Afterward, the compromise.
Bodies resume their boundaries.
These legs, for instance, mine.
Your arms take you back in.
Spoons of our fingers, lips
admit their ownership.
The bedding yawns, a door
blows aimlessly ajar
and overhead, a plane
singsongs coming down.
Nothing is changed, except

there was a moment when
the wolf, the mongering wolf
who stands outside the self
lay lightly down, and slept.

"After Love"
Maxine Kumin

Bonnie sat up, gasping for breath. Her summer bedclothes clung to her skin. The thin material gathered in clumps of dark, wet masses at her joints.

Something's wrong , was what went through her mind at the same time the grandfather clock in the parlor down the hall. Three strikes, three in the morning. She shook her head.

"Bonnie Bennett," she whispered to herself. "Go back to bed."

Her mind, however, had other ideas. It tugged, it nagged. Wrong, wrong wrongwrongwrong wr -

Bonnie huffed, drawing her knees up and staring out her window. The moon, a day away from full, shone through the glass. She should really get back to sleep. Tomorrow was laundry day for her and the three other families that worked the land shared between the four. Missing a completely productive day at the wash house would certainly be ripe for smaller disasters to give way to larger ones. Spending more time there meant less time finishing other chores at home-like watching the animals.
The ewe? A thought that struck her like a kontra in desperate need of tuning.

She threw the covers off of her, tucked in a loose end from her head wrap, and yanked her robe from the top corner of her bedroom door. It was silly. Albee, the mother-to-be in question, was expecting her first lambs but she'd been fine. But Bonnie felt something tugging her, pulling her lungs taut. As she tugged on a pair of her father's boots, that strung feeling loosened a bit.
Had there been a witness to Bonnie Bennett's journey from the house to the stable, they'd have laid eyes on a specter made of twilight and dawn. Each step held purpose. The linen robe flew behind her, the ties of which whipped downwards. The witching hour poured starlight onto her brown skin, illuminating her features in cool light. The hollows of her collarbone held a pool of shadows. The only feature that made the ethereal corporeal was the shlop shlop of the too-big boots as she clopped through mud.
The village of Cibin boasted quite the aqueduct system to irrigate the larger, more wealthy farmlands. The area the Bennetts helped keep had a less expensive system which meant Bonnie had to be careful lest she slip and twist an ankle.

"This is silly," she muttered to herself. "You're going to find all is well and curse yourself for leaving the comfort of bed."

But before she even reached the barn door, she heard Albee bleating loudly. Bonnie's eyes widened and she ran over to the door. Her fingers tugged at the rusted latch. It stuck once, twice. Her heart raced.

"Open!" she spit out. It finally gave way. She flung it open and discovered Albee on her side, bloody straw sticking in her wool. She'd been cornered away from the rest of the flock, other sheep that were sound asleep, in her own pen. The two work horses in their stalls grumbled in displeasure at the commotion. "No, no, no." Bonnie dropped down, grabbed the ewe's two back legs and yanked them open. The problem was clear. From Albee sprang a tiny hoof but Albee's opening was far too small to allow for the lamb to push through. Although far from a yearling, Albee wasn't old enough to have difficulties birthing. Rudolph Bennett, her father, had guessed this lambing would yield at least two to the flock.

At this rate, it would net them less than they'd started with.

Bonnie leaned over and held Albee's head, cradling the poor creature as she howled in pain. "I know, I know."

If she ran to get someone, it might be too late and they'd lose not only the lambs but also Albee. But Bonnie had only seen a lambing once and it wasn't a difficult one. Who knows how long Albee had been in such a state though? More wasted time would certainly end in death.

"Stay strong," Bonnie whispered into Albee's wool before springing up to fetch a bucket of water. She dusted off her nightdress, blood and hay woven into it now.

"Pardon me," she stepped over a goat who was curled up with the sheep. Grabbing an empty bucket, Bonnie hopped back over and ran outside to the water pump. It took a few tries to prime it, but once it cooperated, the pump was generous enough to allow Bonnie to finish quicker than she thought. Using both hands, she waddled as quickly as she could with the now-full bucket straining her muscles. One end of the robe's loose tie wrapped itself around her leg and she stumbled, spilling some of the water. Bonnie kicked the tie from her leg and spit a swear at it.

By the time she'd settled back down by Albee, all the animals were awake and making noise. Bonnie ripped off her robe, placed it on top of her gown, and spread Albee open wider. Too weak or in too much pain, Albee's head rolled over as a weak bleat left her. "C'mon, girl, strength. We'll do this together."

The blood didn't bother Bonnie. It was that tiny hoof wriggling wildly outside of the vagina, clamoring to live. She hesitated for a moment. Bonnie fed and groomed the animals, cleaned out their stalls. But this was something one of the farmhands would take care of, maybe her father. Perhaps this was a mistake. Maybe she should have ran back to the house.

No , something inside her answered. You see blood every month. You've seen women in the village give birth.

Bonnie set her mouth in a firm line and then shoved her fingers inside Albee, being careful to navigate around the lamb. She could feel it wriggling inside. That was good, right?

"There we go, we're fine," Bonnie assured herself more than the animals. Her arm and hand shook. The robe fell from her lap. She grunted. "Come now, come on!" Something nibbled her fingers. A mouth! Now with some idea of the lamb's position, she pulled out a little and was able to find the other front leg, bent and stuck at Albee's opening. She stretched it straight, took hold, and yanked.

The lamb struggled against her but Bonnie won. In moments, the lamb was out and bleating, wriggling against the hay.

"'Right then, no more left to chance," Bonnie declared and shoved her hand back in. It took a minute or two, but she was able to find the second lamb, its legs curled underneath itself. By this time, Bonnie forgot she was trying to stay clean. Her entire forearm was in Albee and she was kneeling in the bloody hay, fumbling and pulling on the second lamb.
"Oh, you're being a right bastard," she cursed. "Out," she grunted, yanking. "You. Come!" She fell back, the lamb kicking and crying unhappily against her. "You ingrate," she laughed, placing the lamb next to its sibling who was trying to right itself on its legs. "Albee, your children are a handful."

Bonnie crawled closer to Albee's head and frowned. "Girl, hey." The hand that wasn't covered in blood and mess patted the ewe's cheek. "Hey, worst is over, c'mon now."

But Albee didn't respond. She wasn't breathing. Bonnie choked. Dead. She was dead. Tears welled at the corner of her eyes. She should have asked for help. Without Albee, the lambs would have to rely on the other animals and the people to help them. Not awful but not the best situation.

Bonnie shifted to hold Albee's head in her lap. A tear rolled down her cheek. The strung feeling wound up again in her lungs, pulling tighter and tighter. She reached down and stroked the sheep's cheek with her bloody hand. "It's alright," she whispered, her voice cracking. Her hand shook. Through one of the slats of the barn, moonlight shone across the barn floor. It was so much brighter than the rest of the inside, Bonnie hadn't realized it was so light outside that she didn't even need to light a lantern.

It was comforting, the moon. In a strange way, the blood also. Both lambs were stumbling around on all fours and crying out to Albee, curling next to her. They were still covered in Albee's blood, the very blood that gave them life in them and on them. The same blood on Bonnie. She couldn't quite breathe, crying and feeling her chest get tighter. Poor Albee.

Albee . The name tugged at her. Bonnie took a breath. Something tugged. It yanked at her the way she'd yanked the lambs into the world. Stop it , she ordered. But it kept tugging.

Stop , she pleaded. It ignored her. A small flicker of anger sparked under her skin. She reached out and pulled against the force tugging at her, without really knowing what she was doing. She just wanted the force to stop bothering her.

And, just like that, she could breathe. Inhale. Exhale. Bonnie opened her eyes and couldn't trust what was in front of her.

Albee, eyes open and trying to curl her legs under herself so the lambs could reach her teats.

Bonnie sat there, umoving. She watched the lambs stumbling over to the leaking nipples while the ewe nudged at them and licked them clean.

The lambs settled in. Albee seemed fine.

Bonnie looked down at her arms. She washed up.

Perhaps she'd panicked. There was no way Albee had been dead. It was just her inexperience. In all that had happened, Bonnie had probably missed shallow breathing.

She left the lambs with their mother to wake the household.

Elena Gilbert elbowed Bonnie as the latter yawned. "If you start, you'll get me going," she complained, smiling. The wash house was crowded this morning but despite the chatter and gossip, Bonnie still couldn't wake up.

"I was up early," Bonnie brushed off. She focused on the shirt she was busy cleaning on the scrub board. "Can you pass me the rinse bucket?"

Elena tucked a piece of stray hair that had escaped her headscarf behind her ear. "Here. And don't give me 'you were up early' nonsense. Jeremy's already told us all about your lambing adventure this morning."

Bonnie rolled her eyes. "Farmhands are such gossips."

"And Jeremy's the worst of them all," Elena agreed.

"He's not that bad," she defended. Dipping the bucket into the wash basin, she poured out a fresh rinse over her father's shirt. "Well, at least not usually."

Elena laughed, snorting a bit. "I love my brother dearly but I don't know what he'd do if he didn't have me looking after him."

"Starve," she offered. Satisfied with the state of the shirt, she wrung it out and hung it flat on a line overhead. "Wander into a ditch."

"It would be funny if you weren't right." Elena put a pair of pants next to the shirt Bonnie had just hung. "Spirits bless him, his poor head is always in the clouds."

"Speaking of which," Bonnie stopped washing for a moment to turn her full attention to Elena, her voice a bit lower so none of the other ladies would overhear. "I'm thinking of going into the village and buying him a few pieces of parchment."

Elena dropped the dressing gown she'd been scrubbing, the thin fabric floating off into the way of another washing board. "Sorry, sorry!" She snagged the garment, avoiding the glare of the older woman who she'd disturbed. "Bonnie Bennett!" she hissed. "He's supposed to be courting you."

"Does he know that?" she sighed. "I thought my parents had spoken with your aunt on the matter but Jeremy seems practically oblivious. Yesterday, he came into the house from the fields to bandage a cut and he barely said two words to me."

Elena frowned. Although they'd been friends since childhood, sometimes Elena could be short-sighted when it came to her brother. The Gilbert parents had perished in an unfortunate farming accident last year. With Miranda and Grayson gone, Miranda's sister Ioana and Grayson's brother Iohn stepped in to provide for the siblings. So, Elena being the elder took it upon herself to be her brother's guardian.

"He's shy," she countered.

Bonnie rolled her eyes. An annoying guardian. " I'm shy."

Elena scoffed. "As shy as the sun!"

Bonnie's mouth dropped open. "And who, pray tell, flashed her breasts at Matthew Donovan at the spring equinox festival two years ago?"

Pain flashed crossed across Elena's face. It was meant to be a joke but Bonnie had forgotten that it was during last year's festival that her parents had died. She quickly went back to work, words stumbling out of her mouth. "I'm sorry, Elena."

Elena didn't say anything but shrugged. She too went back to her work. "It's been a year. I shouldn't be so sad still."

"Be as sad for as long as you need be," Bonnie advised.

Elena turned to her, grabbed her arm, and gave her a quick hug. "You're the kindest soul, you know that?"

Bonnie reached down and splashed a little bit of water at her. "How about now?"

Elena opened her mouth but from across the basin, Kamellia Donovan scowled at them. "Elena Gilbert. Bonnie Bennett." She continued scrubbing. "Have you two forgotten that this isn't a playpen?"

Elena's cheeks went red. Bonnie glared at Kamellia. "And what would you know of playpens? You had the village raise Vikki and when she was old enough to watch Matthew, you were more interested in finding a new man to lay with than your children," she snapped.

Kamellia went crimson. The other women in the wash house within earshot politely covered their snickering but began whispering to one another, some pointing at the mortified woman. Bonnie didn't smile or jeer. She simply went back to washing. Elena's hand found hers in the water and she gave her a quick squeeze.

After a few moments of silence, Kamellia yanked her dripping wet clothes off the line, threw them into her basket, and stomped off.

Someone further down commented, "Serves her right. Week away from the spring equinox and begrudges those girls some fun. The nerve."

"She's so awful," Elena muttered. "I hate that Matthew can't see that."

"Love sometimes makes us blind." Bonnie dug out the last piece of clothing from her

basket. "Which brings me back to your brother…"

Elena sighed. "Alright, perhaps he needs to be a bit more forward. You can't do all the work. But, please, don't buy him expensive parchment. Maybe save that for a wedding present? He's got plenty of things to scribble on as it is now."

"Suggest to him that women like flowers," Bonnie relented. "He's very nice but, just…"

And she didn't want to tell her closest, dearest friend that her brother didn't feel like enough. The few times she had seen him shine were when he drew. The arts fascinated her, the way Jeremy could see a tree on the horizon and replicate it in his own fashion on a flat surface. But it's the only time he showed any spark of interest in the world. He would farm the rest of his life, never wanting more from it and that was disappointing.

Not that Bonnie had any room to talk. She grew up on a steady diet of her grandmother's fantastic stories about witches and magic in the world but it was all thin whimsy. Bonnie knew what life held but that didn't mean she couldn't dream. Jeremy seemed content with walking through life half-asleep.

Wanting more wasn't a sin.

"Grams is sick?" Bonnie had just returned home with the laundry to witness her mother packing a basket of food and glass bottles swirling with thick syrups. Medicine, she'd tersely explained to Bonnie.

"The letter promises it's nothing dire," Abigail sighed. "Besides you know your father doesn't like you going over there."

"Dad doesn't like anything that isn't benefiting the farm," Bonnie grumbled, flopping the basket down beside the basin where the laundry mangle stood.

"Farm's our livelihood," her mother countered. "Besides, your grandmother just spouts the same type of nonsense she's always rambled on about. Did it when I was a kid and she does it now. Only difference is, she's got a willing ear. You're just not wise enough to see it."

Bonnie ran a shirt through the mangle, the turning mechanism grinding as she slowly pushed the handle forward. She bit her tongue, literally, to still the words from coming out. It wasn't right to be arguing with either of her parents. She pulled the shirt out, satisfied with how much drier it felt, when Rudy burst through the door. "Abby!"

Both she and her mother snapped their gazes at the sight of him, sweat dripping from his brow and his dark skin more red than it should have been. "Rudy? What's wrong?"

Rudy stomped through the house into the kitchen, digging through cupboards. "Damn horse got spooked and threw Andrei off. Probably just a sprained ankle but I'm gonna treat it as a break 'til the apotek can get here. Can you help me set it, Abby? I need all the other men to pull their weight to get the rest of the work done."

Abigail took off her traveling cloak and agreed. She said she'd gather supplies and meet him back there. As soon as Rudolph shut the door, Bonnie struck. "I can go see Grams!"

Her mother was gathering another basket, filling it with clean rags. "No."

"Pleeeeease?"

"It's dangerous."

"It's daylight ."

Abigail looked up from the drawer was rummaging through. "You'd burn through all of it humoring my mother."

Bonnie bounced up and down. "I promise to be back before sundown."

Abby stood up and regarded her daughter. There was a heartbeat of silence before she said, "Alright, fine . But-"

Bonnie leapt at her mother, hugging her tightly. "Back before sundown!" She ran upstairs to her room and opened her trunk. In it she pulled out a luxurious red traveling cloak Grams had gifted her when she turned thirteen.

"A most auspicious year for witches," Gram announced, topping the statement off with a wink.

Bonnie snapped it out to dust it off a bit. The wool broadcloth was soft yet edges were embroidered with black flowers and golden suns. The lining around the hood was decorated with delicate geometric shapes of green and silver. Worn during the worst of winters and the mildest of summers, Bonnie couldn't remember her life without it. When she was younger, Elena and Caroline had fallen into the habit of calling her Rosu because she refused to take it off. A silly, childhood nickname that had fortunately fell out of favor.

She whipped it around herself, untied her headscarf, and shook out her hair.

Grinning, Bonnie announced to her room, "To grandmother's house I go!"