((Content warning: Graphic descriptions of blood and similar topics that may be bothersome to some.))
The door of the cottage burst open, so violently that it swung to the wall and slammed against it, ricocheting off with a loud rattle. A woman blew past the threshold, demure in height but solidly formed, her ebony garments and cloak billowing about her buxom figure. “How long has this been happening?” she demanded, thrusting back her hood to reveal tousled, chestnut locks framing a soft, porcelain visage.
Behind her, a second figure hastened through. A woman of similar age, but entirely contrasted in every other way. She was willowy and slender, clad only in a simple peasant’s woolen dress with a thin shawl about her head and shoulders. A crimson stain darkened the skirt between her thighs. “It began last night,” she stammered, coming to a halt to look about the small, dark room with round, panicked eyes that were damp with tears. A single candle burned on a table, bathing the little cottage in muted, golden light. “But I thought it had stopped, and...please, miss...w-what am I going to do?” The woman clutched at her skirt, her back hunched.
“You may call me Fay,” said the first woman, quickly and smoothly shedding her hooded cape and scarf after the door was securely closed, before pointing at the couch against the wall. “Lie down and get your skirts up.”
The village woman darted her stare between Fay and the couch several times. “My...but…”
“Now!” The word was not shouted. Rather it was uttered with an eerie calm, and a sense of incontrovertible authority that needed no volume. She did not point out that the red patch was growing again, blossoming through the fabric like a fast-growing parasite, dark and wet.
As the terrified young woman trembled her way over to the couch and sat down, Fay turned to the large cupboard in the corner. A small door was yanked open with a high-pitched squeak of hinges. “What is your name, my dear?” she asked quietly. Her voice remained unchanged, soft and airy, a pillow upon which heavy burdens and crushing anxieties might be laid. It was only her hands that moved with urgency, pulling a wooden box forward and prying the lid up.
“B-Betts,” came the reply, in a voice that wobbled with the threat of fresh weeping. “That is...Elizabeth, but...folk call me...Betts.” She slowly drew her feet up, her chest heaving as she reluctantly sank back onto the cushions.
With the pleasantries aside, Fay strode across the short space from cupboard to couch with the box in one hand, snagging the candle in the other and bringing it along. She knelt down, glanced at Betts’ progress in hiking up her dress, and deemed it too slow. The embarrassment on the poor young woman’s face when Fay grabbed the garment and began yanking it up past her thighs was painful to witness. But decorum had no place and was not welcome so long as the bloodstain continued to grow.
“Oh, Miss Fay!” Betts cried when she glanced down and saw the burgeoning smears on her skin and dress. “Your couch!”
It seemed an odd concern amid such a frantic crisis. Fay shifted the dark pools of her eyes to Betts’ face. Her guest's cheeks were frighteningly pale, her lips a lighter shade than they should’ve been. “Breathe slowly, Betts,” Fay said quietly. “You must calm yourself. It will help.” From the box, she withdrew a heaping handful of a fuzzy, brownish substance.
Betts nodded weakly, closing her eyes and reclining onto the pillow tucked against the arm of the couch. One of her hands gripped the couch’s back, the other clutching the cushion beneath her body.
Fay placed a hand lightly against the woman’s knee to draw her thighs apart. Betts shuddered, resisting briefly. The pressure increased, a little at a time, until the poor woman relented with a pitiful groan.
It only took the briefest fraction of a second to see that the bleeding was active, the dark current pulsating as it oozed forth. Faylyn’s heart tightened. A tiny clump of tissue lay on the woman’s skirt, just a few inches from her body. It had a shape to it. A shape that sent a knife-like sensation through her gut. Without any further thought, she thrust the wad of moss against the woman’s groin and pressed it there firmly.
Betts gave a low moan, squirming, her grip on the couch turning her knuckles white.
“There now,” said Fay, in the same voice as before. Tender, airy, cool. The antithesis of panic. “You’re fortunate that you found me when you did. And that my home is close by.”
“Am I going to die?” Betts whispered, as a tear wobbled at the corner of her upturned eye.
“I do not think so,” Fay replied, tipping her head to inspect the woman’s bleeding. She did not release the pressure, but only adjusted her hand slightly. Betts’ skin was hot and slick, and each movement smeared blood onto her fingers.
“It’s never...b-been this bad before. This much blood,” whimpered the young woman.
Again, the hard, frozen claws sought to dig their way into Faylyn’s breast. To worm between her ribs and probe at her beating heart. “This has happened to you before?” Faint surprise painted the woman’s normally calm tone. “How many times?”
Betts bit her lips together. Her young face crumpled. “Three times,” she sobbed, and her body gave a hitch.
It was a moment where no words could ever be of use. No matter how clever, how earnest, how practiced. The only response that the dark-eyed woman could offer was a long, empathetic sigh. The image of the tiny scrap of flesh she had seen on Betts’ skirt tried to emblazon itself into her thoughts. She pressed her eyes shut, concentrating on the darkness behind her eyelids, until it passed. “Did your husband know you were with child?”
Betts nodded slowly, looking away towards the far wall. “All he ever wished for was a son…” A pained shudder ran through her limbs. “It would be better if he’d never met me! Another woman could...could…”
“Hush now,” Fay breathed, keeping the blood-staunching moss firmly in place while she leaned up to place her face nearer to Betts’. She laid her unsoiled hand against the young woman’s brow, and lightly brushed the sweaty tendrils of her hair from her white skin.
Betts’ wheat-colored eyes wandered back to find those of the woman hovering over her. “I’m...I’m awful tired, Miss Fay,” she breathed, her lashes drooping. The panic and tension were slipping away, along with the blood the poor woman had lost. Her hands relinquished their hold on the couch, tumbling to hang loose at her sides.
“I know, Betts,” Fay whispered back to her. “Try to stay awake, though. Hmm? Look at me. You need to stay awake.”
“What good am I to him,” the young woman exhaled, words carried faintly on her breath. “...if I can’t give him a child…”
Fay’s thumb stroked tenderly against Betts’ furrowed brow. “Life will go on. One way or another. It always does.” She peered into the young woman’s hazy eyes. “Are you in much pain?”
Betts rolled her head slowly from side to side. “Not much...I need to sleep now…”
“You cannot sleep!” Fay clenched her jaw, leaning down to gingerly pry the blood-soaked wad of sphagnum away; just enough to check the bleeding. Sticky strings of half-coagulated blood stretched thin from flesh to sponge, and the smell was pungent and metallic. She held still, leaning in close, watching. The pulsating spurting had ceased. Relief unfolded in her chest, and she breathed again, firmly pressing the moss back into place. Her wrist ached from the constant pressure. “Betts. Stay with me. Stay awake.”
There was no response. An abrupt and unexpected shiver of terror rattled through Faylyn’s body, ratcheting along her spine, making her quiver as if she were chilled. No! She thought. Not again!!
“Betts!” she said, more loudly. The young woman mumbled and squirmed a little, and the sight of it beat back the initial flurry of fear. Fay’s hand moved to Betts’ neck. The rhythm of life was strong beneath her skin, dancing against the seeking fingers. Fay blew out a loud breath, her head drooping with consolation. After a time, she found the courage to raise her eyes to the pitiable woman beneath her hands. “Sleep then,” she murmured to unhearing ears. “You will not die today.”
The unconscious woman’s legs were gently drawn down and stretched out into a more comfortable position, and her thighs pressed close to hold the wad of moss in place. With the immediate crisis seemingly in hand, the woman in black stood to her feet. Her right hand looked as if she’d dipped it into a bucket of scarlet paint. Betts’ dress was heavily stained. The couch cushions looked like the scene of a bloody murder. The sharp scent of iron flooded her nostrils; a scent all women were only too familiar with.
A weary sigh punctuated the quiet, and her shoulders slumped. With a grim glance to the nearest window, she inwardly measured the hours until sundown. Taking a cleaning rag from a basket near the kitchen table, she held it across her bloodied palm and tugged upon the door-latch.
