She walks over to the narrow bed and sets a basket down on the white quilt. As she continues to speak she starts to unpack its contents. “Take for example the Unconsecrated. We do not understand them. We only know they hunger. But we know to leave them be. No one in this village even bothers to question their existence anymore, although I am sure our ancestors wasted a lot of time doing so.”

She sets down a delicate-looking white braided rope and then pulls the Scripture from the basket. She winds the rope around the book as she continues with her speech.

“It is the same with marriage. Our ancestors knew that in order to survive we had to persevere.

They knew to keep strong bloodlines. That creating each new generation was the most important task beyond keeping the village safe and fed.” She brings the bound Scripture to the small table on my side of the room and sets it down.

Then she turns to the fireplace and stirs the embers while adding small strips of dry wood until the logs begin to crackle.

The flames eat at the bark, curling it into red-rimmed tendrils but the heat cannot penetrate me, cannot warm me. “There is something you need to know about your mother, Mary,” she says, kneeling by the hearth. “You should know that she lost children.” I fight to keep my face passive, swallowing my gasp of shock. I can only think of my brother and me when we were young, sitting by my mother and father in front of the fire. I hear the lullaby that my mother used to sing to us at night.

I am at war with myself. At once desperately needing to know more and detesting myself for giving in to Sister Tabitha. For giving her what she wants, which is my obedience to her will.

To her superiority.

“When” is all that I say. I swallow, clear my throat. “When did my mother …” I can't finish, fearful of bridging this gap between my mother's life and my own.

“Before you,” she tells me. “And after you.” I can't see her eyes but I wonder if there is sympathy there. If she is sad for the babies that my mother lost and if she feels futile that she couldn't stop it even though she is the healer among us.

For a moment it is as though Sister Tabitha and I are connected through my mother's grief.

She rises and then turns to me. “Many, many times. So much that it seemed you were never supposed to have been born.”

Any sympathy I may have had for Sister Tabitha shatters; the sound of my mother's moans the day she turned comes screaming into my ears. It washes over me until I feel nauseated and unable to stay in this room, to be near this woman.