* * *

• • •

She wrote to her parents confirming her return to England, and Fred drove the letter to the post office, on the way to delivering a young colt to Booneville. She saw the stiffening of his jaw as he registered the address and hated herself for it. She stood, arms folded in her white linen shirtsleeves, as he climbed into the back of his dusty pickup truck, the rattling trailer attached to the back and the horse kicking impatiently to be gone. She watched them head the whole way up Split Creek until the truck was out of view.

Alice squinted at the empty road for a while, at the mountains that rose on each side of it, disappearing into the haze of summer, at the buzzards that wheeled lazily and impossibly high above them, her hand shielding her brow. She let out a long, shaky breath. Finally she dusted her hands on her breeches and turned to walk back into the library.

TWENTY-ONE

   The call came at a quarter to three in the morning, on a night so warm that Alice had barely slept, but instead wrestled, sweaty and fitful, with a sheet through the small hours. She heard the rapid banging on the door and sat immediately upright, her blood chilled, ears straining for clues. Her bare feet met the floorboards silently and she shrugged on her cotton robe, grabbed the gun she kept by the side of the bed and tiptoed toward the door. She waited, her breath tight in her chest, until the noise came again.

“Who’s there? I’ll shoot!”

“Mrs. Van Cleve? That you?”

She blinked and peered out of the window. Deputy Dulles was standing there in full uniform, one hand rubbing anxiously at the back of his neck. She moved to the door and unlocked it. “Deputy?”

“It’s Miss O’Hare. I think it’s her time. I can’t raise Dr. Garnett and I don’t feel happy with her laboring down there alone.”

It took Alice a matter of minutes to haul her clothes on. She saddled a sleepy Spirit and followed the treads of Deputy Dulles’s tire marks, her determination overriding any natural hesitation Spirit might have had about negotiating the deep woods in the black of night. The little horse trotted out into the darkness, ears pricked, wary but willing, and Alice wanted to kiss her for it. When she got to the mossy track by the creek bed she was able to break into a gallop, and she pushed the mare as hard as she could, grateful for the moonlight that illuminated the path.

When she reached the road she did not head straight for the jail, but turned, urging Spirit down toward William and Sophia’s house at Monarch Creek. She had changed in her time in Kentucky, yes, and, true, she wasn’t afraid of much. But even Alice knew when she was out of her depth.

* * *

• • •

By the time Sophia reached the jailhouse, Margery, slick with sweat, was pushing against Alice like someone in a rugby scrum, doubled over and moaning with pain. Alice could only have been there for twenty minutes but felt as if it had already been hours. She heard her own voice as if from a long distance—praising Margery for her bravery, insisting that she was doing so well, that the baby would be here before she knew it, even as she knew that only one of those things might possibly be true. The deputy had lent them an oil lamp and the light flickered, sending uncertain shadows up the cell walls. The scents of blood, urine and something raw and unmentionable filled the thick, stale air. Alice hadn’t realized birth would be so messy.

Sophia had run all the way, her mother’s old midwife’s bag under her arm, and Deputy Dulles, softened by two months of baked gifts, and confident that the librarians essentially meant well, pulled back the cell door with a clatter and allowed Sophia in.

“Oh, thank goodness,” said Alice, into the dim light, as he locked it again behind them with a crash of keys. “I was so afraid you wouldn’t get here in time.”

“How far along is she?”

Alice shrugged, and Sophia ran her hand over Margery’s forehead. Margery’s eyes were clamped shut, her mind somewhere far from them, while another wave of pain crashed over her.

Sophia waited, her eyes alert and watchful, until it passed. “Margery? Margery, girl? How far apart are your pains?”

“Don’t know,” Margery murmured through dry lips. “Where’s Sven? Please. I need Sven.”

“You got to pull yourself together now, stay focused. Alice, you got your wristwatch there? You start counting when I say, okay?”

Sophia’s mother had been the midwife for all the colored folk in Baileyville. When she had been a child, Sophia had accompanied her on visits, carrying her mother’s big leather bag, handing her the instruments and herbs as they were needed, helping her sterilize and repack them ready for the next woman. She wasn’t fully trained, she said, but she was probably the best Margery was going to get.

“You girls okay in there?” Deputy Dulles stood respectfully behind the sheet as Margery began to wail again, her voice lowing, then building to a crescendo. He had made sure he was well away when his own wife had borne their children, and the indelicate sounds and scents of it made him a little queasy.

“Sir? Could we possibly have some hot water?” Sophia motioned to Alice to open the bag, gesturing at a clean fold of cotton.

“I’ll ask Frank, see if he can boil some. He’s usually up at this hour. Be right back.”

“I can’t do it.” Margery’s eyes opened, fixed on something neither of them could see.

“Sure you can,” said Sophia, firmly. “That’s just nature’s way of telling us you’re nearly there.”

“I can’t.” Margery sounded breathless, exhausted. “I’m so tired . . .” Alice took a handkerchief and wiped her face. Margery looked so pale, so drawn, despite her swollen belly. Without the daily rigors of her life outside, her limbs had lost their muscle, grown soft and white. It made Alice feel uncomfortable to see her, her cotton dress tight around her, the way it stuck to her damp skin.

“A minute and a half,” she said, as Margery began to moan again.

“Yup. Baby’s coming all right. Okay, Margery. I’m going to lean you back here for a moment while I put a sheet down on this old mattress. Okay? You just hang on to Alice.”

“Sven . . .” Alice saw Margery’s lips shape his name as her knuckles grew yellow-white on Alice’s sleeve, her fingers a vice. She heard Sophia’s voice murmuring reassurances as she moved, sure-footed, in the near dark. The cells opposite were uncharacteristically silent.

“Okay, sweetie. Now that baby’s coming, we need to get you into a position where she can make her way out. You hear me?” Sophia motioned to Alice, helping her turn Margery, who barely seemed to register. “You keep listening to me, you hear?”

“I’m afraid, Sophia.”