She was stupid, weak, and thirsty. That’s what she was. The sun was draining her body. Her mouth was getting dry. When she reached the edge of town, the thirst made her tongue swell. She stopped near a white house surrounded by oak trees. She caught her breath in the shade and held her stomach to keep from vomiting. She touched her chest and felt the ache in her bosom.

“Maggie,” she said to herself. “I’m coming.”

She collapsed beside an oak. Her legs refused to move. They were numb. She looked at the leaves above her that formed a crisscross design, blocking out the sunlight. She could see clouds through the little openings between the leaves.

“Please,” she said to the clouds.

She didn’t know who she was talking to or what she was saying. Whoever it was, up there behind the clouds, they certainly weren’t concerned with her.

When she had given birth to Maggie in the middle of the woods, screaming at pine trees, squeezing a low branch with both hands, there had been no heavenly help. Not even a ray of sunlight. No flicker from the sky. Nothing. She decided in those moments of labor that she didn’t believe in God—whatever he was. And even if she had, she wouldn’t have liked the Old Man anyway.

But old habits die hard.

“Help,” she whispered.

Behind the white clapboard house, she saw birds drinking from a white bowl beneath a tin gutter spout. Starlings stood perched on the rim. They ducked their heads into the water, then shook it from their feathers.

Then a bird jumped into the bowl, breast-deep. It ruffled its feathers like a dog drying its coat. Marigold wandered toward the birds on weak knees. Her thirst was so bad it made her lips feel sore.

The birds did not flutter away when they saw her. One unfearing starling looked at her with curious eyes. It tilted its head. Marigold’s arms and legs gave out. She collapsed on her stomach. When she fell, the birds leapt into the air and spread their wings outward in the open sunlight. And they were gone.

She held the rim to her mouth and drank the water. She became dizzy. Her vision dimmed, and she saw a million sparks swimming in her eyes. She sat down and her dress was covered in dirt.

She passed out.

Then she awoke. To her surprise, she awoke on her feet—she was running again. It was almost like sleep-running. She was unaware of what she was doing. She was following some sort of motherly instinct she didn’t know she had.

Marigold was a fast girl. Her large thighs might’ve been ridiculed by her brothers—just before she sacrificed their ribs—but her legs were strong. She could beat any boy her age in a footrace and still have the strength left to wrestle.