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Everyone ca to see He stared at the, and their questions, which ran off him like water Adults left their fields to come and watch Children crowded around, so amazed that they even jostled Adica in their haste to peer upon the s, they swars merely settled down as patiently as oxen, with expressions of wounded dignity

Into this chaos ran a naked girl, Getsi, one of the granddaughters of Orla

"Hallowed One! Co house!"

Cold fear gripped Adica’s heart Only one woe mate and friend, Weiwara She found her cousin Urtan in the crowd "This man is a friend to our tribe Treat hier"

"Of course, Hallowed One"

She left, running with Getsi The cords of her string skirt flapped around her, bouncing, the bronze sleeves that capped the ends chi out the alarasps of air:

"Let her not die, Fat One Let it not be e in this way"

The birthing house lay outside of the village, upstreaed it, to keep out foraging pigs, obdurate goats, and children Men knew better than to pass beyond the fence An offering of unsplit wood lay outside the gate Looking back toward the village, Adica saara’s husband coate behind her and sta house Then she shook the rattle tied to the door and crossed the threshold, stepping right across the wood frame so as not to touch it with any part of her foot Only the door and the s stool, deep in the birth trance, eyes half closed as she puffed and grunted, half on the edge of hysteria despite Mother Orla’s soothing chanting Weiwara had birthed her first child three sus were the erous: if you survived the upon you and your strength

Adica knelt by the cleansing bowl set just inside the threshold and washed her hands and face in water scented with lavender oil Standing, she traced a circular path to each of the corners of the birthing house in turn, saying a blessing at each corner and brushing it with a cleansing branch of juniper as Weiwara’s panting and blowing continued and Mother Orla chanted in her reedy voice Orla’s eldest daughter, Agda, coated her hands in grease also scented with lavender, to keep away evil spirits Agda beckoned to Adica with the proper respect, and Adica crept forward on her knees to kneel beside the other wo rituals, so that she, too, could observe and becoda spoke in a low voice A light coating of blood and spurease on her hands "I thank you for co, Hallowed One" She did not look directly at Adica, but she glanced toward Weiwara towoo, I felt the head of the child down by her hip But just nohen I felt up her passageway, I touched feet co down She is early to her tiht to lanced up, daringly, at Adica’s face The light streah the smoke hole made a mask of her expression

"I think the child is already dead" Agda spat at once, so the words wouldn’t stay in her mouth "I hope you can bind its spirit so Weiill not be dragged into the Other Side along with it"

Weiwara labored in shadow, unbound hair like a cloak along her shoulders She ot louder

"It’s tida settled back between Weiwara’s knees and gestured to her ed the pattern of her chant so that the laboring woently probed up the birth canal while Getsi watched fro cloth draped over her right shoulder

Adica rose and backed up to the threshold, careful not to turn her back on the laboring wo fro house was itself a passageway between the other worlds and this world, it always had to be protected with char the basket down fros she needed