Why isn't she crying?"
Margret asked in a shaky voice. The pale woman, sat with her back supported by pillows, and a bloodied child cradled in her weak arms. The child has been motionless for the past half hour, her small mouth refusing to wail.
Margret held the baby closer to her chest, her tear-stained face a bright shade of red. She could not have possibly birthed a dead child, she thought as her heart broke to a million pieces. She had felt her baby kick just before she went into labor, what happened to her?
"What is wrong with my baby?" she stifled a cry;
"Margret," the midwife started; "If you would just calm down,"
"Calm down?" fresh tears broke free from her steely brown eyes. "My baby isn't crying and you want me to be calm!" Margret tried rising from her bed, but the sharp pain between her legs caused her to fall back.
The midwife took the child from her weeping mother and stuck her finger in front of the baby's nostril in one swift movement. When the warm air from the baby's nose hit her frail finger, the midwife breathed out in relief. The child looked calm, her eyelids tightly shut and her small fingers curled up in a ball.
"Is she breathing?" Margret, who had been watching the elderly woman, asked. The midwife ignored her question and reached for her surgical knife which lay in a bowl of warm water. She placed the knife on the flimsy candlelight and took it out seconds later.
"What are you doing?" Margret asked, alarmed.
Her question was met with another silence.
"What are you doing?" Margret raised her voice this time.
"Calm down!" the midwife responded impatiently, before putting the baby down beside her worried mother.
Margret reached for her baby, smoothing the curly hair on her head. In two quick steps, the midwife was back to the bed, with the baby in one arm and the knife in another.
The midwife dabbed a brown handkerchief on her forehead, draining the sweat trickling down her face. She took a deep breath, before slightly lifting the child's leg, and with steady hands, she placed the hot blade against the child's exposed bum.
Margret's alarmed face was washed with relief as the child's eyes flew open, its lips folding in a frown as it began to cry, but just as she was about to carry her child, the candles, which were almost going off, burst into flames, like a flammable object had been thrown into it.
Startled, the midwife jumped back, her eyes wide in horror. There was only one explanation as to why the child could tamper with the flames. The mere thought of it sent shivers down her aged spine, but it was the truth nonetheless.
"She's a witch...," the midwife cried, pointing an accusing finger at the child.
Margret lifted her child into her arms effortlessly, "Hush now my child, hush," she said repeatedly in a singsong voice, completely ignoring the midwife. Tears garnered in her eyes as she watched the harmless baby in her arms, with deep green eyes that one could get lost in. Green eyes were a rarity. A special eye color, for a special child, she thought with her chest swelling with joy.
"Margret, she's a witch!" the midwife cried louder, but Margret ignored the words of the midwife and continued rocking her baby.
"She is a witch, an abomination, she…."
"She is special, Rosalind. She is special," Margret responded with a wide smile.
Rosalind looked at Margret like she's lost her mind. Maybe being barren for so long has made her lose her sense of reasoning.
Everyone knew the story of the barren royal physician's wife. The story of how she has visited several physicians inside and outside of Arvenia in search of a child spread like dust in the wind amongst the women at the market. Whiffs of the story could be heard in bars where the men drank to forget the nagging of their bitter wives and brag about the lush breasts of their newly acquired concubines.
For over a century now, witches have been killed, male, female, and children, either by burning or hanging. This is not news to anyone.
But here, this pale woman, with her black hair in a messy bun, clung onto a child that would spell destruction for her and her husband, like it was a pot of precious gold delivered personally by the gods.
"This child will get you and your husband killed if you do not dispose of it. We can tell the people that your child died," Rosalind tried to reason with her.
"Why must my child be killed? Because she's special? Because a few candles flared up?" Margret cried. "I went to great lengths to have this baby, did things that no one would dare to do. Now she's finally here, you want me to kill my child?"
"What did you do?" Rosalind asked, horrified.
"I will not hand my child over. Never!"
"Margret!?"
"Send for my husband, he's the royal physician," she ordered ignoring the older woman, and returned to rocking her child, who started crying again because of the noise.
Rosalind hesitated before she turned and left the room.
"I will not let anyone harm you. Mama's here," she muttered to the baby in her arms, placing gentle kisses on her forehead.
Rosalind hurried down the hallway, slightly lifting her dress with one hand and a handwritten note in the other. "You!" She called on one of the servants. The young boy trotted across to meet her.
"Hurry to the palace and give this note to the Royal physician. Tell him it is an emergency."
She put the crumbled note in the boy's hand and hurried back to Margret.
The child was fast asleep at her mother's side when the midwife returned. Margret gently stroked her back, humming a song under her breath.
"She needs a bath," Margret said to the midwife.
"So do you," Rosalind replied with concern. She felt pity for the woman. This was the worst fate that could befall a woman, especially a woman that had longed for the cry of a baby in her home.
"Margret?" Rosalind called, almost in a whisper.
The new mother looked up with a smile.
"We need to talk."
...