The inside of the truck felt as rough as the outside looked. Nor did this driver believe in seat belts. I clutched the door handle, feeling my kidneys being pummeled by every stone and hole in the road, and there were too many to count. After what felt like a whole evening but was really only about twenty minutes, we slowed and the truck’s headlights illuminated a cabin much like my father’s, and in the same state of decrepitude.
As soon as I unfolded myself painfully from the truck, I picked up on waves of searing pain and distress. My eyes widened, and I looked at the woman. What the hell was this about? Did she need a witch or a doctor? My driver came and took my arm in a deceptively strong grip and almost hauled me up the steps. I braced myself and started summoning strength, spells of power and protection, ward-evil spells.
Inside the cabin my ears were immediately assaulted by a long, howling wail of pain, as if an animal were trapped somehow. There were three other First Nation people in the lounge, and I saw another, older woman bent over the stove in the kitchen, which looked marginally better equipped than Da’s. Four sets of black eyes fastened on me as I stood there, dumbfounded, and then I cringed as the unearthly wail came again.
The woman tugged off my coat and pulled me toward a bedroom. Inside the bedroom I was confronted by something I never could have predicted: a woman in childbirth, writhing on a bed, while an elderly woman tended to her. In a flash I realized I had been brought here as a healer, to help this woman give birth.
“Oh, no,” I began lamely, as the woman screamed again. It made all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I was uncomfortably reminded of the time when Morgan had shape-shifted into a wolf.
“Vous elle aidez,” said my driver in a no-nonsense tone.
“Oh, no,” I said, trying to find my voice. “She should be in hospital.” Did anyone here understand someEnglish? I was rapidly running out of French. I glanced at the bed again and saw with dismay that, in fact, it wasn’t a woman in childbirth—it was a teenager who couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen. Morgan’s age. And she was having a hard time of it.
“Non. Vous elle aidez,” my companion said, a shade more loudly and with more tension.
“A hospital?” I said hopefully, and couldn’t help shuddering when the girl screamed again. She didn’t seem to know I was there. Her shoulder-length black hair was soaked with sweat, and she clutched her huge belly and curled up as if to get away from the pain. Tears had wet her face, so there was no dry skin left. The older woman was trying to soothe her, calm her, but the girl was hysterical and kept batting her away. The tension in the room was climbing rapidly, and I could feel coils of pressure surrounding the whole cabin. Oh, Goddess.
The older woman looked at me. “The ’opital is five heures far. Far.” She gestured with her hand to mean “extremely far away.” “Is big money, big money.”
Bloody hell. The girl wailed again, and I felt like I was in a nightmare. A huge swooping attack from Amyranth right now, with Ciaran trying to rip my soul away, would almost have been more welcome. The older woman, who I guessed was a midwife, came toward me. The girl sobbed brokenly on the bed, and I felt her energy draining away.
“I get bébé out,” the older woman said, using descriptive hand motions that made my face heat. “You calmez ’er. Oui? Calmez.” Again she gestured, with soothing, stroking motions, then pointed toward the girl.
There was nothing for it: I had to step into the fray. The girl’s eyes were wild, rolling like those of a frightened horse; she was fighting everyone who was trying to help her. My nerves were shot, but I reached deep inside my mind and quickly blocked things out, sinking into a midlevel meditative state. After a few seconds I began to send waves of calmness, comfort, reassurance to the girl. I didn’t even try to interact with her present self but sent these thoughts deep within her, into her mind, where she would simply receive them without examining or questioning them.
The girl’s wild, terrified eyes slowly turned and focused on me. Then another contraction racked her, and she coiled and screamed again. I had never done anything like this before and had to make up a plan as I went along. I kept sending waves of calm, comfort, reassurance toward her while I desperately searched my spell repertoire for anything that might help. Right, come on, Niall, pull it out of your hat. I stepped closer to the bed and saw where it was soaked from her water breaking. Agh. I wanted to run from the room. Instead, I looked away and began to sketch sigils over the bed, muttering spells to take away pain, spells to calm fears, spells to make her relax, to let go, to release.
The girl made harsh panting sounds, hah, hah, hah, but kept her eyes on my face. As if in a dream, I slowly reached out and touched her wet hair, like black silken rope beneath my fingers. As soon as I touched her, I got a horrible wave of pain, as if someone had run a machete through my gut, and I gasped and swallowed hard. The girl wailed again, but already her cry was less intense, less frightened. She tried to slap my hand away, but I dodged her and stayed connected, pushing some of my own strength and energy into her, transferring some of my power. Within half a minute she had quit struggling, quit writhing as much. Her next contraction broke our connection, but I came back, touching her temple, closing my eyes to focus. The poor teenage girl couldn’t begin to understand, but the deep-seated, primal woman within her could respond. Concentrating, I tuned that woman into the cycles of nature, of renewal, of birth. I sent knowledge that the contractions weren’t the pain of injury or damage, but instead signs of her body’s awesome power, the strength that was able to bring a child into the world. I felt the consciousness of the child within her, felt that it was strong and healthy, a girl. I smiled and looked up. My driver and the midwife were nearby. The midwife was sponging the girl’s forehead and patting her hand. “Une fille,” I said, smiling. “Le bébé est une fille. Elle est jolie.”
At this the girl met my eyes again, and I saw that she understood, that she was calm enough to hear and understand words. “Une fille,” I told her softly again. “Elle est jolie.” I tried to think of the word for healthy but couldn’t. “Elle est bonne” was the best I could come up with. The midwife smiled, and so did the woman who had fetched me, and then I sensed another contraction coming.
This time I reached down and held the girl’s hand, and as her muscles began their tremendous push down, their intense concentric pressure, I tried to project the feeling that these contractions were just her body working hard to accomplish something. This was what she needed to do to get her baby out; she had to release her fear and let her body take over. Her body, like the bodies of women since time began, knew what to do and could do it well. Together we rode the wave of her contraction, squeezing our hands together as it crested, and then I think we both panted as the force ebbed and her muscles relaxed again.
“Oui, oui,” murmured the midwife. She was down at the end of the bed, pushing the girl’s knees up, and besides that I didn’t want to know. I stayed near the head of the bed, looking into the girl’s bottomless black eyes, holding her hand, sending calming waves. Her eyes were much calmer and more present; she looked more like a person.
“Elle arrivé,” the midwife murmured, and the girl’s face contorted, and fast, fast, I sent images of things opening up, flowers blooming, seeds splitting, anything I could think of in my panicked state. I thought relaxation, concentration, releasing of fear, surrendering to her own body. As I looked at her, her eyes went very wide, her mouth opened, she said, “Ah, ah, ah, ah,” in a high-pitched voice, and then suddenly it seemed like she kind of deflated. I made the mistake of glancing over to see the midwife pulling up a dark red, rubbery-looking baby, still connected to her mother by a pulsing blue cord. Sweat broke out on my forehead, and my skin grew cold, as if I were about to faint. The baby squinched up its quarter-size mouth, took a breath, and wailed, sounding like a tiny, infuriated puppy.