Ander - Part 2: Subchapter 28
28
"'Be careful what you wish for,' they say." Sarah had taken a handkerchief from the folds of her dress to wipe away the errant tears that occasionally snuck through her guard, and Ander wondered whether it could be the very same one she had used all those years ago. "I wished only to lock myself away in my room so that I wouldn't have to face the world outside. Especially my father. After what he... almost did... I became terrified of him. I wished only to be left alone." Sarah smirked. It was a bitter, wicked-looking thing that didn't fit her timid personality at all. "It seems that the gods have a sense of humour after all, because those are the two wishes they granted immediately. Both my parents decided it would be best to keep my 'little problem' a secret from the village, so I was banned from leaving the house. Whenever someone asked after me, they would claim I had taken ill. And I hardly ever saw my father during that time. As hard as he worked the fields by day, he would work Othello's Tavern by night. How he never let slip my condition to the drunken rabble in that dingy place is beyond me. Sometimes, in the dead of night, our front door would burst open and I would hear his voice travel up the stairs, screaming about how he wouldn't have a monster in his house..." Sarah sighed. "So I spent my days locked up in my room, getting huge. Mother was a great help, of course. She took care of me, but more than that, she managed to keep Father at bay. On more than one occasion I heard them arguing about me. Father wanted to hire a healer at great expense to 'fix' our problem in much the same way I had nearly done, only with medicines and sharp pieces of metal instead of stairs."
Ander winced. Hearing about all the times he had nearly been killed before his life even had a chance to begin was a chilling experience. Even though it felt like he wasn't listening to his own story, but rather to that of a perfect stranger's, the knowledge that he was considered a curse even before birth was both saddening and at the same time unsurprising. He was "Ander," after all. It was more than just a name.
"I can see this is difficult for you to hear," Sarah said, "But please, there isn't much left to tell."
"I understand," Ander said. "And I want you to go on. 'A burden shared is half a burden lighter,' as my people sometimes say."
"They also say 'those who sit at different fires are not the same of mind.'"
"You learned a lot from my father, didn't you?"
"I did. And that phrase is especially apt for the relationship I had with my father. We definitely sat at different fires for those three and a half months. The way he looked at me sometimes, I swear he was trying to kill you with his gaze alone. I heard him standing outside my room in the dead of night many times, and I'd lie awake, trembling, certain that that would be the night he opened my door and stepped inside with that broken rod..."
Sarah wiped at her eyes with her handkerchief again. "But he didn't, and I believe I had my mother to thank for that. Your grandmother. The gods were cruel to her, and I was the only child they ever allowed her to have. That's why I think she wanted a grandchild more than anything else."
His grandmother? Ander had never thought of her like that. To him, his grandmother had always been a filthy skull on a spike outside his mother's tent. "Is she still...?"
Sarah shook her head. "No. She and my father both died nine winters ago, within two months of each other, as is often the case with couples who have been married such a long time."
"I'm sorry."
She shook her head. "It's okay. They both lived long, fairly happy lives. And I believe in my heart it's thanks to my mother that you lived to see your second day on this earth."
"What happened?" This was the part Ander wanted to know about. He needed to know how his life was put on this path.
"The night of your birth started out the same as all the others up till then. Dull, dull..."
*
... dull. Sarah was sitting in the living room with no one for company save the crack in the floor, which she refused to look at. Father said he would fix it, but she suspected he intended to do no such thing. Maybe he wanted to leave it there as a reminder for her.
Father...
She looked out the window at the lights of the village, glowing softly in the dark like embers. One of those lights belonged to Othello's Tavern. One of those lights had her father inside of it, growing drunker and drunker.
And angrier.
Sarah sighed and returned to her knitting. Now that she was unable to do any of the farm work, Mother insisted on teaching her some of the more womanly crafts, knitting being on top of the list. She expected it to be easy, like sowing, but it was turning out to be devilishly tricky.
She carefully stuck the tip of the needle through the loop of yarn, wondering for the hundredth time if she maybe just screwed up the order. It was hard to tell exactly what you were doing with only a single candle in the room. Add to that the fact that she was trying to work over the moon-sized orb that was her tummy and you've got quite the exercise in patience going on.
Oh well. When in doubt, just keep going.
Sarah concentrated hard on her deformed scarf, her needles clacking against each other in the gloom. It gets a bit repetitive after a while, but it's better than sitting around doing absolutely nothing for -
A sudden surge of wetness between her legs, drenching her dress.
Sarah's needles froze halfway through their stitch, but her heart sped up to what felt like three times its normal rate.
"Oh dear, oh dear, oooooh dear..." she muttered. She tried to sit up straight to inspect herself proper, but that has been a very difficult task for the past two weeks, and judging by the way her dress clung to her legs she wasn't entirely sure she really wanted to see what was going on down there.
So are you just going to sit there going "Oh dear, oh dear," until you pop the pup out!? You need help, girl!
"Um... Mother!?" Sarah called.
"Is it happening?" she called back immediately.
"I don't know! Something's happening!"
Mother appeared at the top of the landing and hurried down the stairs in a flash, taking them two at a time. "Well, it's about time! Pup should have showed up a week ago!"
"So is it- Are you saying that it's - ?"
"Oh yes, dear. Your water definitely broke. And all over my good yarn, too."
"I'm sorry."
"No need dear, they're better off."
"Oh, ha ha ha. My knitting isn't that bad."
"You just keep telling yourself that, deary. Now get up, come on."
Sarah stuck out her hand and Mother helped her to her feet. This was a manoeuvre both of them have gotten rather good at over the past month, and the thought that this was hopefully the last time she would ever need help with such a basic task was enough to dampen her nerves a little. Not much, but she would take what she could get, seeing as how it felt like she was headed for the gallows.
"Okay dear, let's get you into the spare bedroom. I've got everything we need all set up."
"The spare? I thought we'd go up to my -"
"Oh no! You're in no condition to be climbing any stairs right now, believe me."
"I think I can manage. Why...?"
"Just trust me, Sarah!"
"Oh. Um... okay."
"That's a good girl. You just listen to your mother and everything will be all right..."
*
"To this day I still wonder if she planned everything out to happen the way it did, but there's no way I can know for sure because I never found the courage to mention that night to my parents ever again. All I know is that if I had given birth up in my room that night, you wouldn't be sitting here listening to my story right now."
Ander didn't say a word. He feared that any comments or questions might slow her down, and he was beginning to feel the weight of time pressing down upon him, both from the unknown past and from the horrifyingly clear present. His tribe was just on the other side of the mountain, no doubt readying their plans to come for him. He needed to get back there as soon as possible, but not before he learned the whole truth.
"My mother wasn't lying," Sarah said. "She indeed had everything set up, all neatly arranged in a line on a table by the bed, although 'everything' wasn't nearly as encompassing as I had thought..."
*
"This is it?" Sarah said as her mother helped her lie back on the bed.
"Well, what else could you possibly need?"
"Um... I don't know. It's just..." Sarah's idea of 'birth' has always been one of the utmost seriousness and danger. It could be life-threatening even under the best of circumstances, and these circumstances could hardly be considered 'best.' For one, they had no midwife or healer present. Even worse, they had no idea what she was actually about to give birth to. Would it be a Fox or a Wolf? Or maybe some kind of cross between the two?
And then there was the 'equipment.'
On the table to her left was a small stack of clean towels, two buckets (one empty, one filled with water), a pitcher (also filled with water), and a leather belt. The only light came from a pair of old candles; one standing by the bedside table, the other by the window. This last had a phantom brother staring back at her from the window pane, flickering in synchrony.
That's it.
That's all she would get to help her through this (whatever 'this' would turn out to be).
Perhaps sensing her daughter's distress, Laura took one of the towels, soaked it in water, folded it up and gingerly placed it on Sarah's forehead. "I'm telling you, this is all you need. Childbirth is a perfectly natural thing. Vixens do it almost every day without nearly as much fuss as this. Just pop them out right there in the middle of the garden and continue digging weeds. No big deal."
Sarah nodded, surprised that the water she could feel dripping past her temples was cool. Weren't you supposed to have warm water at births? But then again, what were you supposed to do with it? She had no idea. Sarah suddenly wished she had researched this more thoroughly. "What's the bucket for?"
"In case you vomit, dear. Just give me a warning if you feel the need."
"Oh gods, I thought that was over."
"Sadly, no. It's quite common. How are you feeling right now? You need to be specific, so tell me exactly."
"Um... a bit nauseous, to tell you the truth." Of course she was. How could she not be, knowing she might projectile vomit against the walls at any second?
"Perfectly normal. Anything else?"
"My muscles are getting sore. Pretty much everywhere, but especially in the back."
"Yes, all perfectly normal. You might also experience some -"
"Oh dear gods!" Sarah exclaimed, her whole lower body suddenly caught in the worst cramp she had ever experienced. It felt like her muscles were twisting up like that abomination she tried to pass off as a scarf.
"- cramps. Oh dear, Sarah, if you're already starting to scream like that you're in for a rough night."
"Of course I'm in for a rough night! I'm giving birth, dammit! If there is one time in my life I'm allowed to scream a little this would be it!"
"I'd agree with you wholeheartedly, but you're not giving birth."
"I'm - What? I'm not?"
"Not yet you're not. That was just a little itty bitty cramp, not much worse than the monthlies. Believe me, you'll know when the contractions start for real. That's what this is for."
Sarah watched, confused, as Mother took the belt, folded it over twice, and held it out to her.
Sarah only stared at it. "What am I supposed to do with that?"
"You bite down on it, dear. Against the pain."
"Oh... my... gods..." Sarah moaned and took the belt in her shaking hands. Feeling its rough texture against her fingers, she wondered what it would taste like in her mouth. Even more so, she wondered how unbelievably bad the pain would have to be for any vixen to even consider shoving a dirty old thing like this in there. "Um, Mother? Does it... you know? Work?"
"Honestly?"
"Mother!"
"Of course, dear. It works like a charm. Takes all the pain and makes it vanish without a trace."
"Then why don't I feel reassured?"
"Because you're about to push a watermelon out of you and it will hurt like hell, you stupid girl! And you've got no one to blame but yourself, so toughen up!"
"Wow, where did that -"
The worst pain Sarah had ever known suddenly shot through her body, wrapping around her middle like a band, making her 'itty bitty cramp' a while ago feel like a tender kiss on the cheek. Every muscle contracted, and she was surprised to feel the belt buckle dig into her palm. If she had to guess, she would have thought some kind of invisible spectre had stolen it at some point, wrapped it around her stomach and was now cruelly tightening it to listen to her scream. A moot point, seeing as how she was literally in too much pain to manage anything as complicated as a scream. Or even a breath, for that matter.
Mother calmly sat down on the edge of the bed, folded her hands in her lap and said, "Now you're giving birth."
The part about people who sit at different fires being of different mind was taken from an old Afrikaans saying. And yes, I was just as surprised to learn how little was actually needed for a home birth. Honestly, some sources would have you just squat in the garden and clean up afterwards with a hose. :/
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