Chapter 33
Chapter 33
Hagar pushed Miriam and Fern into the house. Fern’s arms ached and she didn’t know where to go, but Miriam guided her forward by the wrists.
“Take her in back!” Hagar barked.
They passed through the big room, the kitchen on one side and the entire rest of the house on the other, then stepped into the dark. A bed bumped against Fern’s knees and she felt Miriam bend forward. They laid Holly down as Hagar yanked the string on the light. A hanging bulb showed a small room that barely fit a brass bed.
“Hold on!” Hagar snapped. “That’s Mother’s quilt.”
Miriam levered Holly up and they held on to her while Hagar stripped a patchwork quilt off the bed, then the sheets. Miriam and Fern laid Holly back down on the bare ticking.
“Get her clothes off,” Hagar said as she went into the kitchen and began filling a big galvanized pot at the sink.
Miriam stepped behind Holly and unzipped her dress and Holly immediately stuck her arms straight out and Fern took her sleeves and peeled her dress down to expose her enormous, veined stomach.
Miriam helped Holly lie back on the bed, and Fern looked for someplace to hang Holly’s dress, but there was no furniture in the room. Hagar and Miriam’s clothes hung on hooks along the walls so she put Holly’s dress on one of them, then she got ready to talk to Holly. Fern knew from experience that what was about to happen was going to shock the younger girl, and she didn’t want her to be scared.
“We’re going to have to shave you now,” Fern said. “Down between your legs. We need everything real clean, Holly, okay?”
Something rammed into Fern, knocking her sideways, as Hagar shoved her out of the way.
“No one’s shaving anyone,” she growled. “Unless it’s shaving you bald for being stupid. Miriam’ll show you how to wash your hands.”
Embarrassed, Fern was about to tell Hagar she knew how to wash her hands, but Miriam was pulling her back into the kitchen and giving her a big pink brick of soap. She beckoned Zinnia over and while the pot of water boiled, Miriam guided the two of them through rubbing up a thick lather between their palms, bringing it up to their elbows, then interlacing their fingers, and milking them one by one. Fern felt like her hands were clean, but Miriam kept going, so she kept going. Finally, they rinsed and Miriam wiped their arms dry with a piece of old towel, leaving them soft and tingling. It felt like a ritual; it felt like they were getting ready to do something important.
“More light,” Hagar called from the bedroom, and the walls were so thin she sounded like she was standing right next to them.
Miriam pulled a lantern off a shelf, lit it with a match from the stove, then carried it into the bedroom. Zinnia and Fern followed but stopped at the door. By lamplight the bedroom looked like a grotesque nativity.
Holly lay across the middle of the bed, naked, with her back propped against a pile of pillows. Her heels were dug into the ticking like she was squatting. She looked like two people in the same body: the head, shoulders, and skinny arms and legs of a fourteen-year-old girl and the enormous swollen belly and breasts of a pregnant woman.
Something poked out from inside Holly’s belly, stretching her skin tight, tighter, stretching it so thin Fern thought it was going to rip. Then it receded.
“Everyone get in,” Hagar said, and Zinnia and Fern stepped inside, trying to stay as far from Holly as possible. “How far along is she?”
Miriam moved with purpose, standing between Holly’s legs, her fingers flying over the girl’s skin. Holly relaxed under their touch.
“Moving real quick,” Miriam whispered.
“Ah, ah, ah.” Holly’s breath hitched like she was about to cry.
“Get strong,” Hagar barked at her.
Fern felt useless. She didn’t know what to do and she didn’t want to be here. They were going to do this on their own? Hagar noticed her and Zinnia clustered at the door.
“You two,” she said. “Get up there.”
Hagar came out from behind Holly’s head, and Fern and Zinnia squeezed around her and into place. There was barely room to stand between the wall and the mound of pillows supporting Holly’s back.
“I’m going to be with Sister,” Hagar said. “Down at the business end. Y’all do what we say and keep that girl pushing. If she means anything to you, y’all reach deep and guide her through.”
Then Hagar stepped between Holly’s legs, shoulder to shoulder with Miriam.
Fern made herself look down at Holly and found her eyes waiting.
“Too…much…” she gasped.
“It won’t hurt,” Fern said.
“Don’t talk stupid,” Hagar snapped. “Where’s it hurt worst?”
“My…back…” Holly panted.
Hagar nodded at them.
“Sit her up and press her back,” she commanded.
Zinnia and Fern gingerly put their hands on Holly’s shoulders.
“No,” Hagar said. “Her back. Hard.”
She seized Holly’s wrists and dragged her forward into a sitting position, half-folded over her own stomach. Fern and Zinnia still didn’t know what to do. Disgusted, Hagar came around and grabbed Fern’s wrists, dragged them down, and pressed them against Holly’s tailbone, hard, like she was pushing a car out of the mud. Fern expected Holly to complain, but instead she leaned back into her. Holly’s eyes closed and the lines in her face softened slightly.
“You waiting for the mailman?” Hagar snapped at Zinnia.
Zinnia imitated Fern, pressing hard. Muscles suddenly spasmed across Holly’s back and Fern jerked her hands away.
“Don’t you dare!” Hagar said, and Fern put her hands back on Holly while Hagar looked the little girl square in the face. “You feel a push coming on, you’re going to breathe deep and push down, like you’re going to the bathroom, and hold while I count to ten. Then you’re going to do it again. You’re going to do it three times, understand?”
Holly nodded, and her face clamped shut. Fern and Zinnia pressed against her back, but really Fern wanted to run away. They couldn’t do this. She didn’t want to do this.
“Breathe!” Hagar commanded, and Holly sucked in a deep breath, then gasped as the contraction hit.
“Now bear down!” Hagar said. “One…two…three…”
“Gah!” Holly gasped, and her face glittered with perspiration. “AHGAH!”
Her eyes were screwed shut, her mouth frozen wide in a silent scream, her left hand scrabbling at the mattress. Fern reached down and Holly’s hand clamped around hers, pulling hard on her wrist. Fern had to brace her feet so she wasn’t yanked off balance.
“Nine…ten…” Hagar finished counting. “Now deep breath…”
Loudly, Holly sucked in air.
“And push down!” Hagar said. “One…two…three…”
Holly threw her body back against Zinnia’s hands and pulled forward on Fern’s arm, wrenching her shoulder out of its socket, her face sheeted with sweat.
“Ten…” Hagar said, and Holly sucked in another great whoop of breath. “Bear down! One…two…three…”
When she reached ten this time, Holly’s body let go like someone had cut the power. Miriam gently shook Holly’s thighs from side to side, kneading them, rocking them, warming them up.
“Get her some water,” Hagar snapped. “Put some on a cloth and let her suck.”
Fern found a basin and cloth in the kitchen and took them back to the bedroom. Walking through its doorway felt like passing through a curtain made of body heat. The little room felt tropical. Sweat funneled down Holly’s neck and chest and ran over her stomach. She sucked Fern’s cloth dry in seconds.
“Save your strength,” Hagar coached. “Hold her hands. Rub her back. We’re in for a long night.”
Holly sucked at the cloth and the water dribbled from the edges of her mouth, down her chin, over her chest, mixing with her sweat. Then her mouth snapped open.
“Oh!” Holly bellowed, and it went on for a long time, up and down the octaves. “Oh! Oh! Oh!”
“Bear down, girl,” Hagar said. “Get her hands!”
Fern and Zinnia each took one of Holly’s hands, her grip crushing their knuckles together.
“Deep breath!” Hagar said. “And bear down…one…two…three…four…”
They got through that contraction and the one after that, and the one after that. It went on and on. There was no way to tell time except for Holly’s body, a clock made of muscle, contracting and expanding, screaming and sweating, bargaining and crying, pushing her baby down and out, forward and back, slowly rocking its soft skull under the hard bridge of bone in her pelvis.
It went on past the point where Fern thought they should give up. Hagar sent her to stir rags in the boiling pot of water on the stove and she brought them back, steaming, in a tin basin. They used them to clean up Holly. The room smelled like a barn. Sweat dripped from the tip of Holly’s nose, flowed from her scalp. As fast as Fern got water into her, Holly sweated it out.
“Please…. please…please…” she gasped. “I have to stop…I have to…”
Fern held the wet cloth to Holly’s lips, but she was panting too hard to suck.
“Come on, Holly, you have to have water,” Fern said.
She felt like a torturer.
“I can’t do this…” Holly gasped. “I can’t…”
Another contraction seized her.
“Noooo!” Holly screamed, her throat raw.
This couldn’t go on.
“Breathe, girl!” Hagar shouted. “Bear down!”
“I CAN’T!” Holly howled with all the strength she had left.
“One…” Hagar counted. “Two…three…four…”
Holly whipped her head from side to side, sending droplets of sweat flying. Her neck strained with the effort. The skin on the left side of her face flushed the same color as her birthmark. She had nothing left inside her. Fern felt like she should say something. This had to stop.
Fern’s feet hurt. Her mouth was dry. Her hands where Holly squeezed them felt broken. After each contraction passed, the energy rippled through Holly’s body, leaving her arms shaking at her sides and her heels kicking against the mattress. Her chin quivered, and tears flowed into sweat, flowed into water, soaked into the mattress.
They’d been there for hours. The sun must be coming up. The walls pulsed. The floor and ceiling spun slowly in opposite directions. Fern couldn’t take it anymore.
Then she saw something large shift inside Holly’s stomach, something changed places. Hagar and Miriam clustered closer.
“Push low,” Hagar said. “Push low for me.”
“I can’t,” Holly wailed.
“I need you to push low now, push right out your bottom,” Hagar said. “Push toward Sister.”
“I can’t,” Holly said, voice high and sharp with fear. “My guts are going to come out. They’re coming out.”
“No, they aren’t,” Hagar said. “Sister and I’ve done this a hundred times. Only the baby’s coming out. Your body knows what to do.”
Holly screamed.
“I’m dying!”
“You won’t die,” Hagar said.
She might , Fern thought.
In the middle of this push, something snapped inside Holly and her scream turned sharp. Fern and Zinnia shrank back, terrified, but Holly gripped their hands and wouldn’t let them get away.
“Here it comes,” Hagar said to Miriam, and she took a big cloth and pressed it low between Holly’s legs.
“I’m going to die…I’m going to die…I’m going to die…” Holly wailed.
“Talk to her!” Hagar snapped at them.
“Holly,” Fern said. “You’re…you’re…”
Her brain blanked.
“Have to stop…” Holly panted. “Have to…stop…”
The strength leaked out of her. Fern thought she could see Holly’s skin turning white. Holly was too little. The baby was too big.
“You better talk to your—” Hagar began, then Zinnia was talking over Hagar like she wasn’t even there.
“Holly,” she said. “Make a noise for me. Make a noise like a wolf.”
“…noooo…” Holly moaned.
“You’re a wolf,” Zinnia said. “You’re a wolf in church. And you’re smashing down the doors, and running down the aisle, and crashing through the pews, and you’re biting people in the face, and tearing them up with your claws. Everyone’s running and screaming, but they can’t stop you, Holly! They can’t catch you! Make your sound!”
“Hoouuuhhhh…” Holly breathed, low and raw.
“Hoooo!” Zinnia encouraged her. “HOOOO!”
“Hoo…” Holly tried, slightly louder.
“HOOOO!” Zinnia said.
Something rearranged itself inside Holly’s swollen stomach.
“HOOOOOOOOOOUUULLL!” Holly suddenly shouted back.
“HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUULLLL!” they shouted together.
Fern joined in and they were all shouting.
“HOOUUUGGHHH!” they hollered. “HOO! HOO! HOO! HOOOOUGGGHUUULLL!”
Miriam hunched down between Holly’s legs, fingers flying, hands working. Fern thought she saw them dip inside Holly, then she raised one hand and pointed to her neck.
“How many?” Hagar asked.
Miriam held up one finger.
“Push harder,” Hagar said, and her voice sounded louder.
It sounded scared.
Holly started to bear down, then she screamed, sudden and panicked; she tried to get away from her body but she was too weak.
“No! No! No!” she shrieked, shredding her throat. “Oh, Mommy, ow! It hurts!”
Hagar and Miriam lunged forward.
“Get it out!” Holly screamed. “Get it out of me!”
She tried to sob, but she didn’t have the strength. Her body heaved pathetically.
Miriam hunkered close for better leverage.
“It burns!” Holly screamed, and her words crumbled into agony.
Something new was in the room and Fern looked down and saw something like a man’s red fist punching out from between Holly’s legs. Miriam’s fingers flew over it and she saw it had a nose and a mouth, and it moved, and she realized it was the baby’s head.
She couldn’t look away. It was bloody and angry like an old man sticking his head out the window, covered in white curds, but it was a face. It was a living creature, emerging from Holly’s body.
“Head’s out!” Hagar announced.
“Oh, Mommy! Help me!” Holly screamed.
Miriam kept digging, kneading, prying. But nothing happened. Holly’s body seemed to have stopped pushing. Miriam’s shoulders strained. Nothing moved.
As Fern watched, the head turned from red to purple.
“You need to push NOW!” Hagar shouted.
Holly locked her face down and strained but nothing moved. Fern saw the head get darker, full of trapped blood.
“Don’t stop!” Hagar said.
“I can’t!” Holly sobbed. “I can’t!”
Her muscles stopped twisting. They locked tight.
The baby’s head turned black.
“We need to get it out,” Hagar said, voice hard.
Holly started to cry.
“Nuh-uh!” Hagar barked. “None of that! You push, mama. You get that baby OUT.”
“You’re the wolf, Holly!” Zinnia said, leaning into Holly’s ear, pushing on her shoulders, fingers digging in hard. “No one can catch you, Holly! No one can stop you!”
Holly was beyond hearing. She squeezed her eyes shut and sobbed.
“Please! Please! Please, Mommy! Please, Mommy! PLEASE!”
The baby’s face was motionless now, no life left in it. Miriam dug in hard around it with her fingers. Fern saw the muscles in her forearms flex, but nothing moved.
“Shoulder,” Miriam said to Hagar.
Something passed over Hagar’s face and for a moment she looked defeated. Then she shook herself, and her voice got gentle. “Ease up, mama.”
Fern could tell something was wrong. Her heart thudded behind her ribs.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Get down here,” Hagar said.
Fern’s legs went numb.
“Get down here!” Hagar barked.
Fern pulled her hand out of Holly’s and went to the bottom of the bed. Holly was nothing down there but raw blood. Everything drained from Fern’s head. The room lurched to one side, got misty around the edges.
“Push her legs up!” Hagar yelled in her ear, and the mist cleared.
Fern grabbed Holly’s right ankle as Hagar grabbed her left and set her right hand against Holly’s stomach, real low, and pressed hard. Together, they pushed Holly’s knees up around her ears, further than Fern thought they could go.
“Keep going!” Hagar barked, pressing down harder with her right hand. “Now hold.”
Miriam reached between Holly’s legs, then shook her head.
“We’ve got to turn her over,” Hagar said. “Get her on her hands and knees.”
Fern didn’t understand. That sounded impossible.
“You two showed up at my house with this girl,” Hagar snapped. “Tell her to turn over on her hands and knees or her baby’s going to die.”
Holly had already heard.
“I can’t!” she wailed. “Please!”
“He will die!”
“Holly…” Zinnia pleaded.
“I can’t! It’s too much!”
How could Holly turn over? Fern let go of Holly’s leg, lost. This wasn’t how you had babies. This was too messy, too sweaty. Her hands were too wet and sticky. She looked down and saw Holly’s blood all over them. They didn’t know what they were doing. She looked up and met Zinnia’s eyes and they both knew: They’d made a terrible mistake. This wasn’t how girls like Holly had babies.
They had killed her. Her baby was already dead.
The walls closed in on Fern. Panic fluttered in her chest. Zinnia’s face cracked and fell apart. Fern turned to Miriam but she was absorbed with effort, still prying and straining, blood smeared up to her elbows.
“We’re not letting this girl die,” Hagar shouted. “Now move!”
Hagar went to the head of the bed and stood beside Zinnia.
“You’re the wolf,” Fern prompted, reminding Zinnia of her lines.
“You’re the wolf,” Zinnia said, picking up her cue, then she looked down into Holly’s eyes. “You’re the werewolf.”
Hagar stood beside Zinnia, gripping Holly’s shoulders.
“Follow me, girl,” she said, and locked her hands around Holly’s left shoulder.
Zinnia gripped Holly’s right.
“Hoouul!” Zinnia said to Holly. Then louder. “HOOUL! RROOOOOOO!”
“Go to,” Hagar said, and locked eyes with Miriam. “Ready?”
“Rrrrooooooo!” Zinnia said to Holly. “Howl, Holly. Rrooooo!”
Holly imitated her, weak at first, then stronger.
“Arrooo…arroOOOO!”
Fern got her hands under Holly’s thighs while Miriam put her hands around the baby’s lifeless head. Hagar and Zinnia gripped Holly under her armpits and Fern bent Holly’s legs into a kneeling position.
“On three,” Hagar said. “One…”
“Holly, no one can catch you,” Zinnia said, locking eyes with her. “No one can stop you.”
“Two…” Hagar said.
“RRRROOOOOOOUUU!” Zinnia prompted.
“NOOOOO!” Holly screamed.
“Three…” Hagar said.
“HHRROOOOUUULLLL!” Zinnia and Holly howled.
Hagar bent her forward fast and Fern twisted and flipped Holly’s thighs to the side. There was a slippery, upside-down moment as Holly’s hot, sweaty flesh slipped out of their hands, and she let out a long, loud scream, and Fern and Miriam stepped around each other, then, impossibly, Holly was on all fours, her stomach hanging down, Miriam and Fern at her bottom, Hagar and Zinnia at her head.
The baby’s blackened, slack face was inches from Fern’s. Miriam stepped in and pushed her aside.
“More,” Hagar said to Zinnia.
“HRRROOOOOOOOOOUUUU!” Zinnia and Holly roared.
Miriam dug her fingers in around the baby’s head, squirming them in deep. Fern saw her shoulders flex and her back tense as she braced her feet. Her arms shook with the strain.
“HOOOUGG! HOOUUGGGG! HHHHOOOOOUUUGGGG!” Zinnia and Holly howled.
Miriam adjusted her grip, braced herself again, and Fern reached in, putting a hand on either side of the baby’s head, spreading the tight, bulging skin.
“They can’t stop you, Holly!” Zinnia yelled. “They can’t catch you!”
Beneath Fern’s fingers she felt something come loose inside Holly. Something slipped and shifted.
“Come on, Holly!” Zinnia shouted.
“HHHRRROOOOOUUUUUUUUGGGGHHHHHH!” Holly howled.
Something moved under Fern’s hands like an earthquake and then everything was moving and Miriam dug in, arms shaking, face flushed, chin trembling, and she slowly dragged the baby out of Holly’s body.
The baby slid out, greased with blood and white foam, and Miriam grabbed it with both hands, then tucked it in and through itself in some kind of looping motion and she stood, holding the purple dead baby in her arms.
A single long streamer of guts linked from inside Holly to the baby’s belly. No one moved as Miriam bent over the child. She clamped her mouth over the baby’s mouth and nose, and Miriam’s cheeks sucked in and something hard flew up into her mouth and she pulled back and spat jelly on the floor. Miriam fixed her mouth over the baby’s mouth and nose again, and this time she blew. Then again. Again. Then she drew back and suddenly the baby’s chest shuddered up and her arms thrashed and her skin pinked up like a fire flaring to life.
Fern and Zinnia stared at the baby in Miriam’s bare, blood-slicked arms. They all stared. There had been five of them in this room, and now there were six. Fern felt a key turn in a lock, and she saw this baby—this girl baby—she saw this little girl live, this little girl that they had pulled out of Holly’s body together and she knew that all the magic the witches had ever done was only a pale imitation of what had happened here tonight.
This was the Great Mystery that lay at the heart of all things. This was the miracle that passed all understanding.
First there is nothing. Then there is.
A high, thin wail spiraled out of the baby’s mouth and she sounded exactly like Charlie Brown, and as Miriam laid the baby on Holly’s chest, and Holly wrapped her arms around the curd-encrusted, wailing baby girl, something broke loose inside Fern and she slumped against the wall while the baby’s cries filled the room.