Darkest Hour (Cutler 5)

"Mamma? Of course not. She doesn't know what happened to herself," Emily retorted, "much less anyone else . . ." She turned and started away.

"Where are you going?" I struggled to raise my head a few inches. "What are you going to do?" I cried.

"Just lie there and shut up," she muttered back, and left me, shutting the door behind her.

My head fell back to the pillow. I was afraid to move anyway. The smallest jolt sent the stings burning through my body, sent dozens and dozens of hot pins floating through my veins, sticking and cutting along the way. I was so hot all over, it felt as if my heart was soaking in a chest full of boiling water. I groaned louder. It was getting worse.

"Emily!" I cried. "Get some help. I'm in great pain now. Emily!"

Something was happening in my stomach. I felt rumbling, and then my stomach tightened and tightened, causing excruciating pain. I screamed so hard my vocal cords ached. The tightening continued and then suddenly, thankfully, it began to ease. It took the breath out of me and I gasped and coughed. My heart was pounding. My body shook with such tremors that the whole bed rattled.

"Oh God," I prayed. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm such a Jonah, a curse even to an unborn child. Please, have mercy. Take me now and end my misery."

I lay back, gasping, praying, waiting.

Finally, the door was opened and Papa came in slowly, followed by Mrs. Coons and Emily, who closed the door behind her. Mrs. Coons approached and looked down at me. Beads of sweat had broken out over my forehead and cheeks. I felt as if my eyes, my nose, my mouth had all been stretched to the point of tearing apart. Mrs. Coons put her scrawny fingers and scratchy palm over my forehead and then pressed her hand over my heart. When I looked up at her and into her dull, gray eyes, looked at her gaunt face and brown-stained skin, I felt as though I had really died and was in the land of the dead. Her hot breath smelled of onions. It made my stomach churn that much more and a wave of nausea climbed into my throat.

"Well?" Papa demanded impatiently.

"Hold your bowels, Jed Booth," Mrs. Coons chortled. Then she lowered her hands to my stomach and kept them there, waiting. The tightness began to build again, this time harder and faster than before. I took short, quick breaths and then began to groan, my cries growing longer and louder as my stomach became firmer and firmer until it felt like solid stone. Mrs. Coons nodded and straightened up, her birdlike gaze fixed on me for a moment.

"She's rushed it along," she declared. "Well, Emily," she said, "you wanted to learn how to do this. Now you will get your first lesson. Bring in some towels and a basin of hot water, the hotter the better," she said.

Emily nodded, her face full of excitement. It was the first time I saw Emily interested in anything beside her Biblical studies and religious teachings.

Mrs. Coons turned to Papa, who looked pale and confused. He moved to the right and then to the left. His eyes were jerking from side to side and his tongue was washing his lips as if he had just eaten something delicious. Finally, he tugged on the ends of his mustache and fixed his gaze on Mrs. Coons.

"You want to help, Jed Booth?" Mrs. Coons asked him. His eyes bulged.

"God's teeth! No!" he cried, and ran from the room. Mrs. Coons cackled like a witch and watched him go.

"Never seen a man who had the stomach to watch," she quipped, rubbing her skeletonlike hands together. The veins rose against the flaky skin on the backs of them and were all purple and blue.

"What's happening to me, Mrs. Coons?" I asked.

"Happening to you? Nothing's happening to you. It's happening to that baby inside you. You've gone and shook it out," she said. "Now it's floundering about, confused. Nature tells it to wait, it's not time, but your body is tellin' it it's on its way.

"If it's still alive, that is," she added. "Let's get your clothes off. Come on. You're not as helpless as you think."

I did what she asked, but when the pain returned, I could only lie back and wait for it to subside.

"Take deep breaths, many deep breaths," Mrs. Coons advised. "It's gonna get far worse 'fore it gets better." She cackled again. "Don't seem worth the pleasure it took to get you in this condition, do it?"

"I had no pleasure, Mrs. Coons."

She smiled, her nearly toothless mouth a gaping dark hole in her face, her tongue clicking within.

"Times like this makes it hard to remember," she said. I had no strength to argue. The pain was coming faster and faster each time now. I saw that Mrs. Coons was impressed with that. "Won't be too much longer," she predicted with the certainty of experience.

Emily arrived with the water and towels and stood beside the old hag who had positioned herself at the bottom of the bed after telling me to raise my knees.

"First one's always the hardest," she told Emily. "Especially when the mother's this young. She ain't grow'd and stretched enough. We're surely going to hafta help it along."

Mrs. Coons was right. The pain I had felt was not the worst of it. When the worst of it came, I screamed so loud I was sure everyone in the house and even people outside a mile away could hear. I was gasping and clinging to the sheets. Once, I reached for Emily's hand, just for the comfort of holding another human being, but Emily refused to give her hand to me. She pulled it away as soon as our fingers touched. Maybe she was afraid I would contaminate her or even burn her with my pain.

"Push," Mrs. Coons commanded. "Push harder. Push," she shouted.

"I am pushing!"