Burning Twilight Read Free

more. The skin beneath the baby’s hair was slowly changing from red to purple.
    Kassy brushed some loose hair out of her eyes, and was tucking the tiny gold cross on a silver chain back inside her blouse when Irina took her hand and said that she liked looking at the way the cross sparkled in the candlelight. Then Kassy left it dangling for the pregnant woman to fix her eyes on.
    Soon, she was feeding Irina bits of the cake along with soothing sips of cold water, while repeating a Latin prayer asking for God’s protection. Kassy didn’t believe in the healing power of the strange old words themselves, but many of her charges felt better because they believed in such powers. The mind’s influence over the bodily humors had always fascinated her, and the effect was certainly worthy of further study.
    The cake eventually brought Irina some relief, but by then Kassy was sweating under her clothes as she and the midwife worked against the dying light of the fire. Without being asked, Paulina wiped the perspiration from Kassy’s forehead and with her free hand began rubbing the knot that had formed at the base of her neck. Kassy felt her shoulders relax a little, and she thanked Paulina with her eyes.
    Then the midwife finally got a grip on the baby’s head and neck and pulled down and out.
    A stream of new voices had joined the whirlpool of passions rushing by the front window. But even as the chaos of the pageant outside swirled around them on all sides, a cool stillness fell like a shroud over the Svobodas’ rooms.
    Irina clutched Kassy’s arm while Paulina wrapped the lifeless blue mass of flesh in sackcloth.
    “At least use a clean towel,” the midwife said softly.
    Irina’s face was as pale as wax. Her husband stared blankly ahead. Then he remembered where he was and tried to give Kassy a stone-cold stare, but all the hardness drained out of his face when his wife said, “Bless you all for trying to help,” in a faint dry croak.
    His eyes dropped to his hands, which were smeared with blood.
    “I’ll prepare you something—” Kassy could barely get the words out. “Something to help build your strength back up.”
    She stayed to wash the mixing bowls and the pan she had used to make the cake, while Paulina wiped off the birthing stool and swept the floor, and the midwife burned twice-blessed herbs in the four corners of the house.
    Kassy carefully taught Paulina the psalm for these occasions in plain Czech, so that the simple folk would understand and take comfort from the words.
If I say that the darkness shall cover me, and the light be night about me, I must remember that the darkness and the light are alike to Thee, for Thou hast formed my innards; Thou hast knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise T hee, for I am wondrously made. Thine eyes did see my unformed flesh, and all my days are written in Thy book.
    The girl wanted to learn more, but Kassy told her to think about it long and hard, because there was precious little room in this world for women like herself.
    Eventually, Kassy had to trudge back toward her campfire through the drizzling rain, ignoring the eyes of men and the filthy barefoot boys fondling bits of wood and stone to hurl at the effigy of a Jew that was being raised in the town square. The villagers listened open-mouthed as the local priest condemned the straw man of okrucienstwo Zydowskie— Jewish bestiality—then set the hateful thing on fire.
    Kassy was fighting off the oppressive feeling that nothing would ever make the pain of this failure go away. But something else weighed heavily on her mind as well, the creeping sensation that the ways of the wise women were slowly disappearing. She couldn’t help wondering if she had been born in the wrong place at the wrong time, maybe even the wrong century altogether.
    She found a little gift from her feline friend waiting for her on the ground beside the dying embers. A small gray mouse lay on the dirt, its legs stiff and