Prized by Caragh M. O'brien Read Free Book Online

opposite hers. “Take a seat.”

    Gaia glanced down at the cushion. “I’m afraid I’m too wet still.”
    â€œIs that so? Let me feel your skirt.”
    Gaia set down the tray and stepped nearer, holding up a bit of the cloth until it touched against the Matrarc’s fingers. The older woman fingered it thoughtfully before she dropped it. “Why don’t you pull up one of the other chairs then, or sit on the hearth?” the Matrarc said.
    Gaia glanced over to where a dozen straight-backed wooden chairs were drawn up around a table. Beyond were other groupings of tables and chairs, some in cozy combinations by the windows where sunlight would touch soon, others arranged more like a dining hall or a school. With a glance at the oval braided rug at her feet, she dropped to the hearth, bringing her cup of tea and the spoon with her, and huddled her back toward the warmth.
    â€œIs Maya really better?” Gaia asked.
    â€œShe started nursing. I wouldn’t say she’s out of the woods yet, but she can be roused and her pulse is strong.”
    She had turned a corner, then. Gaia was so relieved. For a moment she didn’t care about anything else, or anything that could happen to her. As long as her sister lived, that was all that mattered.
    â€œSave us both some time and tell me where you’ve been,” the Matrarc said, her voice as melodious as ever.
    Gaia glanced down into her teacup and realized the Matrarc would know soon anyway. Babies weren’t exactly top secret news. “I went to Mx. Dinah’s. I heard a girl there in labor, so I went in and delivered the baby.”
    â€œMx. Josephine’s?” the Matrarc asked. “She was due about now.”

    â€œYes. She had a girl. A healthy one, and Mx. Josephine is fine, too.”
    â€œWonderful news,” the Matrarc said, looking pleased. “You seem so young to be a doctor.”
    â€œI’m a midwife,” Gaia said. She considered adding that she had experience assisting doctors in the Enclave, but decided against it. “I assisted my mother for five years, and I started delivering babies on my own this past summer.”
    â€œThis makes a difference,” the Matrarc said. “A very big difference. We need you here more than you know. In the two years since the last midwife died, we’ve had half a dozen babies die in childbirth, and three mothers as well. Why didn’t you tell me at first?”
    Gaia gave her tea a slow swirl with the spoon, disturbing the honey at the bottom. “I wasn’t sure I could do it anymore,” she answered.
    A slow clicking came from the Matrarc’s lap as she knit a few stitches. “There’s much about you that I don’t understand,” she said. “But the grief in you I sense clearly. For your parents, I assume. I think you’ve come to us for a reason, and maybe you need us as much as we need you. What brought you north? Why didn’t you go in some other direction?”
    Gaia lifted the steamy cup to her lips and took a sip. “My mother told me to come here. I’ve wondered about it. My grandmother left when I was only a baby, years ago, but only a month ago my mother told me to come find my grandmother here, as if she thought my grandmother was still alive. Could they have corresponded somehow?”
    â€œIt’s remotely possible, but not likely. I know Mlady Danni tried to send messages to the Enclave with nomads who passed through, but that was, as you say, a decade ago. I don’t know
that she ever received any letter back but I doubt it. Such news would have been enormously exciting to all of us and she never said anything.”
    â€œIt could have taken the nomads a long time to deliver a message or letter to my parents,” Gaia mused. “My grandmother didn’t leave any papers behind when she died, did she?”
    The Matrarc looked thoughtful. “Come to think of it, she