by Meg Elison
Etta brought back lost children every year. She brought back girls, cut and uncut. She brought back women, mothers and midwives. Etta was a great hunter, but she did not bring back men.
People talked about that, but nothing was done.
Every year, Etta came to the gates of Nowhere and gave the signal that allowed her to pass. She went first to the shrine of the Unnamed Midwife. There she laid offerings from the old world on the altars of Colleen, Rhea, and the Unnamed. Only then would she seek out Ina. They were as uneasy with one another as two strangers. Etta treated every man in her mother’s household as though he were her father. It was the respectful thing to do.
She was out there now, Ina knew. She kept her own book and carried her own guns. Ina stared at the belly on the wall and counted the days. She sat down to her own copy of the Book of the Unnamed Midwife to read a little before going to sleep.
Spring
All Jack’s notes are tucked into the back cover of this book. Read them so many times I could recite them. Coincidence. Like lightning hitting the same place twice. Happens. Bury me there.
Together.
Didn’t have it figured out, even with the lab equipment that I can’t run without power. Had some proteins, some ideas for a cure. All recorded failures. Colleagues’ notes all the same. None of them had it figured.
Maybe Shayla was born after the epidemic. Maybe she’s the baby Carter was carrying. Maybe the Andrea who died here on my table is the same Andrea who left that note. Maybe Duke and Roxanne will ride their Harleys here one day and Jodi will lead her dozens of children to my door. Maybe there was a plan, maybe it’s all connected, maybe Rhea will walk on water and raise the dead.
Only won by forfeit or default. Not because we really understand or because we deserve it.
Couldn’t slay the dragon. Don’t know why it worked or how we did it. Can’t explain method = can’t replicate results. No science. Just my jaw down and my eyes open, just the sound of that baby crying and the whole village coming to see.
Three more are ready to pop before summer is out. Passing Rhea around like a good luck charm.
Rub that good baby on you, make it stick.
In the absence of science, we have folk magic. We don’t know why it works, but it worked before.
Working again. Midwives, working again.
Victory?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2016 Devin Cooper
Meg Elison is a high school dropout and a graduate of UC Berkeley. Her debut novel, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, won the 2014 Philip K. Dick Award. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and writes like she’s running out of time.
