“Is there anything you need?” he asked, leaning against the doorframe.

“No thank you.” All of a sudden she was aware of his muscular forearm under his crisp cotton shirt. The bristles of his short beard. His smell, a not-unpleasant blend of perspiration and lye soap. She heard her own heart pulsing in her chest.

Feeling herself blush, she stepped back. Did he notice? She couldn’t tell.

In Ruby’s room, Hazel took Evangeline’s tin ticket on its red cord and wrapped it in the white handkerchief. (Those faint initials, that family crest.) She opened the top drawer of the dresser and tucked the small bundle under a pile of clothes, then slid the drawer closed.

Someday she would share it with Ruby. Not yet.

Hobart Town, 1843

It was strange to feel so free. Free to feel the air on her face as she sat on a bench at the wharf with Ruby, watching the ships come in. Free to sit under the shade of a yew and marvel at the wide expanse of sky. To peel an orange—or two, or three—with her fingers, and slip the sweetly sour slivers into her mouth. To watch dough puff into pastry in a cast-iron skillet. To go to bed when she pleased, sleep in if she didn’t feel well, laugh out loud without restraint, put her belongings in a drawer without fearing they’d be stolen.

It was strange to feel like a person in the world.

Hazel sewed herself some blouses and several pairs of trousers, so wide-legged that unless you were paying close attention they looked like skirts. Her own mother had always worn trousers like this; they were more comfortable in the birthing room, she said.

“You’ll be known as the odd lady who wears trousers,” Maeve teased.

Hazel grinned. “Maybe I’ll start a fashion.”

One warm afternoon, Hazel brought Ruby with her to shop at the crowded open-air market near the waterfront and saw a group of women, fresh off a convict ship, plodding toward Macquarie Street. Tugging Ruby’s hand, she turned away. She couldn’t bear to watch.

Hazel was at the market with Ruby several days later, shopping for fruits and vegetables, debating whether to buy cherries or plums, when she became aware of a small commotion ahead of them. A rustling that sounded like wind through the trees. A few people crossed to the other side of the street, shaking their heads and casting quick glances behind them.

“What is she doing here, in polite society?” one woman said to another as they passed. “I thought they’d sent her back to live with her own kind, where she belongs.”

Taking Ruby’s hand, Hazel threaded through the crowd.

It was Mathinna. She stood in the middle of a group of gawkers with her chin raised, her mouth half open. She was taller. Thinner. Her cheekbones jutted sharply and her lips were chapped. Her hair was matted. The hem of her dress was caked with dirt. She looked around her with disinterest, absently rubbing the necklaces of tiny green shells she wore around her neck.

“Fer shame,” a man said, full of scorn. “She’s on the sauce.”

Now that he said it, Hazel realized it was true. “Mathinna,” she called.

The girl turned with a frown. Then broke into a half smile as recognition dawned. “Hazel,” she said in a lazy lilt. “It’s you.” She swayed a little. “I still have them,” she said, patting the necklaces.

“I’m glad.”

The onlookers were quiet, appraising the exchange.

Fixing her eyes on Ruby, Mathinna said, “Is this your girl?”

“Yes. Ruby.”

“Ru-by,” she said in a singsong. She smiled broadly. “Hello, Ru-by.”

“This is Mathinna,” Hazel told Ruby. “Can you say hello?”

“Hello,” Ruby whispered, stepping shyly behind Hazel.

Mathinna tilted her head at Hazel. “They let you out.”

A murmur rippled through the crowd. Hazel felt her cheeks go pink. Though ex-convicts were everywhere, it wasn’t considered civil to mention this fact in public. Taking Ruby’s hand, she pointed at a small green park across the street. “Shall we go over there?”

“All right.” Mathinna pushed her arms out in front of her and then to the side, her fingers spread wide. “Step back,” she said loudly. When the crowd parted, she led Hazel across the street. Gazing straight ahead, her gait overly deliberate, she ignored the people pointing and staring, whispering behind their hands.

When they reached the park, Hazel said, “I tried to see ye at the orphanage. They wouldn’t allow it.”

“I know.”

“They told ye?”

“They didn’t tell me anything. They locked me in a room. But you said you would, and I believed you.”

Hazel felt an ache in her throat. “How long were ye there?”

Mathinna wagged her head slowly, as if trying to remember. “I don’t know. I couldn’t even tell how much time passed.” She reached up and touched her head. “They beat me. Shaved my head. Dunked me in ice water. I don’t know why. They said I was insolent, and maybe I was.”

“Oh, Mathinna. Ye were a child.”

“I was.” Her voice trembled. She looked down.

Still are, Hazel thought. The crowd across the street had mostly dispersed, though some were still gaping at them. She motioned toward a bench under a gum tree, facing in the other direction. “Will you sit with us for a minute?”

Mathinna nodded.

On the bench, Hazel pulled Ruby onto her lap. Mathinna sank down beside them. Sun filtered through the drooping leaves and dandelion-like flowers of the tree above them, dappling their faces with light.

“When did ye leave the orphanage?” Hazel asked.

Mathinna lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “All I know is one day they pulled me out and put me on a boat back to Flinders. But it wasn’t the same. My stepfather had died. Influenza, they said.” She shook her head again. A tear slid down her face. “Most of the people I knew were dead. The rest were wasting away. And anyway I’d lost the language. I was too . . . different. So they sent me back.”

“To the orphanage?”

“Yes, for a while. Then to a wretched place called Oyster Cove. An old convict station. Everyone was sick and dying there too.”

Hazel looked into the girl’s glistening eyes. Tears welled in her own. “So how did ye end up here?”

“I ran away. Found work with a seamstress who runs a grog shop outside of town. She lets me rent a room.”

“And what do ye do for her?”

“Sew. Serve rum. Drink rum.” She laughed a little. “Go to bed and get up and do it again. The nights are long, but I sleep all day, mostly. For one thing, to avoid . . .” She gestured toward the other side of the road.

“People are rude.”

“I’m used to it.”

Ruby pointed at Mathinna’s necklaces. “Pretty.”

Mathinna ran her fingers along the shells. She seemed happy to change the subject. “My mother made these,” she told Ruby. “And your mother”—she raised her chin at Hazel—“stole them back from the lady who took them from me.”

Hazel winced a little. “I didn’t really steal them,” she told Ruby. “They never belonged to . . . that person.”

Mathinna bent toward Ruby. “Would you like one?”

Ruby beamed, reaching toward the necklaces.

“Oh, no. Ye really shouldn’t.” Hazel closed her hands over Ruby’s grasping fingers. She looked at Mathinna over the top of Ruby’s head. “They’re yours, Mathinna.”

“I don’t need all of them. They’re meant to be shared. It’s just I’ve never had anyone to give one to.” She jiggled them with her fingers. “The thing is, they’re tangled together. Will you help?”

“I want one, Mama,” Ruby said.

Mathinna lifted the clump of necklaces over her head and handed them to Hazel. “You were the only person who was truly kind to me in all the years I lived with the Franklins.”

Hazel felt her heart twist. She hadn’t done much, after all. It was terrible to realize that her paltry gestures were the only real affection Mathinna had been shown. She thought of how Mathinna had wandered around the property after the Franklins had gone on holiday without her.

Looking down at the necklaces in her hands, Hazel took a breath. “Well . . . I have become skilled at knots.” Running her fingers over the shells, she worried the clusters until they loosened and the necklaces fell into three separate long strands. She looped them over the web of her thumb and forefinger and held them out.

Mathinna took two necklaces and draped them around her own neck. Then she slung the third around Ruby’s and held it up, showing her the iridescent green shells. “I watched my mother make this. She used a wallaby tooth to prick these tiny holes, then rubbed the shells with muttonbird oil to make them shiny. See?”

Ruby touched the necklace daintily with the tip of her finger.

“Just imagine you’re the thread,” Mathinna told her. “And the people you love are these shells. And then they’ll always be with you.” When she leaned in close, Hazel caught a whiff of alcohol on her breath. “It’s good to know you are loved. You know your mama loves you, don’t you, Ruby?”