Chapter 15

Saskia as Flora.
Ca. 1634. Canvas.

I have just awoken and am scratching my fingernail through the frost furring the window when Moeder calls from the kitchen.

“Neeltje! Please go out and get the milk.”

I pad through the front room and entrance hall and tug open the heavy wooden door. I have started toward the milk the dairyman has left on our stoop in a tin can when I see something propped against the step.

I crouch down. A breeze plucks at the locks of real brown hair glued to the head of an ivory-faced doll.

I snatch her up, hug her to me, then hold her out again, her red velvet skirt flowing. She is mine. She’s got to be mine. She was left on my stoop.

I put a careful finger to her cold lips, curved in a pink painted smile, then lift her skirt. A real petticoat—two of them! I rock her with joy. She is far prettier than Jannetje Zilver’s old doll, her skirt and bodice fancier, her hair thicker. I will name her a special name, a lady’s name. Saskia.

No. Not her. I don’t like her or her ugly picture on the wall. I don’t care if she was Titus’s moeder.

I feel something stiff on the doll’s back. I turn her around and lift the little card tied around her waist.

“From St. Nicolaes.”