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.

The King of Flesh and Bone.

I handed William the child, no matter his reluctance. “Cut the cord, wait for the afterbirth, keep him warm until the morning… and pray. I have to weigh John’s grave down.”

Letting my head retreat into the hood of my cloak, I stepped outside, raindrops pelting the felt in hurried thud-a-thud-thuds. The occasional grunt resonating from the groanpit mixed into it, filling my veins with a restless tingle. That thing had gotten overly full this month. Had corpses truly burned in the past?

Probably just another story…

I turned the corner of the courthouse and passed the brick archway into the cemetery. Rivulets of water trailed between the graves, glistening with the soft sheen of a full moon glowing behind clouds. Sacks of grain lined the wrought-iron pickets, though villagers had moved some onto the graves.

“All that grain would have fed me for a year,” I mumbled, heading toward the oak door which leaned against the fence.

I gripped the edge, dug my heels into the soggy earth, and… Devil be damned, this thing was heavy. The door dragged slowly, corners ripping bushels of sod from the ground. Sweat formed at the nape of my neck and muscles soon ached. Just a little more…

The door hit the ground with a slosh, burying my planted violets underneath the incessant drum of rain on wood. A sound loud enough it quenched what had now turned into a chorus of groans from the pit, but by Helfa, it did nothing to muffle Pa’s protest.

“Drenched to the bone, but she has to weigh the damn grave down.” He wrapped gout-gnarled fingers around a sack of grains, his graying hair pasted to his skull, cursing the weather as he dragged it onto the door. “You can’t hold him forever, Ada.”

“Twenty-three months and counting,” I said, my cheeks tingly from the cold dampness. “Twenty-four if you help me put the mule before the cart. Ground’s too soaked to keep him from digging out, so I best put the cart on the door.”

“If the wheels get stuck, we won’t get the cart back to the stable ’til spring.”

“If John gets out, I’ll have to chase him, bind him, and still get the cart to drag him back to his grave,” I said, my eyes going to Pa’s crooked digits as they fumbled with his red-smudged handkerchief. Had he coughed blood again? “The wheels will get stuck no matter what. Preferably atop my husband.”

He quickly pushed his handkerchief into his leather vest pocket when he caught my eyes on the stained fabric. “Your eyes are red, the tip of your nose shiny. You’ve been crying.”

Just almost. “Sarah had a son.”

“Dead or alive?” When I shrugged, he slowly shook his head. “William paid a coin for your help?”

“No, but I bet he would have paid a coin for me to leave. Too bad I was in a rush.”

“Wretched man,” he grumbled. “You’re too good, and that’s not a compliment. Always taking on the problems of others. Always weighing down the grave of a man long cold.”

“A person’s only worth as much as his promise,” I recited Pa’s words like the prayer they’d been all my childhood. “I disappointed John in life, but I won’t fail him in death.”

Five winters ago, I’d sworn an oath inside the Tarwood Chapel, promising John the obedience of a woman, the fruitfulness of a mother, and the dutifulness of a wife.

Three promises given.

Two promises broken.

The third, I’d keep.

Pa tilted his head and frowned at me before he let his steps splish-splash over the flooding ground. “As stubborn as your mother.”

We rounded the western corner where the bathhouse stood whitewashed and proud. Beside the building, two of the Fletcher boys squatted at the edge of the groanpit—nothing but a deep hole in the ground, reinforced by palisades lining the dirt edges.

Boar spear in hand, Gregory, the oldest, reached out and poked a corpse’s head.

The dead man groaned.

The deep vibration, the desperation, the agony in its undertone—like a whooping cough rattling through a throat lined with weeping pox—put a sour tang in my gums. The corpse dragged fingers worn down to the knuckles over the sleek wood, which kept him from climbing.

Gregory thrust the spear into the man’s belly. The wings carved a large enough hole that purple guts poured out, ripping a violent hiss from the dead man. Corpses usually didn’t bother us unless provoked… but then they might maul you to pieces.

A nearby priest cut the boy a glare. “Do not disturb the dead.”

“Nothing but a stranger,” Gregory said with a shrug. “Never seen the man’s face around here. I’m not poking anything that keeps him from wandering once you open the pit. If anything, the dead disturb us.”