Page 10 of These Immortal Truths
Anna holds Emma’s hand as Eira checks beneath her skirts. She waits, anxiously, for Eira’s assessment.
When she looks up, there is an aged smile gracing her lips. “My, you’ve been strong to make it this far. Baby is nearly here.”
Emma cries, her stomach going visibly taught. “What do I do?” she gasps, the words tripping off her tongue. “What do I do, I’ve never—”
“Sh,” Eira hushes. “Breathe. When you feel ready, sit up and lean on dear Anna here. Your body will do the rest.”
The couple sleeps by the fire, the light casting them in warmth and shadow. A baby girl lays, wrapped in one of Eira’s knit blankets, between them.
The labor went quickly and without incident. A blessing, Eira confided in her after, considering how far they traveled and how far into her labor she was—how long the poor girl fought her body’s instinct to push just so she can make it to their door. Many wouldn’t be so lucky.
Anna’s not sure she has ever witnessed anything so miraculous and terrifying in the same breath.
But the look in the new mother’s eyes, the hello she breathed into her baby’s skin, makes something in Anna’s heart ache. It’s a quiet pain, a shadow she never noticed lurking, but now she sees it at the edges of her vision—the ghost of something she will never have.
Then, in the space of one breath and the next, she realizes that she’s missing more than opportunity.
The pit in Anna’s stomach grows. She can’t shake the question churning there; can’t escape the sharpened edges of uncertainty. When she goes to their shared bedroom, the candle has alreadybeen blown out and she can’t tell if the older woman has fallen asleep. She whispers her name into the dark. “Eira?”
A soft grunt—a sign to continue. It still takes Anna a moment to find the words she’s looking for. She sits on her bed, drawing her knees up to her chest. “I haven’t had any monthlies.”
They were irregular and short before—a testament to how starved for nutrition her body was—but they were stillthere. It’s been nearly a year since she was arrested and left to burn, and Anna hasn’t bled in all that time.
There is a moment of silence before Eira’s sigh fills the space. In the dim light, Anna can only just make out sympathy in her gaze. “Nothing is without price, Child. Not even the gifts of gods.” She takes her hand, rubs a callused thumb over Anna’s knuckles. “But believe me when I say, this one is a mercy. There is no pain like outliving a child.”
Any dreams Anna once had of a family had waned as the pale blotches on her skin spread, but somehow Eira’s confirmation still strikes her like a blow. That night, when she curls up under the blanket and lets the tears drip silently from her cheeks, she wonders how it’s possible to grieve the loss of something she never expected to have.
The seasons pass. One year becomes three, then five, then eight. Something inside her, something she had never realized was broken, mends.
Summers are spent harvesting without fear of the cold winters to come, her belly full and her days content. She continues to learn from Eira, collecting little pieces of information and committing them to memory so she can be more than a passive witness when the next person comes seeking help. Every time she thinks Eira couldn’t possibly have more to teach her, the older woman delivers something new.
In the winter, they close the shutters tight against the cold and let their hands find meaning in other tasks. Eira spends more time on her reading and writing, spelling out words in the ashes before making the letters disappear with a sweep of her hand so she can start all over again. The sounds fall from her lips in a broken, stuttering mess and her letters are shaky and crude, but she reads. She writes.
It’s more than Anna has ever expected herself capable of. A life more comfortable than she has ever known or dreamed for herself.
She should have known it couldn’t last.
On the table is a bag.
Brimming with bottled oils and herbs and heavy with an insinuation that makes Anna’s blood run cold. The basket of elderberry she collected slips from her hand, hitting the floor with a dull thump and the scattering of dark fruit across the stone floor.
Rifling through the open shelves, Eira doesn’t bat an eye. “Clean that up for me, would you? I could use another jar.”
Anna can’t take her eyes off the bag, her feet rooted to the floor. “You’re leaving.”
“I am.”
Anna feels the words like a knife. Even though she knew, the moment she passed the threshold what her answer would be. “But why?”
“It’s my time to go.” Eira turns, a ruddy clay jar of what Anna recognizes to be a supply of dried chamomile in her grasp. Her stare is sharp with meaning. “It’s your time, too.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t want to!” She’s at peace here. More so than she ever remembers being. “I want to stay.”
“What we want isn’t always what we need,” Eira says, setting the jar on the table before reaching out and setting her ancient hands on Anna’s shoulders. “Immortality is a fickle beast, dear girl. Stay too long in one place and you’ll rot there.”
“But I’m happy—”
“No,” she interrupts, “You’re notunhappy. It’s not the same.”
