I swore I could see the glowing moss glint in the shadows.
At the gate in the fence, which opened up to a pathway to the front door with a patch of grassy yard on either side, a fat calico saton one of the fenceposts, screaming and whipping its fluffy tail to and fro.
“Quiet,” the midwife said to the cat.
The cat did not quiet at all.
Magda stopped in front of the gate and dismounted. She opened the gate, unsettling the cat, who screamed even more and leapt down to the ground.
Behind her, we were dismounting from Dusty.
Magda held out her own horse’s reins to me, nodding for Rowena to handle Dusty. “Take them down the pathway between my gardens and my house. There’s a patch of yard in the back for them to graze on.”
“Won’t they get into the gardens?” I asked, thinking of every time Dusty was allowed any rein, how she scarfed at the grass whenever she could.
The old woman called over her shoulder as she walked towards her house, “I’ve jimsonweed planted on the back of those plots. They don’t like the smell. So they never stray past it.”
“Jimsonweed?” exclaimed Rowena. “Isn’t that poison?”
Magda stopped and turned, nearly tripping over the calico circling her skirts. “Well, I thought your mother might have told you a thing or two, and I was right. It’s poison for most, but for some old folks with tremors in their hands, a little bit steadies them. Most poisons have other, happier uses, you’ll find.”
We put the horses where she asked us, peeking into the stables to hang up their tack. Inside were two milk cows and three goats. Just behind the building was a small henhouse with a smaller fence around it. We could hear rustling and clucking coming from the inside.
The farmhouse was old. In the front room was a hearth and kitchen that took up most of the space. A table that seemed like a small dining table sat towards the middle of the room, but there was a workspace table near the fire. An open book was in the center of it, surrounded by clay bowls, a mortar and pestle, small tins, and severalcrates of what looked like jars in hay. Drying vegetables and plants hung from the rafters alongside pots and pans and instruments I had never seen. Shelves crowded any part of the walls where a window was not, full of more jars and pots and piles of books in no particular order. A rocking chair covered in quilts sat in front of the fireplace.
“The back room is a bedroom,” Magda said, hands on her hips, watching us survey her home. “You two can have the bed while you’re here. I sleep most nights in the rocking chair anyway. My back cannot stand for me to lie for very long.” She paused to squint at us. “And now I’ll tell you the truth.”
We looked at her in surprise.
“The truth of it is, this is a two-person thing. I will train you both to midwife’s work. I will show you both how to forage and make use of what we find. But there is no way one woman could do all of that and run the apothecary. So, one of you will be appointed the town midwife and live at the old apothecary, so that folk don’t have to run here anymore when their wives and mothers are in labor. And one of you will live here with me and forage for supplies. And I will decide who does what.”
We remained silent.
“Do you understand me?” asked Magda.
Next to me, Rowena nodded but said, “You have a fine place, madam, but I do not wish to spend my life’s days away from town.”
I could not have disagreed more. The idea of living this close to the territory of Mother Earth thrilled me. I already felt more invited into this messy farmhouse than I had under any other roof.
The old woman nodded. “I thought so. And you must then prove to me that you are good with a babe’s delivery and handy with a tincture.”
Rowena turned to me. “I’m sorry if you wanted that role.”
“Wait,” I said to Magda. “If the only paid position is the midwife’s, then how will the forager earn a living?”
Her wrinkled mouth pursed and she said, “Because, and this is not to be made public, girls, the lord will give the midwife a surplusto her wage and that is to pay the forager for her supplies. Torm doesn’t want to admit openly to what this town needs. So he does it in secret and with coin. But these are skills you should both know as one informs the other.”
“I will be the forager,” I said. “I hate town.”
The old woman’s eyes flitted between us. “I think we should begin with magic. What say you?”
Her question was met with silence.
“It exists, you know. Or do you not know?”
“It is a heathen thing,” answered Rowena uncertainly.
Magda rolled her eyes. “It is a natural thing. And the four gods of Tintar exist too, in case you didn’t know that either.”
