Chapter Two
A Magickal Night
The Healer marched as she could between the three houses--one hut was very poor and dirty, one house was of moderate size but clean, and one large house was very well appointed and immaculate for a village dwelling. She instructed the three young wives as to what to expect, steeled the three husbands’ resolve as to what must be done. “I cannot be everywhere at once!” she scolded them. She then tramped diligently back and forth with her bag full of vials and jars in hand, from door to door, table to table, and bedside to bedside, with only a hastily sipped cup of cooling tea and a bite of bread to keep her going.
The Healer was followed, she knew, by the old man they called The Hand. “Not yet!” she called over her shoulder at the darkness where he hid in the trees. There was no reply. She expected none. “But soon!” she yelled.
She had just left the hut--where the father to be, Dent, was sorely drunk and of no help at all--when three screams pierced the night. “Right,” she said and turned on her heel in the mud and tramped back inside the poorly lit, one-room dwelling. “What have we got here?” she said, setting her bag onto the rough hewn table.
Dent stood staring down at the bloodied bed holding the bedpost to steady himself. “Una blanca,” he spat. The Healer moved him aside to find the panting wife holding in her arms a screaming baby, covered in goo. It was a girl, and she was white as new driven snow drifted from head to toe.
“Oh my,” was all The Healer could think to say, though something shined in her dusky blue eyes.
Through the open door, the old man entered. He stood silently hunched, clothed only in rags and bits and ends of cloth strung haphazardly together with twine. He clutched a small pouch in his tattooed gnarled hands. He did not say a word.
“What does he want?” Dent bellowed. “Get out!” But Dent did not move towards the old man. Everyone knew he was magick. Anyone could see so by looking at him.
“He comes to name her,” The Healer said simply.
“Well,” Dent sputtered, “he ain’t cutting on me.”
“Get out.” The Healer shushed Dent towards the door. “Besides, he is not going to cut on anyone, and I have two other babies to tend to shortly.”
“I already named her. Blanca,” Dent said in a low voice, “And HE” he said, pointing at the old man, “stinks of pigs.” He slammed the door on his way out.
“Now, Tilly,” The Healer said to the young woman crying in the bed, “The Hand will not hurt your child. It is just a mark on the back of her neck is all,” then after a moment’s pause, “to protect her.” The Healer held the girl child to her chest and cradled the back of her head on her broad shoulder. She looked at the old man and nodded. “Get on with it, then. We have two more to go.”
The old man they called The Hand, pulled a pen of sorts, made of bone, from his small bag and moved silently forward with purpose.
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