Knowing Ruby was friends with these women made it even more difficult. She wanted to talk about the night of the birthing but it seemed like the old woman was always within earshot whenever she tried to get Martin alone or get him out of the house to talk.

In the end she chose not to say anything, and they both wrestled with their respective secrets, parts of the same secret, without knowing it.

Dressed in an ankle-length black dress and veil, as if she were the grieving mother herself, Ruby Savage kept a secret of her own. Within an hour after wolfing down the giblets, the heart and a good portion of the child's placenta, all blended into a thick, gooey paste, the evidence of her many years began peeling away. She couldn't recall the last time she'd felt so vital, so alive.

The only worry was that her transformation had to be kept from Martin, Norma and Sheila. She could reveal it to them a bit at a time, like a man adding color to his graying beard, until the change would only be noticeable in a photograph. It would do no good for them to see her dancing the Charleston in the wake of such a tragedy. Nor for them to notice the wrinkles around her eyes and lips had diminished, like those advertisements Norma scoffed at on television.

Ruby applied plenty of powder to counter the effects of the ritual and made sure to hunch over her walker, perhaps a touch melodramatically. She even mimicked the palsied tremors in her hands she'd suffered from only days before.

Oh yes, the little treat had done its trick. Her daughters' magic was strong and would only grow stronger in the following days and weeks leading toward spring and Midsummer, when the next feast would be had. It would be a glorious season of rebirth and abundance. She would see to it Barrows Bay thrived even more.

Reverend Atkins stood at the pulpit, reading words from the holy book he knew by rote. It seemed the entire town had shown up for the St. John girl's funeral. The little white church on Cavan Street was more packed than it had been in years. He spotted faces among the pews he would only ever see in passing. His subdued sense of elation was tempered by the unfavorable occasion, but not entirely absent.

It was such a tragedy when a little one passed. Not only for the parents but for the community at large. Many tragedies had befallen Barrows Bay during his appointment with God on this island, a calling which often felt like penance. But the good reverend knew the death of little Ruby St. John was part of His Divine Plan. And with a beatific smile he reminded those gathered in the pews of this, just as he would his ever-dwindling congregation during Sunday sermons.

Behind the little church stood a cemetery that had served as Barrows Bay's place of interment since its founding. The original barrows on the southern shore, near the standing stones, had been exhumed and reburied there.