The master stood up and, hand trembling, handed Esther a sheet of paper. ‘I bought you this. It wasn’t so hard to obtain. Land is still available, if you know the right vendor. And I’ll see to it you’ll have money. Enough to keep you comfortable.’ Then, his body moving mechanically, as though it was not his, he walked from the room.
The paper was yellow and discoloured against the red blanket on Isobel’s bed, and as fragile as a bone. Esther frowned over it, her belly pressing down on the tops of her thighs. She had not read it since stashing it away in the secret drawer.
It was a title deed to a piece of land in the Hatcher Valley, South Island. A hundred acres of land. The appellation, written in tiny copperplate, informed the buyer that the land was bracketed by mountains and a lake,
