Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
He kisses her forehead and then moves into position, doing as I instruct.
“We’re waiting for the next contraction.” I get braced with my own hands. “I’m going to tell you what to do, and you must put all your effort into it. You will not hurt her, I promise you. But this is the time to get the baby out, and we will work together. On my command.”
I look at Lena’s long, dark braid, focusing on the curl at the end. I don’t trust myself in the moment to stay away from her eyes and I can’t know that this isn’t going to work.
Because I cannot bring her or the bairn back.
Not here. Not at the Outpost.
Having already been chased out of my village, it’s simply too dangerous with these strangers. The ban on magic most certainly extends to the Badlands, and I can’t think of a place to escape to if I have to leave here.
“Lena, I need you to push,” I tell her, even as I worry she can’t hear me. “I know—I know you’re tired, but we’re going to help you. When the next contraction comes, you’re going to push as hard as you can, every bit of you goes into it. Can you do that? For your baby?”
Abruptly, she seems to focus, as if the word unlocked something within her.
“Yes,” I continue, “for the bairn. Take a deep breath with me—that’s it. That’s right. You’re going to do this. You are going to—”
Just then, her womb contracts, and I feel her body tense.
“Now. Push, you must push the baby out—” I look at her husband’s hands. “Ronl, push with her. All your weight, all your strength. Drive it in and down. Push the baby out of her. Push. If you want them to live—push!”
He does, bearing into his palms, arching his shoulders into the effort. And Lena does the same, her legs shaking, an animal sound roiling up and out of her.
The baby’s position moves.
Closing my eyes so I can concentrate, I join the effort as well, but I am going in, not out. More of my fingertips make contact with the tiny skull, and I know what has happened. The baby is not face down. It’s oriented to the side. So the shoulders are not passing through the wide part of the hips, but rather they are stuck on the pelvic bone.
“Harder!” I have to yell over Lena’s growling. “Harder—”
The woman lets out a horrible scream, but it’s not about pain. It’s anger. It’s a warrior’s howl of fight.
“That’s it, that’s what we need!”
Another round of growling from her starts up, low at first, growing in volume. And then she screams again as her husband abruptly repositions himself, straightens his arms, and tilts all of his body weight into the downward thrust of his palms.
And then nothing happens.
No matter the effort we all do, no matter the woman’s heroic straining or her husband’s determined force, the baby stays where it is. Even as a fresh wash of blood hits my hands, and I begin to shake from the force I am putting into trying to grab on to the slick head, nothing seems to help—
The infant explodes out of the blockage with such velocity that its warm, slippery little body skates up my arms. I catch it in time, and immediately drag some of the sheets over to cover the tiny thing.
There is no cry. There is only floppy limbs and a still body.
I am not gentle. I rub the sheeting over the fresh skin with vigor.
“My baby…” Lena says weakly, her head lolling to the side.
“What is wrong?” the husband begs. As if he’s confusing the question with a prayer. Or maybe for him, it’s both.
“My baby, my—”
The piercing cry of the bairn is so loud, my ears ring, and yet never, ever, have I heard such a beautiful sound in all my years.
Life has won. Death has lost. And neither were my doing.
Instantly, the gray flesh becomes flush with a pink, healthy glow.
Tears come to my eyes as I turn to the woman and her husband, and lay the gift upon her breast.
“Here she is,” I choke out. “Here … is your daughter.”
Forty-Four
Sunshine at Night.
As I watch Ronl and Lena marvel at what they created together, and what she brought into the world with his help, I fall back and catch my breath. When I go to wipe a strand of hair out of my face, I catch sight of the blood on my hands and glance down. The afterbirth has been passed—but the bleeding is like a faucet running out of her.
We are not finished, and we still have no time.
After I quickly cut the cord with the knife by the basin, I scramble off the bed, and plunge my hands back into the basin. When the husband looks up with grateful tears, I hold my palm out to stop the emotion so clearly welling within him.