Chapter 3 #2
They're passing a rocky pasture dotted with sheep when Shay spots the farmhouse, kindling her anxiety. Will Ghita insist she deliver the baby even if there are complications? Or will she decide the apprentice isn't ready? Shay isn't sure which option unsettles her more.
Stepping from the cart, she's taken aback by a thick earthy scent.
It's not unusual for the country air to smell fresh and sweet, but this is more cloying.
Something lush and wild and not entirely pleasant.
The donkey brays. Shay slips him a small carrot and pats his nose while Ghita unloads the cart. “Good job, boy.”
She helps Ghita carry her bags, raising a lantern in her free hand and absorbing the building's miserable state.
Vines smother the rough walls. Rogue tree branches jut through cracks in the roof and the missing panes of broken windows.
A cry, at once human and not, erupts from inside, starting as a deep bellow that rises to a scream.
Ghita quickens her steps, making Shay jog to keep up.
At their approach, the front door flings wide.
An old woman runs out, swatting a few insects that buzz around her head.
Jagged scratches run the length of both her arms. Her torn dress hangs loose off one shoulder.
She glances back at the building fearfully before she notices Shay and Ghita.
“God is great,” the woman shouts, barreling toward them. “Help has arrived.”
“Are you well, Sayeda?” Ghita drops her bags and reaches toward the distressed woman.
“Don't worry about me.” The woman shakes her head, not bothering to wipe her tearstained cheeks. “There's no time. You must save my niece's baby.”
“Of course.” Ghita peers nervously at the farmhouse. Through the lens of moonlight, dense moss in colors of mold seems to slither across its stones. “Go rest on the donkey's cart and wait. We'll return and assist you shortly, God willing.”
The potent, overripe scent intensifies as Shay and Ghita pass through the door and search the dim room for the pregnant mother. Finding her, Shay releases her own startled scream.
The woman stands on a table, arms raised.
Tendrils of green smoke swirl from her glowing fingertips.
A wide bloodstain spreads like a red sash across her dress.
Her feet are bare, more blood puddled around them.
Her face bears so many wrinkles, its other features blend together.
Her skin tinges gray to green. Her eyes run milky white, voiding her pupils, the hollows around them pitted black, like kohl smeared by weeping.
A touched one? This makes the situation profoundly worse. There's simply no possible good outcome. The baby is unlikely to survive, and if it does, it will be at the mother's expense, either case casting a black mark on Shay's reputation.
The woman moans harshly. Her gaze darts about, unseeing, as though she's lost in some hallucination. There's a muffled cry across the room, where an argan tree—an actual full-size tree—grows right through the floor and sprawls like a greedy guest trying to finger every object within reach.
In fact, the whole room is overrun with plants and bushes of all varieties. They hang long and loose from the ceiling and spill in waves out of cabinets. High in the leafy folds of the tree, Shay spots the source of the cry and gasps. She slaps a hand to her mouth.
Covered in creamy film, the newborn Shay was meant to deliver lies curled inside a large, round nest. A nest surrounded by branches hung with thorns.
Thorns the size of butcher knives. And just above the baby, a floppy purple flower with yellow flecks dangles like a canopy.
Shay doesn't recognize the flower, not from the fields around Nezjar, not from the bowels of Al-Ghaba Mayita, and not from any of Ghita's books.
She doesn't move. Her shock is too heady. Then the yellow flecks on the petals begin to vibrate. A low buzz reaches her ears, a sound so out of place in the shade of night that it takes Shay a beat longer than it should to place it.
“Bees!” she shouts in abject horror. “Devil be damned. The baby's surrounded by bees!”
The second she steps toward the tree, the touched one swings around with sudden focus.
She thrusts one arm in Shay's direction, smoke pulsing in green flashes from her fingertips.
The room shudders. The floor ripples, tiles splitting.
A giant root shoots up. It whips around, and before Shay can react, it belts her in the stomach. She stumbles into the wall.
“The baby will die,” the feral woman screeches. She leans forward and balls her fists, the table shaking beneath her. A glass frame clatters off the wall and breaks.
“Why, Sayeda?” Ghita sets down her bags and raises her palms beseechingly. “Is something wrong with the baby?”
The woman frowns. For a moment, she looks uncertain. “The moon tells me things. It says my baby is a monster.”
“Sayeda.” Ghita takes a hesitant step toward the woman. “Your baby is beautiful. You should be proud. Please, let us help.”
Shay painfully pulls herself upright, ready to jump to Ghita's aid if it's required.
“Stop right there,” the touched one warns, and Ghita freezes. “The moon is my friend. It wouldn't lie. I must kill the little monster.”
She thrusts both hands out, and the tree shakes violently. The swinging thorns slice the air around the nest, barely missing the infant tucked inside. The buzzing pitches louder. The baby kicks into crying, every high, spasmodic sob twisting Shay's chest tighter. And tighter.
Suddenly, the woman bends over and grips her middle, her already more haunted than human face contorting further. The shaking stops. The baby's wails settle into a string of low whimpers. Shay breathes a sigh of partial relief, still fighting her urge to run to the helpless infant.
“Sayeda.” Ghita moves forward again with careful steps. “You're hemorrhaging; you must let me help you.” She convinces the woman to lie on the table and allow her to massage her stomach before turning back to Shay. “Bring me clover bean leaves to measure the sayeda's blood output.”
As Shay passes Ghita the leaves, the midwife gives her a pointed look.
“Have you noticed the variety of plants growing around us, Lalla Shay? It's quite spectacular. There's even a patch of sepaweed by the back wall. Won't you fetch a pinch for me? To ease the sayeda's pains?”
Shay dons her gloves, almost missing the midwife's quick wink. She picks her way across the room through the rampant growth.
“Watch out for tater sponges,” Ghita calls.
Shay pauses, reevaluating her path, and proceeds with new caution.
She learned her lesson about tater sponges at the age of ten and two.
While foraging in the early afternoon, she unwittingly stepped on one of the seeds and was rendered unconscious by its toxic fumes.
It was to the pitch of night that she awoke, and while Al-Ghaba Mayita is best avoided altogether, this is even truer after dark.
Shay locates the sepaweed, and carefully avoiding its thorns, she harvests the potent leaves.
She turns back and spots one of the poisoned pods in her path.
It looks innocuous enough, like a small potato with a thin and crunchy outer shell.
Only when crushed underfoot will it release its incapacitating cloud.
Understanding washes over her. If one person had need to incapacitate another, the tater sponge could ostensibly be made to release its toxins not so accidentally.
Shay stores the sepaweed in her satchel.
She bends down, gingerly nudges the seed pod into the cup of her hand, and proceeds with featherlight steps.
Her heart beats so hard, she fears the vibration alone may cause the seed to burst.
The touched one has returned to a trancelike state, but Shay has no doubt she'd snap out of it if either woman advanced toward her baby.
“I brought you the sepaweed, Sayeda.” Shay's nerves spark like struck flint.
She notes the clover bean leaves held in each of Ghita's hands, and despite adrenaline tunneling her focus to a pinpoint, she has the presence to wonder at the midwife's cleverness. Sometimes called puppy ears for their softness, the leaves’ tight-knit fibers make them perfect for filtering small airborne particles.
Shay breathes in deeply. She positions her fist with the seed held inside near the touched one's face and squeezes, dispersing a black cloud.
On the touched one's next inhale, her whitened eyes widen.
She quickly caps her nose and mouth, but it's too late.
Ghita presses one clover bean leaf over her mouth and hands the other to Shay.
The barrier will help only so much. They must hold their breath as long as possible.
“What did you …?” The touched one attempts to push herself upright. She struggles to lift one arm, succeeding only in stretching her fingers. Their tips bleed green smoke. The skin of her palm bulges. A small stick flies from the woman's hand and zips toward Shay's head.
She ducks. Sharp pain bites into her shoulder blade. She waits for an onslaught to follow. When it fails to, she straightens.
The light in the touched one's fingers is dying out. Her eyes roll back in her head, and she slumps to the table, limp.
“Hold still, child,” Ghita mumbles through the leaf. The apprentice winces as the midwife removes a thorny spike that she then shows Shay. It's equal in length to Ghita's longest finger.
The baby fusses, drawing both women's attention to the nest. Shay squints through the black haze at the tree. Its writhing branches have calmed. Fat bees crawl lazily around the flower petals. The midwife tries to speak, but she wobbles on her feet.
Shay quickly shepherds Ghita to the front door and guides her through. She sticks her own head far enough out to gulp a lungful of fresh air.
“Wait here,” she tells the midwife. “I'll go back for the baby.”