Collette ducked her head. “Thank you,” she replied softly.
A mild breeze blew through the memoryscape, and baby Celestial giggled as she splashed after a fish. Darling kissed the top of Collette’s head before continuing with her story, directing her words at Galilee.“Celestial and I were foraging for ingredients,” she explained. “A recipe Peony thought might help. We had tried everything.”
Darling looked down the creek just as her younger self straightened up to turn in the same direction.
“And thenshecame.”
The air in the remembered woods changed, became hot and frantic. Humidity dragged its tongue over Darling’s skin, both then and now, as the creek waters rose and churned. In the memory, Darling grabbed Celestial and held her to her chest as she stared at the unknown woman who had waded into view, water frothing around her thighs. She was dressed in a bloodstained shift, and she held a naked baby in her arms. The infant was utterly drenched in blood, with a severed gray umbilical cord tied off and swinging over the woman’s arms. The woman’s eyes were wild. Her dark hair was wet and clung to her hollow cheeks, and the creek battered water at her legs, as if it was trying to drown her.
Galilee gasped at the memoryscape, and beside her, the Devil’s eyes narrowed. “She wasn’t human,” he said to Darling.
“Ah, you can tell that?” Darling tilted her head at the scene: the heaving stranger, her younger self, Celestial’s wide and unafraid eyes. “I just thought she was a witch, the way the waters sought her out.”
“Is that me?” Galilee was staring at the blood-drenched infant in shock. “I was... that new?”
“You were all I was afraid for,” Darling replied.
In the memory, she gently set Celestial down on a large rock and reached her arms out to the woman.
“Come here, child,” the younger Darling said. “Let’s get you out of the water before that baby catches her death of cold.”
The woman laughed jaggedly. “Wouldn’t it be funny,” she rasped, “if it was the water that killed her?” She held the baby tightly to her chest, smearing more blood on the shift. “She’ll never be safe with me, you know.”
Collette was watching the memory with a storm of emotions crossingher face. “I’ve never seen this,” she murmured. “I never knew this was what she was like.”
“She sounded mad,” Darling replied, “but that was nothing strange in a new mother.”
“Did she give you her name?” the Devil asked, and Darling shook her head.
The woman in the woods looked down at the baby’s face. “Maybe I made a mistake,” she whispered. “Maybe there is no coming back from this.” Her gaze wandered down to the water, and her hold on the child slackened, the baby’s body stuttering in her arms.
“No!” younger Darling cried out, taking a step forward. “Give her to me, not to the water. She’s too small to survive it.”
The woman looked up at Darling. “I know,” she said flatly. “And yet, she is like me, unnatural.”
“That’s fine. I know unnatural children. I’ve raised them. Give her to me and she’ll be safe.”
“Ah,” the woman crooned, as the creek kept churning around her. “But will you?”
“I’ll take my chances.”
The woman seemed to be thinking, and Darling stepped closer in the memory.
“We don’t ask about fathers here,” she said. “We keep the girls safe.”
A strong feeling flashed through the woman’s face. “The child isn’t human,” she said. “It’s in her blood.”
“It’s of no matter. She’ll be loved anyway.”
In the garden, Darling watched her younger self bargain for Galilee’s life. “We knew from the beginning, you see,” she admitted. “You were conceived and birthed beyond humans. I thought she was running away from your father.”
“You saw what she wanted you to see,” Celestial said softly. “A desperate woman with a baby in her arms.”
Darling glanced at Celestial, the creek’s witness and guardian. “And what did you see?”
Celestial gazed at the memoryscape, not that she needed it. She could always remember every detail of her past, no matter how young she’d been.
“The lady wasn’t afraid. She was... exhilarated. The branches had torn at her hair and at her shift, and she didn’t care. She didn’t have a scratch on her skin. The creek got so cold.” She looked at Galilee. “She held you like a prize in her arms, cousin.”
