“Oui, oui,” murmured the midwife. She was down at the end of the bed, pushing the girl’s knees up, and besides that I didn’t want to know. I stayed near the head of the bed, looking into the girl’s bottomless black eyes, holding her hand, sending calming waves. Her eyes were much calmer and more present; she looked more like a person.

“Elle arrivé,” the midwife murmured, and the girl’s face contorted, and fast, fast, I sent images of things opening up, flowers blooming, seeds splitting, anything I could think of in my panicked state. I thought relaxation, concentration, releasing of fear, surrendering to her own body. As I looked at her, her eyes went very wide, her mouth opened, she said, “Ah, ah, ah, ah,” in a high-pitched voice, and then suddenly it seemed like she kind of deflated. I made the mistake of glancing over to see the midwife pulling up a dark red, rubbery-looking baby, still connected to her mother by a pulsing blue cord. Sweat broke out on my forehead, and my skin grew cold, as if I were about to faint. The baby squinched up its quarter-size mouth, took a breath, and wailed, sounding like a tiny, infuriated puppy.

My patient’s face softened, and she instinctively reached out her arms. The midwife, beaming now, wrapped the kicking, squalling baby in a clean towel and handed her to the mother, the cord stretching back behind her. As if the entire episode of terror and gut-splitting pain had never happened, the girl looked down at her baby and marveled at it. Feeling somewhat queasy, I looked at the infant, this end product of two people making love nine months earlier. Her face was red and raw looking. She had a cap of long, straight black hair that was glued to her little skull with what looked like petroleum jelly. Her skin was streaked with blood and white goop, and suddenly I felt like if I didn’t have fresh air, I would die.

I staggered to my feet and lurched from the room, through the lounge and out the front door. Outside, I took in great, gulping breaths of icy air and instantly felt better. Somewhat embarrassed, I went back in to find that some of the other women had come into the bedroom. They were smiling, and I felt their waves of relief and happiness. They praised the girl, who was now beaming tiredly, holding her new daughter close. The midwife was still busy, and when I glanced over, she was picking up the cord, so I looked away fast.

I had never seen a human birth before and wished I hadn’t seen this one. Yes, it was a miracle, yes, it was the Goddess incarnate, but still. I would have given a lot just then to be sitting in a pub, knocking back a pint and watching a football game on the telly.

The girl looked up and saw me, and she smiled widely, almost shyly at me. I was struck by how regular she looked, how girlish, how smooth her soft tan skin was, how white her teeth were. The contrast with how she’d been, while racked with pain and fear, was amazing. I smiled back, and she gestured to the baby in her arms.

“Regardez elle,” she murmured, smoothing the baby’s cheek. The baby turned her head toward her and opened her rosebud mouth, searching.

Quickly I said, “Elle est très jolie, très belle. Vous avez bonne chance.” Then I cornered the woman who had brought me and took her arm. “I have to go home now.”

We were interrupted by other women thanking me gravely, treating me with distant gratitude, then turning, all warmth and smiles, to the girl. They knew I had helped the girl but also knew I was a witch and probably couldn’t be trusted. I had mixed feelings. Surely a girl this young ought not to be having a baby. From looking around, I could see these people had no money; who knew how many of them lived in this four-room cabin? Yet seeing how the women clustered around the girl, praising her, admiring the baby, tending to them both, it was clear that the girl was safe here, that she would be treated well and her baby looked after. There was love here, and acceptance. And often, that was most of what one needed.

I tapped my driver’s arm again—she was cooing over the baby, who was now attempting to nurse. I kept my eyes firmly away from what I considered a private thing (I was the only one who thought so—there were at least five other people in the room). “I have to go home now,” I said again, and she looked up at me with impatience, and then understanding.

“Oui, oui.Vous avez fatigué.”

Right. Whatever. I looked for my coat and shrugged it on. My right hand was sore from being squeezed so tightly. I suddenly felt bone weary, mentally and physically exhausted, and I was ashamedly aware that out of all of us, I had done the least work. Men might have bigger muscles, bigger hearts and lungs, but women have greater stamina, usually greater determination, and a certain patient, inexorable will of iron that gets hard things done. Which is why most covens are matriarchal, why lines in my religion usually went from mother to daughter. Women usually led the hardest, most complicated rites, the ones that took days, the ones that took a certain ruthlessness.

I sighed and realized I was punchy, my shoulder brushing against the door frame as I went through. The night air woke me up, making me blink and take in deep breaths. I groaned audibly as I saw my nemesis, the blue pickup truck from hell. The woman, whose name I had never learned, walked briskly to it and pulled herself into the driver’s seat. I climbed into the passenger’s seat, pulled the door closed, and reflexively clutched the door handle.

Then the door of the cabin opened, and a sharp rectangle of light slanted across the dark yard. “Attendez!” cried a woman, and she came toward us. She gestured to me to roll down my window, but it didn’t unroll, so I opened my door. “Merci, merci beaucoup, m’sieu sorcier,” the woman said shyly. I saw that it was the older woman who had been in the kitchen.

I smiled and nodded, uncomfortable about being openly identified as such. “De rien.”

“Non, non.Vous aidez ma petite-fille,” she said, and pushed a package toward me.

Curious, I opened the brown paper and found a warm loaf of homemade bread and, beneath it, a somewhat new man’s flannel shirt. I was incredibly touched. Right then I broke off a piece of the bread and bit it. It was incredible, and I closed my eyes, leaned back against the truck seat, and moaned. The women laughed. "C’est très, très bon,” I said with feeling. Then I unfolded the shirt and looked at it, as if to assess its quality. Finally I nodded and smiled: it was more than acceptable. The woman seemed relieved and even proud that I thought her gift was fine. “Je vous remercier,” I said formally, and she nodded, then clutched her shawl around her shoulders and ran back into the house.

Without another word, my chauffeur started the engine and hurtled us down an unpaved road that I couldn’t even see, but she obviously knew by heart. By holding on to the door handle with one hand, I was still able to break off chunks of warm bread with the other and eat them. I was happy—I had done a good day’s work—and then I remembered that I had been there only because Da hadn’t.

“Daniel— souvent il vous aidez?” I said, butchering French grammar.

The woman’s dark eyes seemed to become more guarded.

I motioned back to the cabin. “Comme ça?” Like that?

“Comme ça, et ne comme ça,” she said unhelpfully.

“Do you speak any English at all?” I asked, frustrated.

She slanted a glance at me, and I thought I saw a glimmer of humor cross her face as I flinched, going over a pothole.

“Un peu.”

“So Daniel helps you sometimes?” I asked in my neutral Seeker voice. As if the answer didn’t matter. I looked out my window at the dark trees that flashed past, lit momentarily by the truck’s unaligned headlights.