couldn’t tell if he was shocked at her treatment or shocked that she’d dare to defy Matron. She didn’t have time to think about it because Matron ordered her upstairs.

“Go to the attic.”

Amy felt her heart sink. She knew that she would be denied luncheon and dinner. It was Matron’s way of addressing any defiance from anyone—send them to the attic and not allow them to come out. She felt bitter tears well up. It was not fair! She had done her work. That was all she had done, and if the floor was wet, well, that was not her fault. How else was she to wash the floors?

She looked over at the kitchen, but she knew the cook would not help her. The cook was just as afraid of Matron as everyone else. And besides, cook didn’t really care about anyone unless they were preventing her from doing her job. The delivery man was trying to pack the sacks back onto the handcart and trying to ignore everyone in the hallway. She looked away.

It wasn’t as though she didn’t receive cruel treatment every day. It was just that, suddenly, she could not fail to see that it was unfair. That it was not her fault. Just this once, it was plain to see.

Cheeks burning, eyes hot with tears, she walked up the hallway to the stairs. She was sure Matron was following her, but she didn’t turn around. She didn’t want to look at her, because if she did, she would know the cruel words that she was saying.

She went up the stairs and to the attic. Matron didn’t know that her Bible was in there. It was the one thing that made the punishment endurable. She saw Matron on the landing, and she shut the door, locking herself into the attic space.

“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.

When she was sure Matron would not come in, she reached for the Bible.

She sat with it on her knees, allowing the tears to flow. The passage in the book of John, where Christ healed the blind man, could not comfort her today. She found it so hard to believe, sometimes, that He had seen no shame in the man’s disability, no sense of punishment for sins either of his own or by his parents.

It was so hard to believe it when Matron told her the opposite every day.

She opened the book, tears blurring the pages, and saw a verse she knew. It was in Psalms. “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who has made Heaven and Earth.”

She took a deep breath. It felt like a long time since she had prayed. No—not since she had prayed, as she did so every single night. But a long time since she had sat down and talked earnestly to God; really felt a sense of connection with the Lord.

She took a deep breath again. She spoke aloud sometimes when she prayed, though she could not hear her own voice—or not very well. Somehow, it still made her feel closer to God, even though she knew He could hear her prayers without her needing to speak aloud. Nobody could hear her in the attic, and it was no terrible thing to have the space and time to pray aloud without having to worry about disturbing others around her who might be sleeping.

“God,” she said strongly. “Please. I do not believe You made me deaf as a punishment. I cannot believe that You, who sent Your son to free all mankind, would visit suffering on anyone who sinned. You love us, Lord. This I know absolutely. Please, help me.”

She felt tears run down her cheeks as she said the last word. She had not realized how for the last weeks, a sense of real fear had been growing within her. Mrs. Emms’s daughters had all left the workhouse—all except Becca, who was only twelve, and Amelia, who was fifteen. The older daughters had left the workhouse. They were making successful lives for themselves.

It felt as though only Amy, and the extremely sick and infirm, had no choices.

“Please, God,” she said. She squeezed her eyes shut. “I am not jealous. I do not want Gertie and Lily to suffer—truly, it makes me happy to see their prosperity. I just want a chance. I want to go out of the workhouse and walk in the village where I want to. I want a new life. I want freedom.”

She felt tears run down her cheeks. Would God think that was so bad? It wasn’t as though she wanted anything she couldn’t even imagine—Matron had said she’d never have a job, or be useful, or have a family—but could she not just have an odd job helping in the fields, with the freedom to walk about in the fresh air for an afternoon? She could barely imagine what it might be like to sit on a bench somewhere in the sunshine and feel it beat into her skin, to know she had time and that nobody was going to call her back and make her stick to the rigid routine of workhouse life. All she wanted was some time for herself.

“Please, God,” she whispered. “Please…she’s so cruel to me. I hate it here.” She felt her tears drip off her chin. She was sobbing now, and she couldn’t hold it back. She hadn’t allowed herself to acknowledge how much she hated it. She was always hungry, always dirty, and the winters terrified her. People got sick and died then, and she couldn’t sleep, the one blanket she had was too thin to keep her warm. Her fingers and toes swelled with the cold, and it was painful to her body. She didn’t want to live here another minute, never mind another day or month. It was unbearable.

Something about Matron’s words, her complete lack of justice, had made it all too much for her.

Please, she said in her heart, where only the Lord could hear her. Please, show mercy to me.