21st of March 1862, House Bitter, Kingdom of Hanover, Europe.

Sarah's throat was tight. Her eyes had filled with tears. She was holding her breath, unable to stop the onslaught of feelings. Susanne was snoring gently, covering the light breathing of Josephine. They were right there in the same small room with her, but Sarah was endlessly distant from them. To her, they were but cruel echoes of people long gone. Like all time travellers, she was acutely aware of the fleeting nature of life, but like most, she was able to cope during the day. When Josephine wouldn't stop talking and Susanne braved her world with laughter, it was easy to see them as living people. Now that the light was out and Sarah lay in her bed right beside theirs, reality caught up with her. Sarah felt like she was walking among ghosts. It made her all too aware of her own mortality. She too was but a ghost to those coming after her. Nothing but a ghost walking among ghosts. Her breath escaped her in a silent sob.

***

22nd of March 1862, City Centre, Kingdom of Hanover, Europe.

Susanne reached Sarah a towel soaked in fresh cold water. "For your eyes," she said with a knowing smile.

Sarah felt embarrassed, but grateful. She mumbled a thanks and gently rubbed her eyes with the towel. Combined with the cold air out by the spring where they had gone to fetch water, the moisture on her eyelids helped against the swelling. Susanne didn't ask and Sarah didn't make any excuses. It was clear that Susanne had her experience with crying oneself to sleep. Sarah didn't need to ask why. She only wondered how Susanne found the strength to be happy every day anew. Asking was not an option. After all, it might just be a play too fragile to withstand any blows.

They didn't speak on their way back to the houses. Sarah was breathing heavily carrying two heavy buckets filled with cold water. Only once they reached the house did Susanne strike up a conversation. She was talking about the weather, praising the refreshing air rather than pointing out the ice-cold misty rain or the dark grey clouds. Sarah both hated and loved her for it. Before long, they were laughing together again. Josephine was already in the kitchen preparing breakfast. Whenever possible, Sarah stuck with Susanne for tasks. She didn't dislike Josephine, but around Susanne, Sarah felt least displaced. The seventeen-year-old reminded her of the friends she'd had at university. Hundreds of years in the future, only a few in Sarah's past, and yet it felt so long ago. She'd lost contact with all of them when she'd accepted the job as a Temporal Research Assistant.

Sarah pushed the memory aside and focused on Susanne instead. They were busy watering the house plants Sophie Bitter cherished. Susanne was muttering prayers while working. During her last quarantine, Sarah had been briefed on the topic of religion, so she wasn't wholly oblivious, yet she found it impossible to tell apart the many subgroups of Christianity that had existed in the 1860ies. Sarah herself had grown up without a religion, and although many in her time held some form of belief, the general public in her time disapproved of organised religion.

During her briefing, Sarah had been amazed to learn how rich and powerful churches used to be and how deeply they could affect people's lives. However, only through spending time in the Bitters' household had she truly come to see how much their faith meant to believers. They spoke prayers first thing in the morning, before every meal, they praised their god's name, they thanked him for anything good that happened, and they prayed before bed again. Any good thing was attributed to his glory and anything bad was either the work of the enemy or part of the ineffable plan of their god. Sarah had done her best to play along from the start. Luckily, nobody expected her not to believe, so they weren't suspicious in the first place. Sarah couldn't help thinking that they were really quite gullible, but she felt ashamed for thinking it. After all, she wanted to respect other people's beliefs and was aware that they were but a product of their time. Had she been brought up in their time, she knew she would have believed, too.

Gullible. The word got stuck in her head. Sarah rolled it over her tongue again and again. An hour later when she was in the kitchen helping Josephine with lunch, Sarah still couldn't get it out of her head. She was trying to think of a way to get the DNA samples she needed, but all her head gave her was the word gullible. Should she lie to them? But what would she tell them? What possible reason could she give them why she needed to stick a cotton swab up their noses, collect some blood or cut off a square centimetre of their skin? What could she possibly offer them in return?

A hissing followed by a row of poorly translated swear words brought Sarah back from her considerations. Josephine was holding one hand in the other, pressing it hard. There was a small trinkle of blood.

"Bloody knife, almost cut my finger off..." Josephine was clearly in pain, her face strained.

"How can I help?" Sarah didn't know what to do without a 23rd century first-aid-kit at hand.

"We'll have to tie it, but I have to pour some brandy over it first. I have everything upstairs in the storage, find Susanne, tell her to mind the kitchen while we see to this." Josephine was already out of the room on her way to the stairs before Sarah had gathered herself. In a hurry, she then went looking for Susanne. She found her in one of the bedrooms and sent her down to the kitchen. She convinced Susanne that the fire needed her attention more urgently than Josephine did. Meanwhile, Josephine had already set herself up in the small storage room full of cleaning tools and towels. There was a bottle of what Sarah presumed to be brandy in her lap.

"Where did you get that?" Sarah could have sworn Josephine had not been to any other room and the bottle didn't exactly fit in with the brooms and sheets. The woman only gave her a distrusting glance as a reply, leading Sarah to believe that she kept a secret stash. Josephine laid out a towel over an upturned wooden box, put her injured hand on it and generously poured the liquid over the cut. A weak groan escaped her and Sarah winced just from watching. The cut was deep in the palm of the hand. "We need to get you to a doctor."

"Nonsense, it's but a scratch. Just help me tie this up, I can't do it with just one hand." Josephine reached her the towel. "There are scissors in the drawer to your right. I need you to cut this into stripes, then wrap them tightly around my hand and knot it well." Sarah found herself obeying her as usually, though she struggled to make the know tight enough for Josephine since the poor woman was so obviously hurting from it. As soon as it was done, Josephine was back up on her legs. She put everything in the room back to its place using only her good hand. Then she shooed Sarah out and hurried back to the kitchen. For the rest of the day, she was quieter than usually. Sarah felt horrible for Josephine, so she pushed herself to try and do as much of the work as she could. All she wanted was for Josephine to take a break, but the woman wouldn't allow herself a moment's rest. It almost seemed like she was trying to outperform herself to compensate for having made a mistake. When Sarah brought her worry up to Susanne later that day, the girl confirmed her suspicion.

"She is like that, bless her. Josephine lives for others, she can't bear the thought of letting the Bitters down. Once, about two years ago, she fell ill with a severe cough, but she tried to hide it forever. Liliane and I begged her to rest, but she wouldn't listen until we told Mr. Bitter. He had to almost physically force her to stay in bed until she was better. Thank God he did, the poor soul would have worked herself to death for all I know." There were tears in Susanne's eyes, but she blinked them away. "Her selflessness is a blessing from God, but it may well be her undoing."

Finally, it clicked in Sarah's head. She knew what her 'blessing' was, the knowledge she had of their future. Sarah knew that she couldn't change their lives significantly, but she might well tell them some small things and pretend their god had told her. She knew the lore of Christianity included literal sacrifices and a plan began to form in her head. She would ask them to offer some drops of blood in return for godly foresight. And if she started with talkative Josephine, the whole family would surely be convinced soon enough.