Smoke from the bottlenecked kilns clung along the rooflines of the tenements in Burslem. Through this grayed light, Meg's father pulled her by the wrist down cobbled alleyways, past the towering kilns, to the worker's entrance of Clews' Pottery.

"Stay by the doorway, Meg," he said, and staggered off to find the master of the works.

For a moment Meg stood motionless and watched as boys carried racks of pottery into the hot mouths of the kilns. But then she heard the soft suck of the clay and the whir of the potter's wheel and they were voices she could not resist.

Meg crept into the potworks, and wove between the stacks of crocks and crates until she was close enough to see each movement of the woman seated at the potter's wheel.

The woman's long skirt was pulled above her knees, her leather apron dark and damp. Her foot kicked the wheel, the turntable spun, and, as if by magic, the clay rose between her hands.

The woman glanced up from her work, her eyes boring into Meg's. "Seems no more than a lump of earth, but listen to Hattie: working the clay will either kill you young or steal everything that's live about you."

Trembling, Meg stared at the slick clay. She understood fear; it was something that came without warning, in the form of a flat hand when her father was into the whiskey or her mother was tired. But until now, words alone had never been enough to make her quake.

Before Meg could even catch her breath, she heard her father's voice rise. "If you don't have need for her, there are plenty of potters in Burslem wanting a healthy girl."

"She is not old enough to indenture. Take her home." There was calm authority in the way the master spoke.

Meg turned from the whirling clay and peeked at him.

His eyes touched her body and a smile tweaked his lips.

Meg looked down. She knew the master had no intention of letting her leave.

One afternoon, when Meg was eleven years old, Hattie Savage hung herself.

Meg watched in silence as two of the laborers cut Hattie down, wrapped her in a length of canvas and lugged her into the hallway.

The next morning, Meg put on Hattie's apron. Her thin legs were barely long enough to kick the wheel, but she had to try.

From the hall came the voices of the foreman and the master of the works, Mr. Clews. Sweat formed across Meg's shoulders as their footsteps stopped at the throwing-room door. She didn't look up. Clay, be kind to me--I'll make you beautiful, she prayed as she kicked, her hands steadily forming a simple crock.

The foreman cleared his throat. "Sorry Meg, you'd best set your sights a little lower."

She cut the crock free and started another. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mr. Clews. "She looks good there. It is easier to replace a laborer than an apprentice. Go ahead, Meg, show us."

Meg closed her eyes--her heart, beat for beat shadowing the rhythm of the wheel, the clay, warm and moist, moving beneath her touch. And while she worked, dreams came to her: dreams that pulled her far from Burslem, dreams that she kept in silence, but that became more solid with every passing year.

One evening, Meg opened her eyes and found that she was twenty-one: a journeyman potter sitting in Bull's Head Tavern. She rarely came here, preferring to stash her coin. But tonight was Guy Fawkes' Night and Mr. Clews was paying, so she had come.

And she got drunk.

At first, she listened quietly as the men swapped stories about which pottery offered the best bonuses, bragged on new glazes and talked about the strength of the American market. Suddenly the hidden seed of Meg's dream sprouted into words. "I'm going to sell my cottage, go to America and buy a potworks. In five years I'll sell twice what the Clews' Pottery does."

The brag came from her so loud and with such conviction that none of the men laughed--not even Mr. Clews. His eyes caught hers and knew she had no choice, now, but to leave Burslem, and soon.

Meg stabbed her shovel into the bank of wet clay and looked up at her workshop. It was only a stone's throw away, a short distance for her pony to haul the loaded cart. But with the wheels stuck tight, that distance might as well have been miles.

As she let out her breath and pushed her hair out of her face, her eyes followed the shafts of sunlight to where they struck the low eaves of her workshop and shivered along the tall chimney of the small brick kiln.

The man who had sold her the potworks last spring had not lied; the workshop and cabin were rustic, the kiln just adequate, and the pottery's clients only a scattering of villagers and Irish farmers. But it had cost no more than her worker's cottage in Burslem, it had a clay bank that would last for years, a good-size stream, and was located on a post road. It had potential.

But none of that mattered right now. She was so exhausted she didn't want to think about whether her investment had been wise, or how, only six months into her venture, she was already so strapped for coin that she couldn't afford to hire a boy to mine the clay or cut firewood for the winter.

Taking off her boots and stockings, she slid down the steep bank to the clay shelf that overhung the stream. She sat, letting her legs dangle in the knee-deep water. She'd rest for a minute, then go back up and unharness the pony. Tomorrow she'd unload the clay, pry the cart free and then, once the cart was up on bony ground, she'd use a shovel and wheelbarrow to reload it.

Her hands tore a clump of red clay from the bank beside her. She shut her eyes, feeling the suppleness. As if in a dream, she let her fingers form what they wanted to ... a body, a head, pudgy arms and legs. Opening her eyes she smiled at the clay baby that rested in her hands. She pinched eyes, a nose and a mouth.

In that moment, with the heavy heat of the afternoon and the light glittering topaz on the reddened water, Meg lost her sense of here and now, and her mind was drawn into strange thoughts: did the clay love her for forming it into shapes it could not take on its own? Or, somehow, did the clay tell her what shape it wanted to become? Or was it the clay that was forming her into what it desired?

Meg cradled the clay baby and touched its face with her finger. It seemed quite possible that below the skin of clay the baby was real.

Rising, she slid off the bank and waded into the stream. She needed to wash the baby free, to baptize it in the water--that would make the flesh real.

Meg submerged the baby.

It dissolved in her hands, fluttering as silt to the bottom of the river, disappearing into the leaves and mud.

Meg stared at her empty hands. Then suddenly she noticed that the clay streambed was sucking at her feet, trembling as if it was giving way...

She pulled her feet free of the muck, and pushed through the water, away from the clay to the middle of the river where the stream was waist-deep and gravel rolled under her toes. Splashing water on her face and arms, she tried to wash them clean of the red clay.

Holding her breath, she went under. She could hear the clay breathing: sucking, bubbling, gurgling.

Suddenly muffled reports boomed though the water. Meg came up, gasping air.

All around her pied horses bucked and tossed in the stream. Dazed for a moment, she thought she was dreaming until she heard a man's voice.

"Saw you up on the bank, but I didn't notice you come down to the stream." The brogue was so heavy she could barely make out what he was saying: French-Canadian and something else--a gypsy peddler.

She spun around looking for the man the voice had come from.

He was crouched down on the far bank, his black hair hanging loose, his dark eyes studying her. He clicked his tongue and the horses splashed toward him. He snapped his crop and they moved up the bank behind him to where she could now see an enclosed wagon had camped. A gypsy for sure, and that meant that others were near by.

Meg faced him, her shoulders squared.

His smile broadened and it occurred to her how she must look: her chemise clinging wet, her pale skin burnt red from digging clay, hair like a mad woman. She folded her arms across her breasts.

Gold rings flashed on his fingers as he slipped his crop into his hip-pocket. He stood and started into the water, toward her.

"There's no call for you to come closer." She moved backward, feeling the water growing shallower and the gravel under her feet turning to sucking clay. She didn't want to back any further.

"Don't look so worried. I'm not out to rape you. My name's Lanni Gry. I'll bet you supper my horses can pull that cart loose."

It didn't seem wise to have anything to do with a gypsy. But she was exhausted and as sore as her back and arms were now, they'd be worse tomorrow. The thought of not having to unload and reload the clay pushed prudence aside. Besides, she couldn't see any other wagons or tents, and a lone gypsy could not be worse than a pottery full of workmen.

Meg looked him in the eye. "Try if you want, but don't be expecting anything fancy to eat if you win your bet." She waded quickly away and, with her skirt clutched in her hand, started to climb the slippery bank to where her cart was stuck.

But Lanni mounted the bank faster than she did. Reaching down, he took hold of her forearm and elbow. In one yank he brought her up the bank and close to him.

He smelled like wintergreen.