Claudia, who had delivered countless young, was perfectly poised as she came to her mistress’s side. “It will most likely be awhile yet,” she said, leading Libbie to the room they had prepared for her to give birth in when the time came. None of them could have known, though, how that time would reach and stretch — until it had taken up near two days and consumed all their hopes and fears — before putting them down to rest again.
Libbie sweated through the night, cursing all she could think of, and all who crossed her path, so unbearable was her torment and tribulation. Caleum had decamped to Stonehouses for the duration of the labor, and Adelia had in turn gone over to the new building to aid with the birth and comforting of the mother.
At Stonehouses Magnus sat up with Caleum until late in the evening, speaking of how long it had been since there were children on the land. Magnus next told stories of what Caleum was like as a boy and laid wager as to what the new arrival’s character would be like. They also noted things, such as who was tallest in the family and who was strongest, and bet about the child’s height and strength. When the two men went to sleep that night, each abundantly happy at the prospect of the new birth, both were certain the ordeal would be over before they awoke.
In the morning one of the women who worked on the place told them the women were still at the new building and the baby had not yet come into the world. Magnus and Caleum took the news in stride, as they went to work inspecting the fields, thinking they would be summoned before midday.
They came home that noon unbidden, as they had yet to receive word about the delivery and were grown anxious from this lack of news. In their concern they decided to go over to the other house to see what the matter was, even if it was not their place to do so.
When they arrived they were told nothing was wrong; it was only proving an extraordinarily long labor, and they should perhaps better return to the other place. Libbie, flush-faced and exhausted, was in the throes of the greatest pain, and when Caleum peeked into the room where she was, he could see this, and became filled with apprehension. “You are very brave,” he said to her.
When she saw his doting face, Libbie cursed him for being there and added further obscenities, ending with, “It was an evil hour I met thee.”
At nine o’clock that evening her torment finally ceased. The child who was so long in coming into the world decided at last to join it, and Caleum was called back to the birthing house. When Claudia came to summon him, though, instead of joy he felt a passing second of dread, like a fast-moving cloud that plunged him temporarily into shadow. He found himself hoping nothing was the matter with his wife, but, as he walked through the crowd of women in his house and approached the room where his wife was, he heard a loud, wailing cry that filled him with sadness and hope.
Caleum’s fears all left him then and he was overjoyed, as he could not have imagined just hours earlier. When he held the child he had no sight for anything else. It was a feeling unlike any he had known, as he looked on the boy’s shriveled new face, like a bud on a vine that had yet to fully open. The child was so small Caleum could fit him in one of his outstretched hands, though he was careful not to do so for danger of dropping him.
At last he turned to Libbie and stroked her face as she recovered from the long labor. “How are you feeling?” he asked, looking at her where she rested.
He could tell how much her ordeal had taken from her, but her dread at least had lifted and she was no longer afraid. Too tired to speak, she merely smiled at her husband.
As they gazed at the child together, what sprang first to Caleum’s mind was that, coming so close after Merian’s death, the boy must somehow be blessed by the departed. To honor the connection, he suggested they name him accordingly.
Libbie nodded in assent when he told her. “I think Jasper is fitting. But I also had in mind John.”
“That is also a good name.” Caleum negotiated, wanting to give her what she wanted. “We can give him both.”
So they named their first child together John Jasper, and Magnus and Adelia were nearly as pleased as the parents to be made grandparents, or granduncle and grandaunt, such as it was. To give thanks, Magnus declared the next day a holiday for all of Stonehouses, so they might celebrate Libbie’s motherhood.
How long he stayed with them though, or, rather, how short a while, was soon the cause of great desolation. The child for whom it had been so difficult to gain life only held on to it until the end of his first week, when they found him dead atop his mother’s breast.
“He seemed perfectly healthy,” Adelia said with despair, coming over from the other house after she learned the boy had passed away, “but God strikes and snatches what He will.”
“It is true,” Claudia agreed, as she tried to coax the child from its mother’s arms. “And for all His own reasons He did not give the boy this day as He did the ones before it.” She had seen so many little ones whisked back away in her work, she knew whereof she spoke.
Libbie, though, shunned Claudia’s hands, refusing to let go or relinquish the boy’s lifeless body. She went on holding her baby in her arms the rest of that day.
Caleum had the opposite response. Pretending a coarseness that had known greater suffering than was in his history, he refused to look on the corpse at all, saying there was no reason to glance back.
He sent word over to the carpenter to come make a box for the body and instructed one of the overseers to dig a grave in the far valley, which was their graveyard at Stonehouses.
So its ranks swelled, from two who were very old — and one very old for its kind — to three, and their average age fell considerably.
Everyone was pained to witness such misfortune befall a couple so young, but Magnus, in his grief, thought it to be more than just bad luck. “Somebody cursed us,” he said, speaking roughly. “I seen it among the slaves in Virginia. Somebody is trying to punish Stonehouses.”
In his mind no one was above suspicion, and he soon began to sow his dark fears all around, so that everyone began to regard the others nearby with distrust. Each listed the possible culprits in his head, and, though no one had real grievance, any could have been envious of them at Stonehouses.
Understanding he would never sort out one person, but that ultimately nothing less than their future safety depended on acting swiftly, Magnus did something very rash immediately after the funeral.
On the other side of the valley was a slave called Sam Day — who was married to Effie, a free woman who worked as a maid in the barns of Stonehouses — and who was rumored to be very powerful with roots and the like. He served not only the other slaves but, through intermediaries, much of the free population as well — either when something happened that the doctor could not cure or when they were taken with superstition because of something no one could explain and turned to him. When the child died, although it was not uncommon for such to happen, it was him Magnus sent for in his grief.
When Sam heard from Magnus’s messenger what had happened at Stonehouses, he sent word back, first with questions and finally with the prognosis that the new house had not been properly blessed when they built it. It was easy enough to remedy, he said, but the ritual must be performed by him in person.
“Well, where is he?” Magnus asked the boy he had sent on the errand.
“They don’t allow him to leave his master’s place,” the boy answered.
Desperate, Magnus resolved to find a solution. The next day he left Stonehouses early in the morning, saying only that he had business beyond its gates. Where he went then was to see Sam Day’s master, a man named Michael Smith.