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That, and the squeak of rusty hinges as the door opened, letting in a whiff of heavy smoke from the street. A monotone cadence of mumbles resonated outside. The priests, probably, calling for villagers to take up arms beside Hemdale’s groanpit.
“What’s this?” William pushed the door shut, the brim of his black felt hat barely hiding the anger glinting in his eyes. “What’s she doing here?”
Since Sarah screamed through yet another contraction, I answered in her stead, “Getting this child out.”
“I don’t want you near my wife.” He hurried over to Sarah, kneeled, and took her shaky hands into his. “It’s bad enough you got my brother killed over that curse of yours.”
I flinched. “She sent the neighbor over to my house, asking for me to come.”
“And I’m asking for you to leave, unwoman.”
Unwoman.
Stabbing pain grew in my chest until the laces of my dress strapped my lungs tight. Barren, punished by Helfa himself, blighted with a twisted womb… Of all the things some people called me, unwoman was the worst—and the truest. What else would you call a woman incapable of giving her husband a son?
A child was a blessing from Helfa.
I’d never even managed a daughter.
Clearly, I was cursed.
I blinked the stinging burn from my eyes and rose, feigning as much pride as my rounded spine would allow. “You want me gone? Serves me just fine.”
My mule already stood harnessed in the stables in case I needed the old, stubborn thing to pull the cart onto John’s grave. But what good was this precaution if I wouldn’t get there before the rain made certain the wheels got stuck? None.
Sarah screamed as the baby’s shoulder dislodged. A gush of amniotic fluid soaked the dirt beneath my feet, splattering the hem of my dress, thickening the air with moisture.
I quickly bent over and caught the child, then whispered, “Please don’t scream.”
The boy arched his back, his limbs slippery, his skin coated in a white wax. Little eyes blinked up at me—blue like mine—taking in their surroundings ever so curiously. Warmth swelled in my core with how his mouth rooted toward my chest as if… as if he were mine.
I extinguished it with a deep inhale. Because he was not mine, and no child ever would be. “It’s a boy.”
Grave silence settled into the room.
Sarah dug her face into the mattress, shaking her head until the straw crunched beneath the motion. Her haunches sunk to the ground, letting the umbilical cord drag over the dirt.
William frowned at the child, relief and terror letting the corners of his mouth hike and fall. “Is he… alive?”
My mouth turned dry.
Was he?
The longer William stared at me and Sarah remained utterly still, both waiting for an answer, the more the air cooled around me. As a midwife, I’d watched my fair share of mothers cradle their still baby. Watching them rock their crying baby on a full moon, only to find it cold and still the next morning. What curse could be more evil?
Cradling the boy in one arm, I grabbed a knitted blanket from a stool beside the bed and draped it over him. He might not need the warmth, but I would damn well provide it until we could be certain. A first scream built at the back of his throat, like a wet gargle from the remaining fluids in his lungs, running a shiver up my spine.
It meant nothing.
All babies cried.
“Can’t say until the morning.” Neither did I want to. “Pray that he’ll want to nurse, but… prepare yourself for the fact that the dead have no hunger.”
William rose, lifting his arms as if to take his son, only for them to drop by his sides again. “But he… he’s trying to wail.”
Wail. Wander.
Corpses did it all during a full moon, ever so restless in their pursuit of reaching the Graying Tower in the south, only to cry when it denied them entry. It called to them like a cruel siren, the stony castle surrounded by piles of corpses, where the devil responsible for our plight lived. Evil in flesh, the priests called him, an unearthly creature from a wayward realm.
