Oh. She still had that optimism I’d had three months ago.
“Yeah, maybe,” I said.
Now that Sage was here, I was less interested in searching for the cave and more so in preparing to safely have this baby.
Three months later…
“Stop getting up,”Sage barked as she fussed over me. “Just lie around like the giant pregnant lady you are and let me do stuff!”
I chuckled. My belly was the size of the moon and my ankles were slightly swollen.
Sage pulled my feet up to prop them onto the bassinet we’d weaved to prepare for the baby, and then she went back to skinning the rabbit she’d caught for dinner. She was such a huge help these past three months, I’m not sure I would have made it without her.
“I’m pregnant, not useless,” I told her with a grin. That was partially a lie, I was so pregnant I was basically useless, but I felt stir crazy. Sage had forced me into bedrest two weeks ago when my ankles got swollen so bad that we could see my thumb indent when I pressed on them.
Sage pointed her deadly hunting blade at me and narrowed her eyes. “Don’t mess with me, woman. I have a knife.”
My grin grew wider. Sage and I had made a pact last night. We were going to give up looking for the cave for the next three months. It was so disheartening to climb all the way up there week after week and have the same results. We were defeated, andso fuckingover it.
It was time to just prepare for this baby. It was time to look forward to something. We also made a pact to stop talking about the past as well. It was too painful. It had been nine months. Sawyer was either dead, captured, or underground. Willow had given birth already and her baby would be human. The Ithaki probably invaded Paladin Village and killed Astra…
I’d failed them all.
It was better for my mental health if I just didn’t think about it, so I shoved it into a deep, dark box in my psyche and didn’t go there.
The bear and elk and other psychotic animals only seemed to attempt attacking Sage when I wasn’t around, so we went everywhere together, which was fine by me. The curse was real. I’d seen enough over the past three months to believe that.
Sage held up the perfect white fluffy rabbit skin pelt and grinned. “I think we have enough for the winter baby blanket.”
I nodded. “Definitely. We can stitch it up today.”
We’d prepared for the birth as best we could for two women who knew jack shit about having babies. The biggest issue was the placenta. I knew you had to clamp the cord before you cut it or you’d risk losing all of the baby’s blood. We gathered all the knowledge we had about labor from every movie I’d seen, or stories she’d heard of, and we decided that the scene fromWanderlustwhere the hippie chick carries the placenta around in a bowl next to her baby until it naturally falls off was safest.
I was young and healthy. We had no reason to believe giving birth would have any serious complications. “Back in the Renaissance times, fourteen-year-olds popped out a baby a year and had no idea what they were doing,” Sage had told me.
I had no idea if it was true, but it made me feel better.
The swollen feet were likely because I did a lot of hiking and housework, more than a normal pregnant lady who lived in the city. Even with Sage’s help, there was so much work to do.
But everything was going to be fine. I truly felt that in my bones.
“Your boobs are getting gigantic. Sawyer would be sad to miss this,” Sage said, and then her face fell when she realized she’d spoken of the past. “Sorry.”
I gave her a light smile, trying to pretend I wasn’t fazed by the comment. “Yeah.”
Sage and I had endless conversations about what the note I’d plastered to the wall meant.
I found it! It’s right off the well-worn path. Plain as day once you trust.
We’d decided that he meant to finish it, trust … and never did, or it had been erased. No one would be that cruel, right?
“Trustwhat?” I would scream on a daily basis. But not today. Today, we had decided to not talk about or go looking for the cave. Today, we were a mom to be and auntie to be excited about a baby.
For the next three months, I was just going to focus on being a mom with my best friend, and worry about everything else after that.
“If you want to name her after me, I won’t care. I mean, I am going to be the best aunt ever.” Sage plopped the rabbit meat into the pot.
I chuckled. “Yeah, that won’t be confusing at all, calling both of you Sag—” I gasped, clutching my belly as it tightened and went rock hard.
