And what she saw was death down every path. Drowning, drowning, every path of his future led this child to a watery death.
“Why do you hate him so!” cried little Peggy.
“What?” demanded Eleanor.
“Hush,” said Mama. “Let her see what she sees.”
Inside the unborn child, the dark blot of water that surrounded his heartfire seemed so terribly strong that little Peggy was afraid he would be swallowed up.
“Get him out to breathe!” shouted little Peggy.
Mama reached in, even though it tore the mother something dreadful, and hooked the baby by the neck with strong fingers, drawing him out.
In that moment, as the dark water retreated inside the child's mind, and just before the first breath came, little Peggy saw ten million deaths by water disappear. Now, for the first time, there were some paths open, some paths leading to a dazzling future. And all the paths that did not end in early death had one thing in common. On all those paths, little Peggy saw herself doing one simple thing.
So she did that thing. She took her hands from the slackening belly and ducked under her mother's arm. The baby's head had just emerged, and it was still covered with a bloody caul, a scrap of the sac of soft skin in which he had floated in his mother's womb. His mouth was open, sucking inward on the caul, but it didn't break, and he couldn't breathe.
Little Peggy did what she had seen herself do in the baby's future. She reached out, took the caul from under the baby's chin, and pulled it away from his face. It came whole, in one moist piece, and in the moment it came away, the baby's mouth cleared, he sucked in a great breath, and then gave that mewling cry that birthing mothers hear as the song of life.
Little Peggy folded the caul, her mind still full of the visions she had seen down the pathways of this baby's life. She did not know yet what the visions meant, but they made such clear pictures in her mind that she knew she would never forget them. They made her afraid, because so much would depend on her, and how she used the birth caul that was still warm in her hands.
“A boy,” said Mama.
“Is he,” whispered the mother. “Seventh son?”
Mama was tying the cord, so she couldn't spare a glance at little Peggy. “Look,” she whispered.
Little Peggy looked for the single heartfire on the distant river. “Yes,” she said, for the heartfire was still burning.
Even as she watched, it flickered, died.
“Now he's gone,” said little Peggy.
The woman on the bed wept bitterly, her birthwracked body shuddering.
“Grieving at the baby's birth,” said Mama. “It's a dreadful thing.”
“Hush,” whispered Eleanor to her mother. “Be joyous, or it'll darken the baby all his life!”
“Vigor,” murmured the woman.
“Better nothing at all than tears,” said Mama. She held out the crying baby, and Eleanor took it in competent arms– she had cradled many a babe before, it was plain.
Mama went to the table in the comer and took the scarf that had been blacked in the wool, so it was night-colored clear through. She dragged it slowly across the weeping woman's face, saying, “Sleep, Mother, sleep.”
When the cloth came away, the weeping was done, and the woman slept, her strength spent.
“Take the baby from the room,” said Mama.
“Don't he need to start his sucking?” asked Eleanor.
“She'll never nurse this babe,” said Mama. “Not unless you want him to suck hate.”
“She can't hate him,” said Eleanor. “It ain't his fault.”
“I reckon her milk don't know that,” said Mama. “That right, little Peggy? What teat does the baby suck?”
“His mama's,” said little Peggy.
Mama looked sharp at her. “You sure of that?”
She nodded.
“Well, then, we'll bring the baby in when she wakes up. He doesn't need to eat anything for the first night, anyway.” So Eleanor carried the baby out into the great room, where the fire burned to dry the men, who stopped trading stories about rains and floods worse than this one long enough to look at the baby and admire.
Inside the room, though, Mama took little Peggy by the chin and stared hard into her eyes. “You tell me the truth, Margaret. It's a serious thing, for a baby to suck on its mama and drink up hate.”
“She won't hate him, Mama,” said little Peggy.
“What did you see?”
Little Peggy would have answered, but she didn't know words to tell most of the things she saw. So she looked at the floor. She could tell from Mama's quick draw of breath that she was ripe for a tongue-lashing. But Mama waited, and then her hand came soft, stroking across little Peggy's cheek. “Ah, child, what a day you've had. The baby might have died, except you told me to pull it out. You even reached in and opened up its mouth– that's what you did, isn't it?”
Little Peggy nodded.
“Enough for a little girl, enough for one day.” Mama turned to the other girls, the ones in wet dresses, leaning against the wall. “And you, too, you've had enough of a day. Come out of here, let your mama sleep, come out and get dry by the fire. I'll start a supper for you, I will.”
But Oldpappy was already in the kitchen, fussing around, and refused to hear of Mama doing a thing. Soon enough she was out with the baby, shooing the men away so she could rock it to sleep, letting it suck her finger.
Little Peggy figured after a while that she wouldn't be missed, so she snuck up the stairs to the attic ladder and up the ladder into the lightless, musty space. The spiders didn't bother her much, and the cats mostly kept the mice away, so she wasn't afraid. She crawled right to her secret hiding place and took out the carven box that Oldpappy gave her, the one he said his own papa brought from Ulster when he came to the colonies. It was full of the precious scraps of childhood– stones, strings, buttons– but now she knew that these were nothing compared to the work before her all the rest of her life. She dumped them right out, and blew into the box to clear away the dust. Then she laid the folded caul inside and closed the lid.
She knew that in the future she would open that box a dozen dozen times. That it would call to her, wake her from her sleep, tear her from her friends, and steal from her all her dreams. All because a baby boy downstairs had no future at all but death from the dark water, excepting if she used that caul to keep him safe, the way it once protected him in the womb.
For a moment she was angry, to have her own life so changed. Worse than the blacksmith coming, it was, worse than Papa and the hazel wand he whupped her with, worse than Mama when her eyes were angry. Everything would be different forever and it wasn't fair. Just for a baby she never invited, never asked to come here, what did she care about any old baby?
She reached out and opened the box, planning to take the caul and cast it into a dark comer of the attic. But even in the darkness, she could see a place where it was darker stilclass="underline" near her heartfire, where the emptiness of the deep black river was all set to make a murderer out of her.
Not me, she said to the water. You ain't part of me.
Yes I am, whispered the water. I'm all through you, and you'd dry up and die without me.
You ain't the boss of me, anyway, she retorted.
She closed the lid on the box and skidded her way down the ladder. Papa always said that she'd get splinters in her butt doing that. This time he was right. It stung something fierce, so she walked kind of sideways into the kitchen where Oldpappy wag. Sure enough, he stopped his cooking long enough to pry the splinters out.