2 July 1633

It's so hot. It doesn't get as warm as it used to, I don't think, but I'm not sure. I took my girls to the river today to swim, and they had fun. I laughed aloud for the first time in a very long time, and I made my daughters laugh, too. I made silly faces at Nepeta and splashed Meulin and I showed them the tree branch we all used to jump off of, although I did warn them to be careful. I remember the time I almost drowned when my love jumped in.

My girls wanted to take their friends swimming to, so I said they could as long as they were very careful, because the river could be dangerous. They know where the eddy is, but outside that the current could be dangerous.

They'll be alright. I know it.

6 July 1633

I miss my family so much. On the one hand…I feel ready, now, to talk to Patrik. I don't think I can forgive him, not really and not yet, but I want to talk to him. I don't have anyone else, and we were friends, once. It might be nice to have a friend again. I have my girls, but I haven't had a friend in…ten years, now.

On the other hand, he killed my love. I love Sigmun so much, and for so long. He was so dear to me, and he was doing what was right. We believed in what we were doing, and Patrik killed him for it. He almost killed me for it, too. (Sometimes I wish he had, although on my better days I know that my daughters would be dead or dying if I had died.) He may have let me go, but he stood by while Condesce sold the rest of my family.

Maybe I'll write him. I could use a friend.

11 July 1633

Patrik replied to my letter today. I told him I thought perhaps we could talk, among other things, and in his reply he invited me for tea. I think I may invite him here, instead. It will be hard to have my love's killer in my home, but it will be easier than going to his home. And I can just tell him to leave if I think it may be too much.

I won't let my daughters know who he is, I don't think. I don't want them to fear him or hate him, because if anything happened to me he'd be one of the first people who would step up to care for them, considering I haven't spoken with either Hannah's sisters or Simonn's siblings in years. Anyways, he might…he might be kind. Perhaps this second chance will be just what he needs.

14 July 1633

Today would be my love's thirty-eighth birthday. My goodness, I have no idea what sort of gift I would get him. I would want to get him something, and I'm sure he'd tell me my love was all he wanted, but I'd still want to gift him something nice. Maybe a book? He was always ready to devour more history. He was so brilliant.

I went swimming with my daughters today. I thought it might kill me, but I left the house even though it was pouring rain, and went swimming with my daughters. Meulin said the rain is the best time to go swimming, because you'll get soaking wet either way, so you might as well enjoy it. She's so happy, forever looking at things as they could be instead of how they are. Maybe I have been able to pass my love's belief in good to them.

17 July 1633

Patrik came by for tea today. He knocked on my door at one and I was completely prepared to pull out Dolora's book, but it was just Patrik, looking nervous and embarrassed. He was staring down at his shoes and had one hand wrapped around his other fist, and when he said hello his voice was small and tight.

"Hello," I said.

"Thank you for inviting me."

"Come in," I said, and I went to go make tea. "Black tea with milk?"

"If it's no trouble," he said.

"Of course not."

"May I sit?"

"Feel free."

He sat very stiffly in a chair at the kitchen table (more stiff than normal, that is) and waited for the tea. When I brought it out and set down the cups, he said, "I'm sorry."

"I know."

"I wish to make it up to you."

"You can't," I said. "No, don't stop me. You can't make up for the fact that you killed my love-my husband. There's nothing that can heal that wound. That's not why I wrote you. I wrote you because I think that we can be friends in spite of that-because I want to try to forgive you."

"Try?"

"Yes, try," I said. I think the most useful skill I learned when we were traveling was how to act like I can breathe when I can't, how to act like everything is perfectly fine when it's not.

"I am sorry," he said. "There may be nothing I can do, but I promise you, I have not executed anybody since. I left Her Majesty's service. I…I told her what she had done was despicable, and I would not be part of it one day more."

"That's good," I said.

"I still cannot understand what you tried to do," he said. "And I will not apologize for not accompanying you."

"I know you can't understand why we did what we did. But I hope you can trust that we wanted to make a better world for our children."

"You wanted to destroy the government which protects us, and take apart the system of royalty and nobility that God ordained."

"I wanted to destroy systems that were letting many people suffer for the benefit of the few. I wanted to build a world where people can turn to their society for help, not one where they constantly owe their society."

"I simply cannot understand why you are so intent on forcing the royalty and nobility to give up everything they've worked for."

"They haven't worked for anything. They don't realize what they're doing, but the fact is that they're hurting people. I couldn't let that go."

He frowned. "I will never understand you."

"And, frankly, I'll never understand you. You believe too much in the old ways to ever want to change, but not enough to crush people who want a better life for themselves and their families and children."

He went a bit red and said, "Thank you for the tea."

"Of course."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"I think you should leave," I said.

He did, without any protest. I just couldn't stand to hear him talk anymore, propping up a system that's never done him any good and only refusing to help when he has to kill.

Maybe we can try again, but I think I need to work up some energy first. It took me months to learn to go into the village. I don't think I can really bring him around to my way of thinking. What I said is, I think, true-he believes too much in the old system to really rebel, but he doesn't believe in it enough to keep murdering people because the Condesce told him to.

20 July 1633

My little girls begged me to take them swimming today, and so I did. I took them to the eddy we used to swim in and swam with them, because it really is boiling out, and it just reminded me of the first time I kissed my love. It was just days after I almost drowned, and I remember he pulled me from the river and hugged me close, asking me not to die.

But I've been making new memories in all these places I used to be with my family, and sometimes they don't make me as sad. Sitting in the library and reading used to make me feel sad and tired, but now there's some warmth in that because I've sat there and read with my daughters.

24 July 1633

I've been feeling things. It doesn't take as much effort, either. It takes work to love my daughters, but not half as much as it did. I don't know when I first started feeling these things. I don't know when the numbness eased up just enough for love to be less difficult and happiness to be a possibility. I don't know what I did.

I drink my tea, and I talk to my daughters, and sometimes I remember, and somehow this adds up to a lighter mind, and less emptiness.

Somehow.

29 July 1633

Nepeta brought over Equius today, like she does most days, and it just…he looks so much like his father. He's a bit young to do to her what Patrik did to me, when he told us he wouldn't speak to commoners anymore, and I hope he never will. I just worry. He's Patrik's son. He must have picked up some of his beliefs, the way my daughters have picked up mine.

Well, as long as they're friends, I just hope she's happy. That's all I want for my daughters in this life.

1 August 1633

Nepeta's birthday is in a few days, and she's very excited. She's going to be ten-into double digits. I remember when such a thing was exciting to me! I knew Sigmun and Simonn and Dolora when I was ten, and they threw me the little party my mother never did.

I love throwing my girls their birthday parties. It makes them so happy, and they're so sweet when they're happy. I love them.

5 August 1633

Nepeta's tenth birthday was today. I made her baked apples and good stew, and her friends came over for lunch, and later I gave her a present. I bought her a new pair of shoes, which fit her perfectly and should hold up to the floods and the snow, and a pair of nice wool socks to go with them. She's a bit young for practical gifts, but I knitted the socks myself with little cats in them, and she thought they were just the cutest.

So it was a happy birthday. I'm glad I can do these things for her, when she didn't have them in her old home. She deserves so much better than that. She deserves to be loved, and to have enough.

I just worry about them. I don't know what I can do to undo what their parents did. Physically, as far as I can tell, they're fine; they've put on weight in both fat and muscle and they don't look so pale or sickly. But I worry about their emotional state. They have been having fewer nightmares, as near as I can tell, but still I worry.

9 August 1633

I wrote Patrik again today, inviting him for tea in September. That should give me plenty of time to pull myself together and summon some energy for it. This time, I won't let him get into his politics, because we will never agree and I can't stand to keep arguing about it when he can just begin to ignore it all in a way I can't. He can put the whole discussion behind him and live his life and forget about it, and I have to spend every waking moment acutely aware of both what he and people like him did and could do to me, and everything people think about women and widows and midwives.

I hope he writes back. I just need to know when he's coming, so I can be ready. I do want to be his friend, but he killed my love. It's going to take work.

13 August 1633

Meulin's birthday is soon. I'm not sure what I'll get her, either, but I'll do my best to make it special. She's turning fourteen! I'll probably have to teach her about her body and about marriage and all that this year. I need to tell her about her growing chest and her bleeding before it happens, lest she panic. I don't want her to fear her own body. No child should ever have to feel that way.

15 August 1633

My Meulin turned fourteen today! In just two years I'll take her out hunting with me. I did consider teaching her younger, but I don't want her to feel responsible for feeding the family. That's my job. I'll teach her to hunt when she's sixteen, and old enough that a little responsibility won't overwhelm her.

For her birthday, I made her little puff pastries with some berries from the garden. She said it was yummy, and I suppose it was. I don't taste much these days, honestly, so I just try to make things they like.

19 August 1633

I went into the village today to visit the various people I take care of, and they seem to be doing alright. No one's caught any new illnesses, and the women I see who are pregnant are doing alright. They seem alright, and none of them are showing any of the danger signs I remember: vomiting constantly, bleeding at all, fever, muscle weakness.

They're alright.

Oh, and Patrik wrote me back. He said he can be by September twenty-fourth. It's a long time. I suppose he's busy.

22 August 1633

I turned thirty-eight today. My girls remembered! I almost couldn't believe it. I was all set to let it pass without comment, as I am getting old, but my daughters gave me a lovely bouquet of flowers and wished me a happy birthday.

"Thank you," I said. "Thank you so much."

"Of course, Mama!" Meulin said, hugging me. I love her so much.

"You're welcome, Mama," Nepeta said. "I love you."

"I love you, too, Nepeta," I said.

And I do.

26 August 1633

I took Meulin with me today when I did my rounds. About once a week, I go around to everyone I've been seeing and check on them, make sure they're still doing alright. I also find anyone who's newly pregnant or ill, and check on people who are recovering, and check on women who've just given birth and their babies to make sure they're alright. So today, while Nepeta was at home with her friend Equius, I brought Meulin with me around. I introduced her as my daughter, and said she was my apprentice as well.

Most people seemed alright with it. When I go, someone else will have to carry on my work, so someone has to learn. And she likes the work, so she ought to learn it.

When she's older, I'll pick some women who've had children before and haven't had problems before and have her tend to them, all the way up to the birth. Not alone, of course, but she'll take the lead.

31 August 1633

Nepeta's been practicing sewing most days, thank goodness. I told her that if she has a skill or two to make money with, she'll never have to marry if she doesn't want to, and she can afford to marry someone she loves.

My daughters love romance as much as I did when I was there are. I hope they find someone who makes them as happy as my darling made me.

2 September 1633

The foliage this time of year is gorgeous. I took my daughters on a walk through the woods, along all my old favorite paths. It hurts, sometimes, to walk these paths I used to in happier times. I remember when my love and I would walk together, hand in hand, talking quietly to each other words of love and affection.

It's fun, doing this with my daughters, but it still aches.

7 September 1633

Meulin didn't go into the village today; instead she stayed home in the library. I asked her if everything was alright-she always goes outside when it's warm enough.

"Meulin, little love, are you alright?"

She frowned and crossed her arms. "Mama, am I…am I a bad person?"

"No, of course, not, little love. Why would you think that?"

"I don't know. We don't go to church all the time and people say the midwife is a witch and that's you and it's going to be me, and…and I just don't know."

"Oh, little love," I said. "God loves you whether or not you go to church. I don't go to church because I disagree with the reverend there right now, but you can go if you like, and make your own choices. Do you ever pray?"

"Yes."

"That's all you need to do if you want to talk to God." I'm not sure I believe in God, but if faith brings her peace, I will not deny her that. "And people say the midwife is a witch, that's true. Who's said that to you?"

"Um, I don't know. I guess…some of the men."

"Men say that about the midwife. A woman, or someone with a woman's body, never would. I'm not doing any magic, little love. I'm just making medicine, like any physician. And sometimes men are angry with me for doing what I do, because they think childbirth is punishment, but that doesn't mean I'll stop doing it. I know it's right."

"How do you know what's right?" she asked, nervous.

"Well…if you're helping people, and you're not hurting anyone, and you're doing the best you can to make the world a better place, then I think you can be pretty assured you're doing the right thing."

She nodded.

"Can you tell me five things you like about yourself?"

She smiled a little and said, "Um…I'm good at making friends. I'm smart. I'm helping you! I'm a good sister. And…I can read and write! Your turn."

I forgot I taught it to her as a game. "Well, I have two daughters. I'm a decent midwife. I cook decently well. I…I am clever. And I'm loving." I've never described myself as loving before, but I have loved a good few people, and I love them more than I can say.

She grinned and hugged me and said she was going to go into the village, and so I let her go. I hope she's feeling better, or more sure of herself at least.

11 September 1633

It's getting a bit colder out, and soon my girls will be bringing their friends here more often. It's…it can be a bit stressful, having so many people in the house, so I may have to ask them to sometimes not be in the house, but I can manage sometimes.

16 September 1633

Nepeta has a new friend named Karkat and she came home and said, "Mama, my new friend Karkat's last name is Vantas. Is he our relative?"

"Well, not by blood," I said. "Vantas is my married name. My darling may have had brothers; we never knew."

"How can you not know if you have a brother?"

"He was illegitimate, and so his blood mother abandoned him when he was three years old. She or his blood father, neither of whom we ever knew, may have had other children. So he isn't related to me by blood, and so definitely not to you. Why?"

"I just wondered," she said, and she wandered off.

I can imagine that would be confusing to run into someone with your mother's family name who's not part of the family. Well, I just hope if this child is my love's nephew, he has even half of the amazing qualities my love had.

20 September 1633

Today Meulin met Karkat's older brother, Kankri. She came home and immediately set to complaining about him.

"He is so frustrating! He won't stop talking and he always interrupts me and he's just…ugh!"

I couldn't help but smile. When my darling was fourteen, he couldn't keep his mouth shut for anything. Simonn and I just interrupted over him until he broke the habit. (He thanked us for it, once we were a bit older.) "Oh, I'm sorry, that's not funny. He sounds irritating."

"He is," she said. "Isn't he related to your husband?"

"He might be," I said.

"Well, if your husband was anything like him, I don't know how you ever liked him."

"I'm fairly certain they're a bit different," I conceded. "How was your day?"

And she told me all about it.

24 September 1633

Patrik was by for tea today, like he said he would be. He apologized for the delay and said he had some serious business to handle.

"Come in," I said. "Tea?"

He nodded.

"I never heard about your wife," I offered.

"How do you mean?"

"You must've married when I was still living here, because your Horuss is Meulin's age, and she was born in nineteen. I never heard about her."

"We are not close," he said. "We married in eighteen in a quiet ceremony. Our parents arranged everything. She gave birth to Horuss, and then Equius, and since then we have not spoken much. She often spends time with her friends."

"What's her name?"

"Elizabeth."

"She sounds like a nice enough woman."

"She is," he said. "There is no reason for us to be close. We are simply raising our sons together."

"Well, then how have you been?"

"Alright. Yourself?"

"I've been alright. My work is going well."

"Your work?"

"My work as the midwife."

We didn't talk about much-just that kind of small talk. It felt alright to sit there with him and two cups of tea and talk about nothing much. It didn't feel as safe and comfortable as when I sat with my family forever ago and could talk to them about anything, but I didn't feel like screaming and running and hiding.

Once he left, I went up to my room and curled up in bed and just missed them all so, so much. Once upon a time, when I hurt like this, I could curl up with my love in this bed and feel safe. Now…it's just me.

I have my daughters, but sometimes I just feel so alone.

29 September 1633

Today it was storming terribly, so I taught my girls to make Yorkshire pudding, the wrong way Dolora made it that we all loved. The three of us cooked our supper together all day, and even though we mixed up the Yorkshire pudding the first time we made it, the dinner was delicious.

It was nice to be home with them and cook together, while the rain and thunder pounded away outside. I love them so much. I want to give them everything I had when I was younger that helped me when things were hard.

I don't know how long I might live, because I'm not as strong as I once was. That poison water, and the ways the hurt me, and losing all of them-I'm just not as strong of body as I was when I hunted enough for a village every week. Any little cold might be my end. I just need my daughters to have everything they'll need, including my love, before I go. That's what I have to do.