I couldn’t bring myself to watch him leave or look into the basket that he’d brought for me. Instead, I set the baskets down so I could sit with Rachel as her labor pains increased.
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed before I heard the gaoler call my name from the window. “Hope Eaton?”
“Yes?”
“You’ll be brought before the grand jury for questioning tomorrow. Be prepared.”
All the other women looked at me. Some with fear, some with pity, and some with apathy.
My fate was sealed. I knew what the grand jury meant. I could not confess to witchcraft, as I thought I could, which left one alternative. Everyone who had claimed innocence and gone before the grand jury was dead.
For a long time, I sat in the corner, helping Rachel through her labor. The hours slipped away as I tried not to think about the grand jury summons.
It was starting to grow dark when Rachel finally gave birth to a tiny baby girl.
I caught the infant in my hands as she took her first breath in this world. The moment should have been full of joy and expectation, but it was clouded by fear and uncertainty.
Rachel lifted her head, exhaustion lining her face, and said, “Does she have the mark?”
A sunburst birthmark sat over the baby’s heart, marking her as a time-crosser. Slowly, I nodded.
Rachel didn’t even reach for the child. There was no happiness to be had in this birth.
I cleaned the baby as best I could and placed her in the clothes and diaper Grace had brought, swaddling her in a small blanket.
When she was calm, I held her out to Rachel—and realized that in the time it had taken me to clean and clothe the baby, Rachel had died.
I stood for a long time, shock and sorrow making me mute.
One of the older women came to me and bent to examine Rachel. “Bled to death.”
“No.” I shook my head as the baby began to squirm, nuzzling for its mother’s milk. Why hadn’t I paid attention to Rachel?
Even as the question plagued me, I knew I couldn’t have stopped the bleeding. I had no experience birthing babies.
Another woman called for the gaoler to take the body away—but I couldn’t move or think. I was numb.
The baby started to cry, and some of the women grumbled about the noise—and still, I stood in shock.
When the gaoler came, he brought his wife, and she reached for the baby.
I shook my head. “Let me keep her, please.”
Goody Dounton snorted. “You’re not her mother—and a prisoner at that. I’ll see to the baby’s needs better than you.”
“But I promised her mother—”
“You should never make a promise to a dying woman,” Goody Dounton said. “Especially in a place like this.” She removed the baby from my arms and left the cell.
I watched in silence as the gaoler and his son hauled Rachel’s body away, and I wondered why I wasn’t crying. Had I used all my tears? Would I always be this numb?
The cell door slammed shut with finality, and darkness enveloped me. There were over a dozen women in the gaol, but I had never felt so utterly alone.
I pulled Isaac’s basket onto my lap and sat against the wall, hugging it close, wishing it were him. When I finally removed the blanket from the top of the basket, my gaze fell on the gift he had brought.
Somehow, from somewhere, he had found a perfect, round orange.
And I discovered that I had tears left, after all.
