Monster's Nanny

Chapter 1

Ralet – 8 years prior (Origin story)

            The clack of my heels against the hard stone floor beats a drumbeat throughout the night. Every few hours a servant comes to check on me, offering me food or drink. Always, I deny.

            If my wife can’t be comfortable, why should I?

            My circuit takes me down the hallway, into the l-shape of the adjoining corridor and then back again. Always, as I reach the halfway part of the journey, I pass the heavy door that leads into her bedchambers. My wife. Garai. As I pass, my shoulders tense even more. For, as I pass by, I hear the screams. The moans. The agony in her throat.

            Married only two years, Garai and I were betrothed to each other, and we have lived happily since our wedding. A rare Kiphian woman, she is educated, gifted at fine arts, with a kind heart and a wit that continues to astound me. In other words, she is a rare find.

            As I hear her pain through the door – a door I am forbidden to pass through as Kipian men are banned from such things –I play out the past two years together. The laughter, the conversations, and the hope of our life together.

            Her pregnancy was uneventful – joyous, even. We delighted in the changes in her body, the unexpected surprises, the movement in her belly. With each day, we became more and more excited, happily awaiting our child.

            Now, it feels like a nightmare. Was it only hours earlier, at dinner, that we talked about our day? It was mundane, boring almost. She looked slightly tired and told me she would soon go to bed. How I wish we could rewind to those hours.

            After she went to bed, the pain had started, and the midwives were quickly summoned. Then began my banishment and now I walk these halls, a frustrated and terrified man.

            The night is endless, each hour mocking at me in its infinite slowness. My legs ache, my shoulders feel like they carry the weight of the world and my teeth clench. I feel so powerless. That’s my wife in there, dammit. How come there is nothing I can do?

            The house is quiet but for the screams behind the door. Everyone who can sleep is sleeping, save for me, my wife and her battalion of attendants. As I pass her door for the umpteenth time, I hear the screams intensify, the pitch unbearable. My eyes pinch closed at the thought of her in pain. And what of the baby?

            Then, a deafening silence. I pass the door. Nothing. I take the turn in the corridor and pass by it again. Still nothing. The silence is a new level of horror. It signals the absence of something. 

Within my chest, I feel a shift. A breaking. Something has gone wrong. Even worse than before. The only evidence I have is this new silence, so thick it threatens to take over the air around me.

            As I pass the door once more, I can no longer stand it. Traditions be damned. I am going in.

            Bursting through the door, my eyes adjust to the dim light. Candles burn everywhere but they are starting to gutter, and shadows leap and warp against the walls. There’s a smell of hot breath and something else: a closeness, something metallic. I can’t identify it. Until I look about the room.

            My eyes supply the final piece of the mystery. The smell is blood. Iron. Gouts of it. The bed covers have been pulled back and what remains of the sheets are coated red. Gone is the fresh whiteness of the linens. Everywhere I look, there is nothing but red, some fresh and bright, other streaks already rusting into a garish maroon.

            So much blood. Her blood.

            Her attendants look to me, their eyes exhausted and sorrowful, old before their time. Sweat beads their foreheads and their sleeves are rolled up, their hands wearing various states of gore.

            There are four women there. Two young apprentices and two older women who have seen their fair share of births. It is their eyes I catch first: they are the experts. What I read there is a sad finality. They say nothing.

            That’s when I look beyond the ruined sheets to the body lying on the bed. A figure lies there, still and, even in the dim light of the waning candles, I can see the skin is ashy and gray. Wrung out.

            A shard of still-clean sheet covers her; an effort made by the midwives at modesty. I rush to her, to my wife’s side and the breaking feeling within my chest becomes even more acute. It separates from my heart and disappears into the blackness of my being.

            Garai’s eyes, once so vivid and alive, are hazy. Grasping her hand, I try to infuse my life force into her. Her fingers are limp.

            With effort, I see her eyes shift to me, catch my own. Her life hangs there but only barely.

            “My love. I---”

            I have nothing to say. What words would help her? My brain returns the answer, heavy and full: nothing.

            A smile, weak and thin, crosses her lips, her eyelids flicker and, like the snuffing of a candle, they close.

            She’s gone.

            For a moment, breath leaves me too and I wonder if we are dying together; taking our next journey side by side.

            Seconds later, though, breath fills my lungs, drawn by some mysterious need to keep going. The body overtaking my emotions. Lungs are built to breathe, even if the owner does not wish it.

            My wife, my love, is gone. Taken too soon for reasons I cannot fathom.

            My hand holds hers for what seems like hours but may only be seconds. The clock within me has long ceased to function.

            Soon, however, I am aware of a presence. Someone is near me. I can feel it.

            Turning, I face the oldest midwife. Her head is swathed in a kerchief and her face is drawn and tired. But there’s a happiness there that makes me angry.

            I soon see why. In her arms, she holds two bundles. They are sleeping, wrapped and warm. And very much alive.

            “I am so sorry, my lord. There were…complications,” she begins. “But the babies are healthy. Two twin girls. They are---”

            “Keep them away from me! They killed my wife!”

            The voice that rips out of me is foreign and feral. An animal speaking.

            I flee the room. Leaving them all behind.