Christopher Ransom: The Birthing House

Sleep the dream sleep o' sweet child

Mother is here

when the sun she rises and when she sets

Mother is your home, the only home Alma needs

remember Mother lives forever, forever in Alma's heart

remember every day, o' sweet child

no tears for me does child Alma shed

thread through a needle cannot mend a young girl's heart

Mother is here o' sweet child Alma even when

thread through a needle cannot mend a young girl's heart

She is standing before the mirror. Alma. She stands bare before the tall glass and marvels at her body, the strange power she feels building within. Her legs are equine, rippling with sinew and whiter than snow. Her hips are as dinner plates, sliding beneath her flesh as she twists. Her breasts are heavy in her hands, and she traces the mysterious blue lines pulsing beneath the surface like rivers flowing to the wide rose circles, one larger than the other, each aching with a dull throb she encourages and fears. Beneath her waist is thick delta that has grown as luminously black as the strands falling below her shoulders. She places one palm over the cusp of her belly and closes her eyes. She thinks by now she should be able to feel the lil'un inside, but his pulse continues to elude her fingertips. All the things Dr Justin Gundry has done to her. Alma knows she has given a life, but she does not have a life. Not yet. Or perhaps, as she heard one of the last remaining women of the house comment late one evening last winter, the things he has done have already ruint her. Perhaps she cannot make life. Was a time this thought brought tears to her eyes, but that time has passed. Alma fears not this fate. She does not know her age, but she knows she is a woman. She knows that Mother was correct. Alma has grown big and strong, and at last she is prepared to take a life to have a life.

Downstairs the Other Mother with red hair of fire is singing her gayest song, as she has been singing for the past three months since her arrival, since Dr Justin Gundry gave her the lil'un. Dr Justin Gundry has grown old and feeble, but his spirits appear to lighten in this new Other Mother's presence. Though the Other Mother with red hair of fire sings, her voice is not sweet like Mother's. Alma knows the night is coming, and soon.

Alma is standing over the basinet where the lil'un with red hair sleeps. She awakens at the sight of her, her shining black infant's eyes searching in the dark. Alma extends a finger and she clutches it with a stubby but firm grip. She blinks up at her, and Alma loses herself in singing to her.

She is still singing when the Other Mother with red hair of fire enters with the oil lamp and begins shrieking.

- Away, away from my child, Justin make her go away

Alma is standing on the porch feeling the snow blow in. The Other Mother with red hair of fire is shouting but Alma cannot hear her words. She is staring at the Doctor, who cannot bring his red eyes to meet hers. At last he pulls his new bride inside and leaves Alma standing in the cold.

Alma is pacing in the woods, stomping through snow that covers her ankles as she rakes her hands through the winter air, clutching and snapping at branches. Her shrieks echo through the dell and no one is here to answer.

- mother mother mother mother mother

Inside her, he feels the color of her mounting rage and knows it is a blackness without end.

When Alma returns the house is silent, dark, sleeping. She moves through the front parlor, up the servants' stairs, into the library. She walks on soft bare feet and opens the door to the Doctor's quarters. He is sleeping deeply, the sour perfume of his medicine hanging in the air. Alma closes the door and retreats. She walks back around the black maple banister to the delivery room where some of the Other Mothers gave a life, that which has now become the nursery.

The Other Mother with red hair of fire is sitting in the rocking chair, head bowed, with her back to Alma. The lil'un coos in the night before returning to her feeding. The lil'un is still suckling when Alma brings the blade through her mother's throat.

In the basement, Alma removes the piggy and places the swaddling child in her lair, making a nest of the wool blanket, adding another to ensure her warmth until she is able to return.

- I shall call you Chesapeake, from the place Mother was born

The child with red hair stares up at Alma, reaching for her finger.

- Sleep the dream sleep, Chessie, until Mother returns

Alma's arms are burning. She has grown strong, but the Other Mother grows heavier with each step. The path to the forbidden place stretches out into the frozen night, and the snow is streaked red with each lumbering step. She leans forward, pulling as a mule pulls the plow through deep soil. Inside the forbidden place is a table and Alma rests the body there. Above is a rope dangling from one of the beams. Alma loops the rope around the wrists and neck and pulls. She knows the ground is too hard for digging, but tomorrow she will have to dig no matter the weather. For she knows the secrets the Doctor keeps and what bones wait under the cross in the yard. For many years he has kept these hidden from the rest of their growing society outside of the house in Black Earth. Alma knows there are men of the law who would come if she sent word and the Doctor would hang for his crimes, as the red hair of fire now hangs for hers. But she knows too that exposure would bring the house from under them and Alma would be lost without a home for Chessie. Worse, the people of the growing society would perhaps spread their judgment and take her Chessie away.

She closes the door and washes her hands in the snow.

Inside she warms herself by the fire. Her hands are stiff, and she moves them over the flames. Her work this night is not finished.

Alma stands in the hall, in the doorway facing the sleeping Doctor.

- Comes the time

He is slow to stir and so she makes her voice stronger, undeniable.

- Justin Gundry comes the time to join Mother

Her voice, after so many seasons of silence, mutes Doctor Justin Gundry with a fear he has not known, but already he is rising from his bed. He is on his feet quickly, then hesitating, unsteady. Alma is forced to bring the silver blade to use sooner than planned, but she is not yet concerned. He lunges. Alma has grown tall and strong but the old Doctor is stronger. In the struggle that ensues between the master quarters and the hall where the black maple banister curves all the way around, Alma is pushed back even as she employs a life of hatred and rock-hard strength to plunge the knife into his belly and up, up, under the breastplate. He gasps, spewing spittle in her face. She rolls him aside calling his name over and over to place her judgment and for Mother.

- Justin Gundry Justin Gundry Justin Gundry

Justin Gundry the mortally wounded falls, but not before clutching his orphaned child Alma to tumble with him. Together they descend to the main floor foyer and the sound of Alma's neck is as loud and small as a sapling birch in winter. He is on top of her, her hand still clutching the handle of the blade, the point of which the fall has driven into his spine. As he breathes his last, his gray eyes bore down and Alma releases the knife to take him by the throat. She crushes the bones under the flesh until his gray eyes run to black and rupture as he passes from this life into that which lies beyond.

In the deep of the house the child called Chesapeake cries out for its mother, for any mother, to mend her young heart.

Alma rolls the Doctor off her. She cannot feel beneath her waist, but she can move her arms. She claws at the floor and begins to drag herself to her lil'un. Her cries echo all around her, and she cannot find the way down. She uses the last of her strength to lift her head, straining like a serpent there upon the floor, until the cords stand out and flex and the last splintered bone severs under the pressure and there is no more pain.