Devotion

The novel opens with the voice of Hanne Nussbaum, a young German woman speaking from a hillside in southern Australia. She addresses Thea, the person she loves, and asks the wind to carry her testimony. She senses she is about to fade from existence and feels an urgent need to bear witness, believing that "the testimony of love is the backbone of the universe" (2).

In the autumn of 1836, Hanne is nearly fifteen and living in Kay, a small Prussian village. Her family belongs to a community of Old Lutherans, Protestant dissenters who refuse to worship under the state-imposed Union Church. The government has suppressed their worship and locked their church. Hanne's father, Heinrich, is an elder in the congregation. Her mother, Johanne, is beautiful and emotionally restrained. Her twin brother, Matthias, is her closest companion. An older brother, Gottlob, died after falling from a horse.

Hanne has always felt out of place: tall and plain where her mother is striking, awkward where the other village girls are poised. Since childhood she has heard music in nature, the singing of trees and the sound of falling snow. This gift isolates her, as no one believes her except Matthias.

A new family moves to the edge of Kay: Friedrich Eichenwald, a cooper, his wife Anna Maria, a midwife of Wendish heritage (a Slavic minority associated locally with folk-healing traditions), and their daughter Thea. Some villagers whisper that Anna Maria is a witch. Hanne meets Thea in the fog while gathering mushrooms. They each mistake the other for a ghost before laughing at the confusion. Thea has white-blonde hair, blue eyes, and slightly crooked teeth that give her a wolfish look. She is the first person besides Matthias to treat Hanne's strangeness as a gift rather than a flaw.

Their friendship deepens rapidly. The Eichenwald household is warm and affectionate, a stark contrast to the Nussbaums' austere home. When Johanne goes into difficult labor with a new baby, Anna Maria delivers the girl, Hermine, and stops a dangerous hemorrhage with a Wendish healing incantation. Thea later shows Hanne her mother's hidden text, The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, a small pigskin-bound volume containing herbal cures and instructions for conjuring spirits. Hanne is frightened, but Thea explains the book is holy, not wicked, and wants to use it to ensure they remain together.

News arrives that emigration consent has been granted. The congregation will sail to the colony of South Australia, financed by an English benefactor. Heinrich is elated, but Hanne is terrified because the Eichenwalds are undecided. She and Thea kneel in the pine forest and pray to remain together. Days later, Hanne finds a smooth river stone on the sty gate, the agreed sign that the Eichenwalds will come.

The night before departure, Hanne and Thea meet secretly in the forest. They lie on pine needles looking at stars, and Thea kisses her. The moment is brief and shattering. Neither speaks of it afterward. Hanne replays the kiss for hours, feeling a sense of recognition and rightness sweep through her, but she is afraid to examine what it means.

The congregation travels by barge to Hamburg, where Hanne and Thea reunite after being separated on different boats. They board the ship Kristi for a six-month voyage. After the upper berths collapse in rough seas, Hanne is moved into Thea's bunk in the bow. Sharing a narrow berth in darkness, their intimacy grows. They whisper confessions at night, hold hands, and press close. Once, Hanne feels Thea's hands move over her body before someone stirs nearby and the touch stops. They never speak of it, as though they are both asleep, meeting in a shared dream. Meanwhile, disease spreads through the crowded ship. Anna Maria treats the sick with herbal remedies, drawing suspicion from Magdalena Radtke, a congregant who considers the Wendish practices witchcraft.

Typhus is confirmed. Thea falls ill, her headache worsening into fever and delirium. Hanne promises not to leave her side. Anna Maria presses the Book of Moses to Thea's chest in a desperate effort to save her. Hanne, too, grows sick. She recovers, but Thea remains critically ill. In their shared bunk, Hanne watches the color leave Thea's face and knows with absolute certainty that they were meant for each other. A whale sings beneath the ship, and the song travels through the hull into Hanne's body. Her heart stops.

Hanne wakes on the ship's deck in brilliant light. Looking down, she sees her own body sewn into sailcloth. She runs to Johanne, calls her name, but her mother looks straight through her. The sailors tip the shroud into the sea. No one can see or hear her. She is dead, yet she remains. Thea recovers and learns Hanne has died. Hanne watches her family grieve, then climbs the rigging during a storm and screams into the wind, exulting in the fact that the sea cannot drown her. She decides she is done with dying.

The Kristi reaches South Australia. The congregation treks inland to a fertile valley in the Adelaide Hills, which Heinrich names Heiligendorf. The settlers clear land, plant wheat, and build homes. The Peramangk, the Aboriginal people of the region, teach them to find native foods. Hanne discovers she can merge with trees, experiencing their sap and growth, but each tree she inhabits dies afterward.

Hans Pasche, the eldest son of Elder Christian Pasche, courts Thea and frames his proposal as protection: His father's status would shield the Eichenwalds from Magdalena's ongoing accusations of witchcraft. Thea accepts, then wades fully clothed into the waterhole and sobs. At the wedding, Hanne kneels before Thea and whispers verses from the Song of Solomon. Devastated, she flees into the bush for years. During her wandering, she encounters two men in a forest cabin who kiss and hold each other, and she recognizes her own love reflected in theirs.

Years later, Hanne hears Thea calling her name and reciting Latin words from the Book of Moses to summon the dead. She follows the sound back to Heiligendorf and finds Thea in a cottage beyond the village, bending over the open book and weeping. Thea speaks her name, and Hanne wraps her arms around her. Hans wakes and briefly sees Hanne. Starved for the touch and presence of life, Hanne slips into Hans's body, and together they make love to Thea, who calls Hanne's name. Hans falls gravely ill afterward, but Thea heals him using the Book of Moses. When he recovers, Thea confesses that she loved Hanne and still loves her. Hans listens without anger. Thea becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son, Johann.

Christiana Radtke, a village woman who has long distrusted Anna Maria, visits the cottage, discovers the Book of Moses behind loose chimney bricks, and throws it into the fire. The book smolders, filling the room with toxic smoke. Thea carries Johann outside to fetch kindling, and a brown snake strikes her hand. She stumbles back inside and collapses. Hanne lies beside her as Thea whispers reassurances to the baby until she can no longer form words. She dies in Hanne's arms.

Hanne has been telling her story from the ridge for three days. She watches the church bell toll 27 times, once for each year of Thea's life, then descends to the cemetery. After the mourners leave, she stands alone at the grave. A voice tells her that her voice is a gift. Hanne turns, and Thea is there, radiant, her hands on Hanne's face. They kneel together in the light. In the novel's closing lines, Hanne addresses whoever might hear, promising that the song is endless and that they will wait.