Nicolette has learned all the lessons her mother, taught. Some of them too well.
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She found rhubarb and added it to her basket. Mother called rhubarb poor man’s strawberry for the sweetness of its stalks. During the war, people boiled the leaves as a substitute for spinach or collards. Many deaths followed the ingestion of the poisonous leaves of poor man’s strawberries.
Nicolette hurried. Anna Marie couldn’t handle the twins for long, and father’s gout was, by now, unbearable. Overnight, his elbow had swelled to the size of a melon. She could only imagine his pain; her own heartaches, in comparison, were minor.
As deafness, illness, and demonic forces close in around him, Ludwig van Beethoven must summon his faith and genius to complete the Missa Solemnis—a sacred masterpiece he believes could bring divine light into a darkening world.
