Meg Elison - The Book of the Unnamed Midwife

On the third day, Colleen asked for Bart and Eric. Jane walked Shayla to the door.

“Don’t tell anyone. Hear me? Don’t even tell those two. Just tell them she wants them to come. Ok?”

Shayla nodded and went out the door.

Jane left the room when the men came in. She wished for coffee. Coffee was long gone. She ached all over. It was exhaustion, it was envy, it was the atrophied muscle of optimism stirring to activity once again.

Midwinter

Can’t explain it. Don’t know what we did differently. Don’t know what changed or why. That kid has been alive a week and I’m still afraid to write it down. Colleen named her Rhea. Rhea Rhea Rhea the princess of this place. Raiders brought back a truckload of diapers and blankets and clothes. More than she’ll ever use, but people hope this is the beginning.

Beginning. Not the end, the beginning.

If you don’t know what worked, how can you do it again?

How did we do it the first time? They didn’t know either and they never wrote anything down.

There is no water and no rock. There is no center and nothing holds. Fragments within and without. In the beginning, there was Rhea. Nobody will ask why ever again. She is why.

* * * * *

Rhea was not the only child on earth, but she was the first. If it can be found once, it will be found again. The population picked up, slowly. Growth would never be what it had been once. But there were children in the world. One by one, they were lost and found.

Mother Ina untied her belly and hung it on the peg on her wall. She rubbed the back of her neck and poured herself a glass of water. She had a good group of boys this year. They were sharp and obedient. Eager to please.

Ina lived in the House of Mothers, because she had survived the birth of a living child. It had happened to her only once, long ago. Her daughter Etta had left after she got her blood to hunt and kill slavers. She came back once a year.

The House of Mothers held thirty five women. The unnamed midwife had trained Shayla and Pauline, they had trained Emily and Tobyn. Emily had died in childbirth, Tobyn had taught Judith, Gabrielle, and Linda who had made the Law of Emily: Mothers could not be Midwives. The separation of women had begun in their time.

Ina’s child had been delivered by Bailey, acolyte of Judith. Etta was blessed at birth so that her spirit would be strong. Ina hoped that she would tie the hollow belly around her daughter’s waist when her time came. Etta had chosen another life.

Etta brought back lost children every year. She brought back girls, cut and uncut. She brought back women, Mothers and Midwives. Etta was a great hunter, but she did not bring back men. People talked about that, but nothing was done.

Every year Etta came to the gates of Nowhere and gave the signal that allowed her to pass. She went first to the shrine of the Unnamed Midwife. There she laid offerings from the old world on the altars of Colleen, Rhea, and She the Unnamed. Only then would she seek out Ina. They were as uneasy with one another as two strangers. Etta treated every man in her mother’s household as though he were her father. It was the respectful thing to do.

She was out there now, Ina knew. She kept her own book and carried her own guns. Ina stared at the belly on the wall and counted the days. She sat down to her own copy of The Book of the Unnamed Midwife to read a little before going to sleep.

Spring

All Jack’s notes are tucked into the back cover of this book. Read them so many times I could recite them. Coincidence. Like lightning hitting the same place twice. Happens. Bury me there. Together.

Didn’t have it figured out, even with the lab equipment that I can’t run without power. Had some proteins, some ideas for a cure. All recorded failures. Colleague’s notes all the same. None of them had it figured.

Maybe Shayla was born after the epidemic. Maybe she’s the baby Carter was carrying. Maybe the Andrea who died here on my table is the same Andrea who left that note. Maybe Duke and Roxanne will ride their Harleys here one day and Jodi will lead her dozens of children to my door. Maybe there was a plan maybe it’s all connected maybe Rhea will walk on water and raise the dead.

Only won by forfeit or default. Not because we really understand, or because we deserve it. Couldn’t slay the dragon. Don’t know why it worked or how we did it. Can’t explain method=can’t replicate results. No science. Just my jaw down and my eyes open, just the sound of that baby crying and the whole village coming to see.

Three more are ready to pop before summer is out. Passing Rhea around like a good luck charm. Rub the good baby on you, make it stick.

In the absence of science we have folk magic. We don’t know why it works but it worked before. Working again. Midwives, working again.

Victory?

Victory.

Meg Elison is a graduate of UC Berkeley and lives with her husband and tribe in Oakland, California. She can be found one the periodic table somewhere between iron and silver.

The author was a columnist for The Daily Californian, and has been published in Caliber Magazine, and Promise of Berkeley. Her poetry has been published in “Flight” 2009 and 2010, “Scribendi” 2012, “From the Four-Chambered Heart: In Tribute to Anaïs Nin,” and “Alternate Lanes: An Anthology of Travel Using Alternate Transportation in the City of Angels.” Her blog is available at paganmeghan.com. She is currently at work on a sequel to The Book of the Unnamed Midwife . @paganmeghan