"Thank you, Ruby."

"Bring them to me, but be careful. You mustn't let them see you."

Norma crossed to the table, careful to avoid the window. She dumped the silverware in front of Ruby. They clattered on the table in a cloud of ash. The ancient creature picked up a knitting needle and twisted back and forth in the kitchen light, staring at it in mystical reverie.

"Will you bear this child?" she asked Sheila. "Will you love her as I tried to love her father, in my way?"

"Her?"

"Oh yes." Ruby's smile was wistful. "A girl. She'll grow up strong and spirited, like her mother. Like her grandmother."

Whether she meant herself or Rosalee, Sheila didn't know. But she nodded. She'd already decided the moment she woke from the nightmare, and whether the dream or her hallucination at Geraldine's house had solidified her decision, there was no question now. "I'll keep her," she said.

"Good girl," Ruby said softly. "Now, I want the three of you—wait a tick. Where are my good shears?"

Norma's right hand shot out from behind her back. Before Ruby could react, the scissors plunged to the handles into her chest, and Norma stepped back, a hand to her heart, horrified by what she'd done.

The old woman coughed blood. Shock and pain in her eyes. A rivulet of black smoke escaped her lips.

She snatched out suddenly and grabbed Martin's left hand. Her grip as strong as the day he'd sat at her bedside. The flood of memories she passed to him hit with such force he collapsed into the chair beside her, his teeth coming together painfully—

—He rises from warm water, gasping his first breath.

Faceless shapes surround him. So bright it hurts his eyes. He screams.

She takes him. Holds him. Love radiates from Her skin and the beating thing inside Her.

Raised voices. Words he doesn't yet know but senses the emotions behind them. Terror. Anger. Jealousy.

Sloshing water and hurried footsteps. They're moving into a much bigger place. A place with no above and no around.

Running, running in the dark. The sharp smell of—pines, gravel, ocean—things he has no words for.

Cold and wet.

Crying, because She is scared. Someone chasing them.

Something.

White shapes surround them.

They take him from Her arms. At first he's frightened. Then he's embraced by a fuzzy warmth. Being unable to move his limbs calms him.

He feels safe again.

They leave Her behind.

—He's in a new place now. Warm and comfortable. The space where he sleeps moves like when he was in Her tummy.

He cries less. When he does, the new Her shushes him and sings to him and makes funny faces.

He likes the new Her. He misses the first Her. But he can't remember what she felt like and he never knew what she looked like. The new Her is old. Her skin is dry and thin like paper that makes swishy noises like cloth when it touches him.