The Book Eaters(27)
“Can I name her?” She spoke the question to no one in particular, too dazed to remember what the protocol was.
“No need,” Gailey said, stuffing bloodied sheets into a laundry basket. “Luton has already chosen ‘Salem,’ should the child be a girl.”
Salem Winterfield. The syllables mushed in her mouth like rotting paper. It made her think of witch trials and women being burned, and seemed such a heated nomen when stuck to chilly old Winterfield.
“I don’t like that.” She peered down at her daughter’s soft, chubby face. “It doesn’t suit her at all.”
“Don’t be daft, it’s a perfectly lovely name! Here, support her head better—that’s right.”
Devon was too tired to argue. Too battered and still bleeding, with a naked infant curled on her naked chest. She found “Salem” was sticking in her mind, whether she wished it to or not. As if her daughter had been tarred irrevocably.
A knock at the door, distracting her attention. Luton had arrived. He was bleary-eyed, yawning, still in a dressing gown, and Devon realized with surprise that it was half past four in the morning. She’d completely lost track of time.
“The tongue,” Luton said, scrubbing at his face with the heels of his hands. “Has anyone checked?” He didn’t approach, likely put off by the bloody mess all over the bed.
For a brief, exhausted moment, Devon stupidly thought they all meant her own tongue—that tongue of yours!—and couldn’t fathom why that would be worth mentioning.
“Baby’s fine, no proboscis,” another aunt said. “She’s a girl in any case, Luton.”
“Girls can still be mind eaters. It happens, albeit rarely,” he said. “But I agree, she looks fine in this instance.”
He drew Gailey aside, after that, and spoke in low tones, saying something about registrars and doctors. Practicalities that needed taking care of. Gailey pursed her lips, nodding at appropriate points.
Devon hugged her daughter close, both annoyed at Luton’s questions and relieved at their answers. A healthy girl. Yet a part of her was angry it should even matter. A mind eater girl would not be marriage material, and that was all Luton thought about.
She looked down at the snuffling lump in her arms, swamped with an unsettling mix of dread and pride. There’s only six brides left in the whole of Britain, Faerdre had said. Did that make her daughter the seventh bride-to-be? The thought was anxiety-inducing for a multitude of reasons.
Luton came over to Devon’s bed, gaze still averted from the blood. “You did well, Ms. Fairweather. I’m glad to hear the child is a girl, and healthy. I hope you will forgive me for returning to sleep, but the hour is unsociable, and I have a full schedule tomorrow.”
“Yes, of course,” Devon said, fumbling for polite words. Didn’t he feel it—the power, the trauma, the awe? Why hadn’t the axis of his universe tilted, as hers had?
She debated thanking him for intervening with medication, then decided against it and bent over her daughter instead. Luton had only helped because her pain had been inconvenient to him, and now that her mind was clear of drugs and agony Devon seized on that fact with sharp cynicism. He didn’t deserve her gratitude for what was merely basic courtesy.
After he left, the baby was taken away by aunts to be weighed, cleaned, and dressed. One of the aunts helped Devon to the bath, dousing her bathwater in an army of luxury products before leaving her in peace.
The revelation struck Devon with the force of a speeding train as she sat, exhausted in a porcelain tub, naked and alone and clothed in bubbles: she could not give Salem away.
There was nowhere else to take this sentiment, no plan or specific goal. It was simply a truth that she felt and would not deny. Salem was hers, clunky name and all. No one had the right to separate them.
Devon stepped out of the bath, dripping suds on the floor, and wrapped herself in a bathrobe. She limped back into the freshly changed bedroom and slithered between the covers, whispering her thanks as one of the aunts laid Salem next to her.
“Sleep,” Gailey said, tucking the covers around them both. “We’ll have someone stay with you, these first few nights. No need to worry about rolling on the child in your sleep.”
“Can I raise her?” Devon asked. Salem’s tiny hands curled around her adult fingers, grasping tight; they held each other fast. “I can stay here longer. I don’t mind.”
Gailey squeezed the pillows roughly, plumping them up. “That’s not how it works.”
“Why not? Why can’t it be?”
“Oh, my lovely.” Gailey put a hand on Devon’s head, as if she were a dog. “Listen to me, and carefully. No one gets more than three years to nurse the child, and after that all women must go on to their next wedding. Marriages are carefully negotiated, to limit inbreeding.”
“I know,” Devon said, then realized she was holding the baby too tightly when Salem started to cry. “I know the terms of my contract, I understand our struggles with fertility,” she said, calmer. “But I thought—”
“No,” said Gailey. Seeing Devon’s expression, her own softened a little. “All mother-brides experience this. It is completely normal, and we have all been through it. Including me.”
“You’ve done this?” It shouldn’t have surprised her, because of course all women who could have children had done so. All the same, Devon struggled to picture Gailey as young, wedded, pregnant, and nursing. Specifically, she couldn’t fathom how someone could go through this same experience yet still advocate for it, as other Family women seemed to.