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“That’s what happens when you shake a tree,” I tell her.

She laughs so hard my knot almost slips out.

* * *

Three mornings later, her water breaks in the kitchen.

She’s standing at the counter, eating a pickle. She looks down at the floor. Then she looks at me.

“Rowan,” she says, very calm. “Go get the aunties.”

I clear the meadow in about six steps. A rabbit has to dive out of my way.

I take the lane in about ten more and pound on Auntie Bess’s door so hard it almost comes off the hinges. She opens it in her nightcap.

“It’s time,” I tell her.

She looks up at me. And for the first time since I met her, she doesn’t say a single word. She just grabs her shawl, yells “MARIGOLD!” over her shoulder, and runs.

They’ve delivered half the babies in this village, these two. I didn’t know that. But I learn it fast, because the second they get through the door, they take over. Hot water. Clean cloths. Hattie walking slow circles around the kitchen, holding on to the counter, breathing.

They try to make me leave.

I don’t leave.

“Men wait outside,” Auntie Marigold tells me.

“Then go get me a man to wait outside,” I say, and stand right where I am.

Auntie Bess looks at me for a long moment. Then she rolls her eyes and hands me a cool cloth.

“Put that on her neck,” she says. “And stay out of the way.”

I stay.

It takes all day.

I feel every single bit of it. Through the bond, I feel every wave, every squeeze, every time her whole body clenches and she cries out. I feel her scared. I feel her tired. I feel her so strong I don’t have words for it.

And every time she cries out, something old and mean in my chest wants to tear this whole fucking cottage down. But there’s nothing to fight. Nothing to break. Just her, hurting, and me, holding on.

So I breathe with her. Slow. Steady. In, out. I put my hands on her back and hold her up when she leans on me. I let her squeeze my hand so hard my knuckles creak. I don’t say much. I don’t need to.

She can feel me too. And what she feels from me is calm. Solid. Steady. Not going anywhere.

Every time she starts to panic, she reaches for that. I can feel her do it. And every time, she settles.

At one point, sweating and shaking in my arms, she grabs my blossoms in her fist and hisses, “Rowan. If you ever put another baby in me, I’ll chop you down myself.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

“I’ll turn you into a fucking chair.”

“You already have one.”

She laughs, and then she screams, and Auntie Bess says, “Here it comes, baby, push.”

And just after the sun goes down, with the window open and the bees humming in the meadow and the whole cottage smelling like honey and rowan blossoms, our daughter comes out screaming.