Page 21 of The Bear's Heart
“Don’t catch flies like that,” she scolded. “Close yer mouth an’ tell Mother Nara when ye had yer last moontime. The start o’ it, not the finish.”
I told her.
“An autumn babby,” she opined, only saying what I already knew. “Let’s feel yer belly then.”
I lay down flat on the bed, and she slid her bony hands over my abdomen, prodding at me with surprisingly strong fingers for one so old and skinny. I had to hold my breath when she bent over me because of the smell.
“Aye,” she concluded, “ye’re right.”
Well, of course I was. I wasn’t an idiot, and I’d learned all about the reproductive system in biology at school, and the workings of the human body. I probably possessed a lot more knowledge about this than she did. And I really didn’t want someone as dirty as she was around me when the time came for me to give birth. Historically, what most women died of as a complication of childbirth was infection– and this grubby old woman harbored a walking laboratory of bacteria.
When she’d gone, and Arthur came back in, I jumped to my feet and flew into the attack.
“She’s not coming anywhere near me when I’m in labor,” I said, with all the firmness I could muster.
Arthur’s eyes widened in surprise.
I kept going. “Have you stood next to her? She stinks. I could hardly breathe when she was bending over me. For a start, I won’t be able to hold my breath the whole time I’m in labor. And for a second point, did you see her hands? Her nails were black and her hands were blotchy brown with dirt.” I shuddered at the memory.
He raised his brows.
I went in for the kill. “Anyone delivering a baby should be clean. That’s what kills mothers– dirt brought in by their midwives.”
He frowned in disbelief.
“I’m right,” I said. “And I know I am.”
His brows creased still further. “How do you know? This is your first baby.” He paused and I saw a thought strike him. “Isn’t it?”
Annoyance rose to the surface. “Of course it is. I know because where I come from, doctors have discovered how infection is spread. I learned about it in school. Everyone learns about it.”
The frown deepened. “You keep telling me things they do where you come from.” He sounded puzzled. “Yet you don’t tell me where that is– ever. Don’t you think I deserve to be told?”
I’d walked into this one. Swallowing, I sucked in my lips in consternation. He was right– he did deserve to be told. Husbands and wives shouldn’t have secrets from one another. Perhaps I owed it to him to tell the truth, especially now our relationship was about to mature into parenthood.
We were face to face. Putting out a hand, I took one of his. “You probably wouldn’t believe me.”
“You said that once before. You might be surprised.”
I hesitated. How to put it so he wouldn’t think he was married to a nutter, for a start. “I told you I come from a different place– that Merlin brought me here through that portal on top of the Tor. That the stone circle somehow held a door back to my world.”
He nodded. His belief that Glastonbury was the possible entrance to the Celtic Otherworld had helped when I’d told him I needed to go home through that portal. His belief in magic made him more open than someone from my own world would have been. At least, I hoped so.
I’d known that one day he’d have to hear this, but it had never felt like the right moment. Was it now? I swallowed again.
“The world I come from,” I began, choosing my words with care, “isn’t somewhere else in your world. It’s not another kingdom we can get to by traveling.”
He regarded me through narrowed eyes. Was he thinking of Annwfn again, the magical realm of Gwynn ap Nudd? He’d asked me once if that was where I was from, half convinced he had himself a fairy bride.
I ploughed on, determined to get it out this time. “I came from exactly the same spot in my world, tumbling into yours. Merlin brought me here with his magic because he thought he needed me to fulfill that prophecy. He first saw me as a little girl. He watched me grow up, and then one day when I climbed the Tor in my world to scatter my father’s ashes, he left the dragon ring inside the tower, and I picked it up. And before I knew it, I found myself here in your world. Same Tor, same spot, just in a different time.”
He stayed silent for a minute, looking at me as if seeing me for the first time. Then he spoke. “You’re from the past?”
Not the question I’d been expecting. But of course, why would he jump to the conclusion that I was from the future when the past was probably what he best comprehended?
I shook my head and held his hand all the tighter. “No, I’m not from the past. I’m from the future.”
“The future?” he echoed, emotions flitting across his face at speed: shock, surprise, curiosity, and then a flash of anger. “Merlin knew this? All this time Merlin’s known you’re from the future?”
