Chapter 11: Two Heartbeats

I threw my father's flask into the red gravel of the east yard, and it was still lying there three weeks later.

Nobody had picked it up, and nobody had gone near it.

I was sick for the first time on a Tuesday morning.

I was kneeling on the bathroom floor of the east dorm, with my forehead on the cool tile.

Polly came in with a wet washcloth and sat down beside me.

"Third morning in a row," she said.

"It's something I ate."

"You've eaten the same toast for three days."

I held the washcloth to my face.

"Polly."

"Mm."

"Don't say it."

"I'm not saying anything." She tucked her curly red hair behind her ear.

"I'm only saying the Warden hasn't slept in his own bed since the silver mark went up.

"And you've been sick three mornings, and I can count."

"It's been three weeks."

"That's how long it takes."

I closed my eyes.

"Come on," she said. "I'm taking you to the healer."

The school healer was a quiet woman in a grey apron, with a small room full of glass jars.

She took one look at the mark on my neck and didn't say anything about it.

She asked me to lie down on the narrow bed.

She lit a plain brass lamp with a clear glass bowl on the table beside me.

Then she set her hands over my belly.

"This will be warm," she said.

It was.

Light spread out of the bowl, soft and gold, and drew a shape in the air above me.

It was a small, round glow.

Beside it was another, even smaller, beating gently, steady and strong.

"Two lights," said the healer. "One is you."

I stared up at them.

"The smaller one is your child," she said. "Congratulations."

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