Page 4 of The Thirteenth Child
“Hazel couldn’t miss my birthday!” he exclaimed with indignation.
A blush of pride crept over my cheeks as my brother stood up—stood up to Papa!—for me.
Papa’s jaw worked, as though he was chewing on a wad of tobacco, even though he’d not been able to buy a tin of it in months. “Dinner is done. The cake is gone,” he finally said. “Your birthday is well and truly celebrated. Hazel needs to go off and do her chores.”
I nodded, my two brown braids brushing the tops of my shoulders. I scooted off the back of the bench and gave a little curtsy toPapa. Before I hurried out of the crowded dining room, I dared to pause, looking back at Bertie to offer him the tiniest grin.
“Happy birthday, Bertie.”
With a twirl of my pinafore, I rushed out of the house and into the chilly spring air. Twilight was just about to give way to true and proper night, the time of shadow-men and woodland creatures with limbs too long and mouths full of teeth, and my heart raced with an uneasy thrill as I imagined one of them stumbling across me on my way to the barn.
With a grunt of effort, I pulled the big sliding door shut and made my way to the back worktable. It was dark, but I knew the route by heart. I found Papa’s tin of matches and lit my oil lamp, casting weak golden light into the darkened stalls.
My choreshadbeen done long before dinner—I’d even managed to do some of Bertie’s for him in lieu of a gift. I knew it was wrong to lie to Papa—Mama was always going on and on about keeping yourself free of sin, somehow only ever cuffingmeon the back of the head during her admonishments—but if I stayed in that happy, celebratory chaos for a second longer, my walls would crack and tears would begin to roll free.
And nothing put Mama or Papa in a worse mood than seeing me cry.
With care, I climbed the ladder to the loft, balancing the lantern precariously on one arm as I made my way up to my bedroom.
I’d been sleeping in the barn ever since I’d outgrown the exhausted little cradle that had held all thirteen of us as babies. The cabin’s attic could fit only four beds—my brothers and sisters slept three to a mattress—and there was simply no space for me.
I found my quilt and curled it over my shoulders, snuggling into its decadence. It was the one thing I had that proved my godfather actually existed, that he had come for me once and would maybe one day return.
It was also an enormous sore spot between Papa and Mama.
Mama wanted to sell it off at market, arguing that the silk velvet alone would bring in at least three years’ worth of coins. Papa said that selling off the Dreaded End’s gift would bring an unholy mess of perdition upon the family and forbade her to touch it.
I traced the swirls of gold thread—real gold, Bertie had often murmured in wondered admiration—that spelled out my name.
HAZEL.
This was not a blanket that belonged in a barn, on a bed of straw. It didn’t belong with a family of too many mouths and too few rations, too much noise and too few hugs.
But neither did the little girl whose shoulders it now covered.
“Oh, Godfather,” I whispered, sending my plea out into the dark night. “Will this be the year? Will tomorrow be the day?”
I listened to the sounds of the barn, waiting and wishing for him to respond. Waiting as I did every year on this night, the night before my birthday.
Waiting.
I drifted in and out of sleep peppered with bad dreams.
Down in the valley, in Rouxbouillet, the little village skirting our forest, the bells of the Holy First’s temple chimed, waking me.
Once, twice…seven times, then eight, and so on, until they struck their twelfth note.
Twelve.
The hours of sunlight.
The months of a year.
An even dozen.
I saw my siblings lined up from biggest to smallest, their smiles bright, their faces so lovely and shining and beaming.
A perfect set. The perfect number.
