Nam picked up the harvesting supplies and the blood. “It’s iron and vitamin B-12. You need to get your strength back, start rebuilding your blood and muscle, before it’s too late.”

For the first time in days, Rose didn’t feel so alone in the room after the door closed. She drifted off, wondering what they had meant. Before it was too late for what?

✦✦✦ ✦✦✦ ✦✦✦

It took a full week before Rose had enough strength to think of a plan, days when Nam came by more and more often, bringing her comics and reading them aloud. Slowly, Rose went from silent prisoner to asking to see pictures or commenting on the storyline. “How the hell does he go from football player to nerd from one book to the next, and why can’t he be both at the same time?”

By the tenth day, Nam was releasing one limb at a time so Rose could flex and rotate and stretch, getting her range of motion back. Rose had asked them to start pilfering things, slow and easy, one at a time, things they would need when they made a break for it. So far, Nam said they had some bottles of pills, gauze, and a few tins stashed.

Nam reported that Derrick was looking good. Since they’d been smuggling him vitamins, his leg had gotten better. The wound was closed now, and the fever was completely gone. The Chief had told the Wives it was a sign from the Creator, that their dedication to traditions and their family ways had pleased him, that he had healed the bringer of blood so they would have a long-term supply. Nam told her all about what was happening downstairs.

“Blood regenerates. We just need to treat the vessel with care, and the holy water will continue to flow,” the Chief explained. He tipped a few drops onto each woman’s tongue from a slim decanter every night while Nam watched from the corner, reading a comic book.

“What of the girl?” Owl asked, waiting patiently on her knees for her communion.

“I haven’t had a vision for her yet. But besides her blood contribution, I do think she might finally provide us with a viable pregnancy.” Here, Cardinal, who had miscarried again—if she had even been pregnant to begin with—burst into fat tears. The hydration in the woman was admirable. “And then,” the Chief spoke over her sobs, “we will all benefit from the new life, especially one with so much Indigenous blood.”

Several women clapped their hands together in prayer. Grouse wiggled a loose molar and grunted around the dirty fingers jammed in her mouth.

“Can we afford another stomach to feed?” Wren asked, her leg draped over one arm of the moldy barrel chair by the front window. She traced the outline of her lips with the tip of a finger as she talked. “Not to be blasphemous, but we barely scrape by now.”

The Chief dropped blood into Owl’s mouth, and she swooned in supplication, the back of her head lightly touching the floor before she pulled herself back up. He paused for a moment and looked around at the women, delicate and fragile, surviving on expired tins and squirrel meat. His eyes landed on Grouse, who at that moment managed to free the loose tooth. Red drool dribbled down her chin and onto the front of her filthy toga. She regarded the brown stump, then popped it back in her mouth and swallowed.