Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 66697 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66697 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH
“That’s your baby,” Dr. Sim said, smiling.
She pointed to a fist curled tight and little feet kicking out. “See that flutter? That’s the heart.”
Antonio’s eyes never left the screen. I watched his face do things I’d never seen it do before, watched his jaw go slack and his eyes go wide and his hand tighten around mine. I think he clung to me harder than I clung to him. He looked at that grainy gray screen like it held the answer to a question he’d been asking his whole life.
“It’s a girl. Right?” Tonio swallowed. We both had started talking in terms of the child being a girl, but this was the first time we’d been able to do more than have Nadine check what she called fetal heart tones. This scan would be a good baseline and might tell us the gender, if we were lucky.
“Mmm…” was the doctor’s only comment as she continued to work. The pleasant, friendly smile never left her face as she moved the probe around my lower stomach. Then the image shifted. This one had the child turned upside down. The doctor’s smile widened.
“Uh…” Tonio’s eyes narrowed and he leaned forward. Squinting. “Why did she turn around?”
“He didn’t move. I did. So you could meet his sister. Congratulations.”
Tonio barked out a laugh. Two tears tracked from his eyes but he didn’t seem to notice. He laughed again, wet and rough, and brought my knuckles up to his mouth and kissed them hard, then he opened my palm and cradled his face with my hand. Then he leaned down and kissed my lips in a long, loving, lingering kiss. Tears tracked freely down both his cheeks into his short beard.
“Now. You’ll never know how much I appreciate all the state-of-the-art equipment and the office renovation and the rushed completion of the new Labor and Delivery house I’ve long wanted.” She beamed at him, while adding with the same disarming smile, “but from now on, you let me have my staff during Miss Garrison’s visits, or I cut your balls off and you have no more babies.”
Yeah. I was gonna like Dr. Simbillo.
* * *
A few hours later
The compound smelled like charred meat, barbecue. Surprisingly, the smell didn’t bother me. In fact, I was ravenous. Darby had Carrie backed against the porch railing, both of them red-faced and laughing, neither one giving an inch on whatever the hell they were fighting about. Veda and Griffin sat on the steps sharing a beer, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her waist. Sully leaned against the garage door with a bottle in his hand, watching the whole scene with dry amusement. Hawk drifted in with Kass and Finch right behind him.
Walking hand in hand with Antonio into the main clubhouse, the laughter mirrored the joy inside as well. The common room had been transformed. Candles flickered on every surface, their light catching on glass bowls of herbs and dried flowers. More than a dozen women sat in a circle on the floor, legs crossed, hands palm-up on their knees. Nadine was there, and Pippa, and Lavender, along with half a dozen old ladies whose faces I knew, but whose names I was still learning. At the center of the circle stood Ellie -- Elvira “Ellie” Blackheart, her long black hair in intricate braids, burgundy lips curved in concentration. She held a bundle of dried sage that smoked between her fingers. The only person I didn’t see was Tillie. I’d only met her once and she had a young child so maybe she was otherwise occupied.
As Antonio and I stopped at the threshold, Ellie’s voice rose and fell in a low rhythmic chant. All the women in the room swayed from side to side in their circle humming a soft monotone to go with Ellie’s chanting.
By moonlit root and river’s breath
Let barren earth awaken beneath.
Seed and womb, by warmth be stirred
Life now blooms by whispered word.
Ellie’s arms dropped. Her whole body went rigid. Her eyes flew open, wide and startled, and she clapped both hands over her own flat stomach with a gasp that sounded like she’d been gut-punched.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” she yelled, spinning to face us where we stood in the doorway. “Tessa! Why didn’t you tell me you were having twins before I did this fucking spell?”
The humming stopped. Every face in the circle turned to us. Antonio’s hand went slack in mine. I stared at Ellie.
“You’re what?” Nadine said.
Ellie threw up her hands, the sage bundle scattering ash. “Twins! There’s twins in the room and no one thought to mention it? Before I cast a fertility circle? Do you have any idea what that means?”
Carrie’s mouth was hanging open. “That means… holy shit, that means…”
“It means the spell just got amplified,” Ellie groaned. “Everyone in this room is gonna have multiples now. Everyone. I cast a fertility spell with a multiple pregnancy in the circle and the magic can’t tell the difference between one womb and another. That’s like… that’s like using a nuke to kill a gnat.”