“Bury him yourself,” said the woman who made her bed in thefirst gable when she heard. “Didn’t I already dig a suitable grave?”
“Won’t you have some shepherd’s pie before you go back downthere, dear?” said the woman who made her bed in the third gable.
Buttered baguette slices, tin cups of milk, heaping cuts ofpie: a good meal by ration standards, a good meal even by pre-war standards,and they had ruined it for her. The women smiled proudly at their visitor.
“I suppose I might have a little,” Marigold said, polite inher fashionable hat, black blood drying on her hands.
When all five plates were empty, the other women retired totheir gables. The woman who made her bed in the third gable washed each plate,carefully, methodically, while her guest waited at the table.
Then she said, “It hurt to lose that one, didn’t it, dear?”
“Yes,” Marigold whispered. “It was my fault, this time.”
“You’re ready now,” said the woman who made her bed in thethird gable, “for the sort of child I could give you.”
“I don’t know if I can bear the pain of another child,” saidMarigold.
“I know,” said the woman who made her bed in the thirdgable. She dried the final plate and wiped her hands clean on her apron, thenmade for the staircase. “Come along now, dear.”
“Where are we going?” said Marigold.
“The fifth gable,” said the woman who made her bed in thethird gable of the four-gabled house. “We’ll need privacy.”
Marigold’s husband waited at home for the arrival of theiradopted son. Marigold could not leave empty-handed. Marigold was unaccustomedto wanting something that once lost could not be regained. She followed thewoman who made her bed in the third gable.
The fifth gable was smaller than the others, drafty, thewalls windowless. A vase of dying gardenias rested on a small end table in thecorner. The gardenias had been wilting for longer than Marigold had been alive,which comforted the woman who made her bed in the third gable.
“Sit down,” the woman said, motioning to the armchair in themiddle of the room. A thin layer of dust covered its seat and arms and high,narrow back. Marigold settled into the chair and held her crumpled hat in herlap like it was a small and ill-behaved dog.
“Do you expect you’ll have to be tied down for this bit?”said the woman who made her bed in the third gable.
“What are you going to do?” said Marigold.
“Oh, I do very little, dear,” said the woman who made herbed in the third gable. “You said you wanted a child, any child, isn’t thatright?”
“Ye-es,” said Marigold, in a lilting voice that sounded morelike no.
The woman who made her bed in the third gable got to herknees and rested her clasped hands in Marigold’s lap, as if comforting, as ifpleading. “Whatever else you do, dear, remember to blame yourself.”
She rose to her feet and turned and left, locking the doorfrom the outside.
Inside the fifth gable of the four-gabled house, dampnessbecame cold and dimness became darkness, and Marigold’s skin felt like waxbeneath her fingers when she tried to rub her gooseflesh off.
◊
The women who lived in the four-gabled house buriedMarigold’s cellar child together, all but the woman who made her bed in thefirst gable, because she could not make herself look at the mangled body of thechild she had made.
“We should sing a hymn,” said the woman who made her bed inthe second gable.
“Why?” said the woman who made her bed in the fourth gable.
“It’s conventional. She’d like that.”
The women contemplated the idea of being conventional for awhile. Their eyes lost focus as they studied the raised mound of earth with thecellar child inside.
“He was such a fine boy,” said the woman who made her bed inthe third gable. “But I’m glad she hurt him, I must admit.”
The woman who made her bed in the third gable could onlybear children in the womb of another woman’s suffering.
◊
Marigold came from the fifth gable of the four-gabled houselooking smaller, with hair like straw. The women had a luxurious breakfastprepared for her, butter on the toast and sugar for the coffee. Marigoldstirred cream into her coffee with one hand and supported her squalling,red-faced child in the other.
“A hideous creature,” said the woman who made her bed in thefirst gable, after Marigold and the child had gone. “No offense.”
“None taken,” said the woman who made her bed in the thirdgable. “He wasn’t really mine. None of them have been.”
“If you made me one, he would be different,” said the womanwho made her bed in the first gable. “My hurt would be the furthest thing fromhers, and the child who came from it would be strong and strange and proud.”
“Perhaps in a few years,” said the woman who made her bed inthe third gable. “You haven’t felt enough yet. I couldn’t be sure of theoutcome if you hadn’t felt enough yet.”
And the woman who made her bed in the first gable knew thisto be true, having seen many dozens of the small dead fish-like things thatcame from half-felt suffering. She could not rush suffering, so she returned toher cellar and shut her door and set to work on her next child. This time, shethought, perhaps she would love them enough. Perhaps they would hurt her sodeeply that she could at last ascend to the fifth gable and bear a child thatwould live.
White Throat Holler
Bodies didn’t alwaysstay buried in Pryor. Sometimes they ended up a spit-polished pile of bones onthe side of the road, cozied up with a week’s worth of roadkill. Sometimes theyhung from willow trees with branches wrapped like nooses around their necks.The woods were thick and they weren’t liable to be found by anyone not looking,but being that I was the preacher’s daughter and a sensible girl, I got intothe habit of looking.
I hunted the demons with a stolen flask for courage and acrucifix for protection,
