“It is born!” said Orla.
“Yet more!” cried Weiwara, her words more a sob of anguish than of relief.
Agda said: “Fat One preserve us! There comes another one! Hallowed One! I pray you, take this one. It has no life.”
Adica took the baby into her arms and pressed its cold lips to her own lips. No soul stirred within. The baby had no pulse. No heart threaded life through its body. Yet she barely had time to think about what she must do next, find the dead child’s spirit and show it the path that led to the Other Side, when a glistening head pressed out from between Weiwara’s legs. The sight startled her so profoundly that she skipped back and collided with Alain as he stepped into the birthing house. He steadied her with a hand on her back. Only Getsi saw him. The girl stared wide-eyed, too shocked to speak.
What ruin had Adica brought onto the village by bringing him here? The baby in her arms was blue as cornflowers, sickly and wrong. Dead and lost.
The twin slipped from the birth passage as easily as a fish through wet hands. Agda caught it, and it squalled at once with strong lungs. Weiwara began to weep with exhaustion.
Orla took her hands from Weiwara’s shoulders and, at that moment, noticed the figure standing behind Adica. She hissed in a breath between her teeth. “What is this creature who haunts us?”
Weiwara shrieked, shuddering all over as if taken with a fit.
Agda sat back on her heels and gave a loud cry, drowning out the baby’s wailing. “What curse has he brought down on us?”
Oblivious to their words, Alain gently took the dead baby out of Adica’s arms and lifted it to touch its chest to his ear. He listened intently, then said something in a low voice, whether to her, to the dead child, or to himself she could not know. All the women watched in horror and the twin cried, as if in protest, as he knelt on the packed earth floor of the birthing house to chafe the limbs of the dead baby between his hands.
“What is this creature?” demanded Orla again. Adica choked on her reply, sick with dread. She had selfishly wanted company in her last days and now, having it, wrought havoc on the village.
“Look!” whispered Weiwara.
The dead baby stirred and mewled. Color swept its tiny body Blue faded to red as life coursed back into it. Alain regarded the newborn with a thoughtful frown before lifting the baby girl to give her into Weiwara’s arms. Weiwara had the stunned expression of a ewe brought to the slaughter. Living twins were a powerful sign of the Fat One’s favor.
“Aih!” she grunted as the last of the pains hit her. Without thinking, she gave the baby back into Alain’s arms before gripping the stool one more time. Getsi expertly swaddled the other newborn in the birthing cloth.
When the afterbirth slid free and Agda cut off a corner of it for Weiwara to swallow, all the women turned to regard Alain. He waited quietly. Adica braced herself.
Yet no flood of recrimination poured from Orla. Agda sat silent. The afterbirth lay in glistening splendor in the birth platter at her feet, ready for cooking.
No one scolded him. No one made the ritual signs to protect themselves against the pollution he had brought in with him, the one who had walked into a place forbidden to males. Though it was wrong to let him stay, Adica hadn’t the strength or the heart to send him out. He had brought light in with him, even if it was only by the lifting of the flap of hide tied across the threshold, because the flap had caught on the basket hook, halfway up the frame, and hung askew. The rose blemish on his cheek seemed especially vivid now, almost gleaming.
“What manner of creature is this?” murmured Mother Orla a second time.
“The child was dead,” said Agda. “I know what death feels like under my hands.” She, too, could not look away from him, as if he were a poisonous snake, or a being of great power. “What manner of creature is he, that can bring life out of death?”
But of course that made it obvious, once it was stated so clearly. “He is a man,” explained Adica, watching him as he watched her. He seemed confused and a little embarrassed, half turned away from Weiwara as Getsi cleaned her with water and a sponge of sound rushes. “He was walking to the land of the dead when the Holy One brought him to me to be my companion.”
Weiwara was still too dazed by the birth to respond, or perhaps even to have heard, but Agda and Orla merely nodded their heads and pulled on their ears to make sure no evil spirits had entered into them in the wake of such a provocative statement.
“So be it,” said Orla. “If the Holy One has brought him to you, then she must not be afraid that he will bring any bad thing onto the village.”
“If he was walking to the land of the dead,” said Agda, “then truly he might have found this child’s soul wandering lost along the path, and he might have carried it with him back to us.”
Orla nodded in agreement. “It takes powerful magic to call a person off the path that leads to the Other Side. Maybe he has already seen the Other Side. Speaks he of it?”
“He cannot speak in any language I know, Mother Orla,” admitted Adica.
“Nay, nay,” retorted Agda. “None who have glimpsed the Other Side can speak in the tongue of living people anymore. Everyone knows that! Is he to be your husband, Adica?” She hesitated before going on. “Will he follow you where your fate leads?”
“That is what the Holy One promised me.”
“Perhaps,” said Orla, consideringly, “a person who can see and capture wandering spirits, like that of this child, ought to stay in the village during this time of trouble. Then he can see any evil spirits coming, and chase them away. Then they won’t be able to afflict us.”
“What are you saying, Mother?” Agda glanced toward Alain suspiciously.
“I will speak to the elders.”