The Midwife | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Text copyright Myrrh Sagrada © 2004

    After retrieving some larger sticks and a big, moss-covered chunk from the woodpile by the door, the woman had squatted before the hearth, continuing to nurture the fire until she was satisfied she could leave it. She had taken up a rush-light to kindle it too, but reconsidered and replaced the bundled stems in their simple iron fixture on the table. "The fire's enough," she affirmed aloud, "we'll be in bed soon." Then she set about brewing chamomile and lavender tea, the moist fragrance of which now permeated the interior of the cottage.

    "We gathered those apples just in time, my girl. It'll freeze tonight, certain." Celeste groaned as she sat down on the edge of the bed. "They've browned and softened, but they'll be useful," she grunted, pulling off her shoes with some effort. "We'll have the lot pressed tomorrow. Ferment it and sell it." She smiled at the idea of having some money in the jar hidden in the upper corner of the room.

    "The chandler will want some," the girl said absently.

ith the dusk the air outside was becoming heavier and quieter. Marguerite turned her gaze to the open cottage door in time to witness the enfeebled light retreat like vapor before the upward advance of the earth's muddy darkness. She found it unsettling that a person couldn't mark the point at which the light was replaced with dark, even watching it happen. What began with open blue day, everything solid and touchable, became illusory with the imperceptible fall of a deepening lilac curtain - and soon all was darkness, the sky heavy and close. Purple turning to black. Like a bruise, she thought. Like a cloth thrown over the image of Christ at Passiontide. There was something sad and terrible about the moment one realized the darkness had finally conquered the light. You don't know it until it's too late. She felt helpless under the weight of the night and its deception.

    A familiar dread radiated from the pit of Marguerite's belly. She rose and went to her mother for an embrace.

    "Marguerite, the dark can't hurt you if you behave sensibly. All is God's doing, we need only follow the rules of the world around us to be safe."

    "I know," she said into her mother's belly. "I just don't like it. I want the day to remain."

    "If night never came, when would we sleep? We'd be very tired indeed! Nothing keeps on forever, Marguerite. That wouldn't be right. But nothing disappears either. Everything changes into something else. The plant lives, then is eaten and gives life to the goat; the goat is killed and eaten and gives life to the person, and when the person dies she becomes part of God's heavenly universe. It has always been so. And the universe - the dark and the light - they go on and on, following each other forever. Awake, asleep, awake, asleep." She rocked her daughter back and forth with the words. "So you see, there's no sense mourning the demise of the light when you know very well it will reappear after sleep, just as the souls of the dead reappear as stars in the night sky."

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