The Year of the Witching(66)

“She has no name,” Martha whispered, hands shuddering around the child’s head so violently Immanuelle feared she’d drop her. “She has no name.”

Heart pounding in her throat, Immanuelle peered over the folds of the swaddling blanket. The child was small and pink, and her eyes were wide, irises a brilliant blue. She looked like a normal, healthy baby, except for the small cleft that dimpled her upper lip. Immanuelle extended a hand, and the baby grasped her by the finger, cooing a little as she peered up at her.

Leah groaned, fresh tears rolling down her cheeks. The dark puddle between her legs stretched wider and wider.

“No,” Immanuelle whispered. “She’s not dead. She’s breathing. She’s all right.”

Martha started to shove the child into Hagar’s arms, but she refused it, cane striking the floorboards as she backed against the wall. “It’s cursed.”

“I’ll hold her,” said Immanuelle, stepping forward to take the child. She cradled the nameless girl against her chest, shielding her from the wandering gazes of the Haven girls and servants who gathered to gawk.

Across the room, Martha worked fervently at the table, her hands shaking as she pierced the needle through Leah’s wound, struggling to suture it, to stop the blood from flowing.

“Don’t let her see,” Esther mouthed from across the room, dabbing Leah’s forehead with a cold compress.

So Immanuelle kept her distance, holding that child to her chest in the shadows by the hearth, trying in vain to soothe her. It was only when Hagar, leaning on her cane, whispered, “Ashes to ashes,” that she raised her gaze to the table again, and saw Leah sprawled—limp and breathless—her glazed eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Immanuelle clutched the child closer. “No. She’s not, is she . . . ?”

“Dead.” The word rattled through the room as Martha drew away from the table. She raised her eyes to Immanuelle, and tears moved down her cheeks. “She’s dead.”

Immanuelle didn’t remember who took the child from her arms. She didn’t remember crossing through the halls or fleeing the Haven. She only came to when a cold blast of night air struck her across the face like a slap.

All at once, she was on her knees gagging and gasping for breath, her whole body heaving like the blight raged in her too. The tears followed and great sobs racked her, snatching the breath from her lungs.

Immanuelle didn’t know how long she crouched there—weeping in the shadows—but she remembered seeing the tops of Ezra’s boots as he stepped down the stairs and catching the scent of him as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to his chest.

He held her as she cried, her face buried in the folds of his shirt, grasping at his hands as if his flesh and bones were her only tether to the world—and perhaps, in that moment, they were.

“You’ll be all right,” he murmured into her hair, again and again, like a prayer. And as he said it, she began to believe him, began to believe that whatever evil had fallen upon the land, she would survive it. After all, the curse was bred from her. She was it, and it was her. The sin and the salvation, the plague and the purgings, all bound up into one body by a bargain of blood.

Yes, Ezra was right; she would be all right. She would watch all of Bethel burn without sustaining so much as a scratch because Lilith and her legion had no interest in harming their savior, the curse bearer, the soul of the plagues themselves.

She’d been used, betrayed by her mother, sold to the witches. And now—as if her fate wasn’t cruel enough—she would watch in silent suffering as everything she loved and cared for was gutted and slaughtered and picked to pieces. Then, once the plagues were finally over, she would remain, a lone survivor amidst the bones and ashes.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN





I am with you until the end.

—DANIEL WARD





LEAH BURNED FOUR days later. As a wife of the Prophet, she had a small ceremony and a pyre of her own. Huddled around the flames was a crowd of mourners, comprised mostly of Leah’s kin, who’d come up from the village for the occasion, and a few of the wives who’d dared to venture down from the Prophet’s Haven. Ezra’s mother, Esther, was among them. Most of the mourners stood well clear of the flames with wet cloths pressed to their mouths, afraid of catching the blight from the ashes.

“It’s always the kind ones who keep secrets,” said Martha, squinting into the light of the fire. “Always the kind ones who best hide their sins.”

The pyre logs shifted, and a spray of embers stormed through the smoke-thick air.

“Leah didn’t sin,” said Immanuelle. “We took what we wanted from her, ripped it from her belly, and then we watched her die.”

She waited for Martha’s retort—a scolding, a slap across the face—but silence was all she deigned to offer. And the silence was worse.

Immanuelle shifted her gaze back to the pyre. Through the bloody glow of the flames, she locked eyes with the Prophet. He stood among his apostles, watching his bride burn. His eyes, like Martha’s, were dead.

Something settled deep within Immanuelle. It took her a moment to recognize the feeling. It wasn’t the flames of anger stoked, or the cold throes of grief. No, this was something grim and quiet . . . something sinister.