
The corpses we’d collected over the last month already resonated Hemdale with their ragged wheezes. Dead babes scream inconsolably, they reported, wailing in the same way the other corpses groan in the groanpits. Was it dying? Already dead? I’d only ever delivered four babies during the full moon-all alive the next morning-but I’d heard from other midwives who hadn’t been so lucky. The scalp had already turned more purple beneath the white film crowning its head. “Instead of weighing down my husband’s grave as I’msupposed to, I came here when you asked for my help.” “To keep it in… not to get it out!” A fool’s idea, risking both mother and child. How many hours ’til morning?” “Too many to escape this fate.” Everyone dreaded the full moon, but none more than women cursed to birth a child on such a night. “Ada, I can’t bear the thought of not knowing if it’s dead or truly alive. “This child is coming, whether you want it or not.” Ransacked by trembles, Sarah’s voice faded into a whimper against the straw. No trickles running down her thighs, skin puffy-red and swollen, a thatch of dark hair crowning between her legs with no progress… By Helfa, had she shoved at the head all evening just to keep the baby in? “No more stalling.” I stroked Sarah’s back through her sweat-soaked chemise, gathering the fabric higher while my other hand prodded her legs wider. “I can hold it in ’til the morning.” Brushing blonde wisps from my forehead, I kneeled on the pounded dirt floor for a better look.

Not yet!” Sarah squatted at the edge of her bed, tears running down her red-veined cheeks, and dug her fingers into the straw mattress.


But my John as one of them…? Trudging across the village square with his skull exposed where he’d hit the rock two summers back, waterlogged skin swollen against his leather breeches? No, I would make bloody certain he stayed inthe ground. “You better start pushing now or my husband will dig out of his grave.” As would the other corpses with the ground this soaked and soft. The dead are restless.” I glanced out the rain-blurred window toward the cemetery, the air inside the house thick with sweat and the sweetness of amniotic fluid.
