Page 58 of The Year of the Witching

THE SERVANTS TRANSPORTEDLeah to another room, lifting her onto a wide oak table that looked like a wooden altar. Immanuelle stood at Leah’s shoulders, whispering stories into her ear as she had done for Honor and Glory.

“It’s going to be okay,” Immanuelle cooed, pulling a damp strand of hair behind the shell of her ear.

To this, Leah said nothing. She was gone now, lost to the stupor of the poppy tincture, which Martha had administered minutes before. Her bruised belly pulsed in a series of violent contractions, but she was so sedated she scarcely registered the pain.

“Get her out,” she slurred. “Just get her out of me. She can’t breathe. I can’t breathe with her in there.”

Martha entered from the hall, her hands still damp with the spirits she washed with. Her eyes met Immanuelle’s as she neared the table, scalpel in hand. “Hold her down, if it’s the last thing you do.”

Immanuelle nodded, bracing her hands on either side of Leah’s shoulders.

“This will hurt,” Martha said, gazing down at the girl, though Immanuelle wasn’t sure that Leah—drugged and drunk off the fever of the blight—was even capable of hearing her, “and it will hurt terribly, maybe worse than anything you’ve felt before. But you must be still and strong for your daughter, or she’ll die.”

Leah’s head rolled to the side. “Get her out. Just get her out of me.”

Martha lowered the scalpel to her hip, just beneath the bulge of the baby. She cut deep and steady, Leah wailing through gritted teeth as she worked the blade.

When she reared and struggled, Immanuelle threw her weight against her shoulders, forcing her down to the table. Opposite her, Esther pinned her legs and a few of the other girls broke forward, grabbing her arms to hold her fast.

All the while, Martha worked with stoic efficiency—hands and forearms bloodied, cheeks glistening with sweat. Immanuelle wanted to close her eyes and plug her ears, shield herself from the screams that rang through the room, but all she could do was watch as the midwife carved the wound wider and wider until it yawned open like a bloody grin.

Leah keened.“Get her out of me!”

Baring her teeth, Martha dragged the baby through the wound and into the warm light of the hearth, the slick rope of her umbilical cord slithering after her like a viper.

Leah collapsed to the table, spent, and Immanuelle moved from behind her to Martha, who stood cradling the child, eyes wide, mouth agape.

“She has no name,” Martha whispered, hands shuddering around the child’s head so violently Immanuelle feared she’d drop her. “She has no name.”

Heart pounding in her throat, Immanuelle peered over the folds of the swaddling blanket. The child was small and pink, and her eyes were wide, irises a brilliant blue. She looked like a normal, healthy baby, except for the small cleft that dimpled her upper lip. Immanuelle extended a hand, and the baby grasped her by the finger, cooing a little as she peered up at her.

Leah groaned, fresh tears rolling down her cheeks. The dark puddle between her legs stretched wider and wider.

“No,” Immanuelle whispered. “She’s not dead. She’s breathing. She’s all right.”

Martha started to shove the child into Hagar’s arms, but sherefused it, cane striking the floorboards as she backed against the wall. “It’s cursed.”

“I’ll hold her,” said Immanuelle, stepping forward to take the child. She cradled the nameless girl against her chest, shielding her from the wandering gazes of the Haven girls and servants who gathered to gawk.

Across the room, Martha worked fervently at the table, her hands shaking as she pierced the needle through Leah’s wound, struggling to suture it, to stop the blood from flowing.

“Don’t let her see,” Esther mouthed from across the room, dabbing Leah’s forehead with a cold compress.

So Immanuelle kept her distance, holding that child to her chest in the shadows by the hearth, trying in vain to soothe her. It was only when Hagar, leaning on her cane, whispered, “Ashes to ashes,” that she raised her gaze to the table again, and saw Leah sprawled—limp and breathless—her glazed eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Immanuelle clutched the child closer. “No. She’s not, is she...?”

“Dead.” The word rattled through the room as Martha drew away from the table. She raised her eyes to Immanuelle, and tears moved down her cheeks. “She’s dead.”

Immanuelle didn’t remember who took the child from her arms. She didn’t remember crossing through the halls or fleeing the Haven. She only came to when a cold blast of night air struck her across the face like a slap.

All at once, she was on her knees gagging and gasping for breath, her whole body heaving like the blight raged in her too. The tears followed and great sobs racked her, snatching the breath from her lungs.

Immanuelle didn’t know how long she crouched there—weeping in the shadows—but she remembered seeing the tops ofEzra’s boots as he stepped down the stairs and catching the scent of him as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to his chest.

He held her as she cried, her face buried in the folds of his shirt, grasping at his hands as if his flesh and bones were her only tether to the world—and perhaps, in that moment, they were.

“You’ll be all right,” he murmured into her hair, again and again, like a prayer. And as he said it, she began to believe him, began to believe that whatever evil had fallen upon the land, she would survive it. After all, the curse was bred from her. She was it, and it was her. The sin and the salvation, the plague and the purgings, all bound up into one body by a bargain of blood.

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