The group was totally silent. Several of the girls were wiping their noses and eyes now. It was an emotional moment for some reason, for all of them. This group of warrior women were all feeling Melody’s pain, and I had a strong feeling I knew what it was all about.

Melody let herself be turned away from Winky and the baby, and the sisters began their walk back to the house. No one said or did anything other than watch them go. They got about ten steps into the trip when the words came bursting out of my throat of their own accord.

“Wait!” I yelled, probably a little too loudly.

Rob cringed next to me, his shoulders jumping up to his ears as he gave me bug-eyes.

“She can hold him if she wants to!” I continued.

Melody spun around, clasping her hands in front of her chest.

Kiersten shook her head. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“Please?” Melody begged her sister. “Just for a minute. I promise. And then I’ll give him back, I swear to God.”

“No,” said Kiersten firmly. She gestured to some nearby girls who came running over. “Take her into the house. I need to deal with these people before I deal with her.”

They nodded and took Melody gently in hand. She walked backwards to the house, staring at Winky, not bothering to hide her tears or her misery. Once she was at the stairs, she turned to walk up, casting glances over her shoulder every few steps. Eventually, she disappeared out of sight without another word.

“Wow. That was some heavy shit,” said Winky. She looked at Kiersten. “Speaking of shit … you guys don’t happen to have any diapers, do you?”

“As a matter of fact, we do,” said Kiersten. “It wouldn’t be very intelligent of us to plan to start a new civilization without them, now would it?”

“So, what’s the deal with your sister?” I asked. “I’m sorry to be nosey, but, I mean, she’s not crazy, right?”

“No. She’s not crazy. Not like you mean.”

“Yeah, cuz I’ve seen crazy - one of your neighbors, in fact - and Melody isn’t like that, as far as I can tell.”

Kiersten nodded. “She’s grieving. She lost her baby recently, and it’s really tearing her up. Us too.” Kiersten cleared her throat and lifted her chin. She looked like she was in the process of defying her emotions.

“Oh, that sucks. I guess.” I kind of saw it as a blessing in disguise. This world was too harsh for babies, and Melody seemed too young and vulnerable for the responsibility.

“No kind of about it. It sucks. Period.”

“But babies are a big deal to take care of. And it’s hard enough just taking care of ourselves,” I said, thinking out loud.

“We have set up our home to make it as easy as possible. We have tons of girls to help, and our sole mission is to live together in peace and raise our children - children who will be taught the value of living simply and in harmony with others.”

I wasn’t all that familiar with the seventies, but she reminded me of girls in my high school who’d tried to be hippies like back in those days. Part of me was mocking her overly-simplistic views, but the other part couldn’t really argue with the logic, so I kept my opinion to myself, hoping there might still be a way out of this mess for us and for Bodo.

“Are you going to kill the boy babies?” asked Rob.

She scowled at him. “Are you stupid? Why would we do that?”

He shrugged. “Amazons killed the boy babies and kept the girls. That’s history. I’m not making this crap up.”

“We’re the new and improved version of those warriors,” she said, pride in her voice. “We don’t kill babies. And we don’t kill anyone who doesn’t mean us harm. Our world needs less war and more love.” She looked at me. “Your boyfriend isn’t going to be hurt, so long as he agrees to cooperate.”

I looked up at Bodo, and he was hanging from the column, his upper body leaning forward. I swore I could hear him snoring lightly.

“He’s going to be pretty hard to … uh … do things with in his current state.”

She looked over her shoulder, sighing aloud. “Yeah. We might have gone a little overboard with our happy drugs. But they’ll wear off.” She turned back to me. “So unless you want to trade your other friend for him, I’m going to have to decline your offer of taking Bodo away.” She smiled. “He’s pretty fun, though. I can see why you’d want to keep him.”

I was getting cranky over the way she was talking about him. “He’s not a piece of property, Kiersten. He’s a man, and a good one. And he’s mine, besides, as in my boyfriend. I’m not going to take no for an answer.” I schooled my mind and body to remain non-threatening. I couldn’t let her see me as a challenge for her power. She might be all peace and love and harmony in theory, but she’d found a way to make friends with vicious canners and lived to tell about it. The only way that happened was by sheer cunning. Kiersten was no one to mess with.

“Unless you have another offer, you hold the losing hand here,” she said, turning to leave us and walk back to the stairs.

“Wait!” yelled Winky from behind me. She came up beside me and whispered, “We do have something else to trade.”

“What? Bikes?”

“No, stupid.” She lifted up her bundle. “The baby!” She grinned at me expectantly.

I looked at her, aghast at what she was suggesting. “Do you honestly think I’d turn over a baby so it could be molested by a bunch of man-chicks?!”

Winky reached over the baby and punched me. “Shut up, you deviant! They wouldn’t molest him.” She shook her head. “Damn, Bryn, sometimes you’re so thick. I’m talking about giving them the baby to replace the one they lost!” She gestured with her chin at Kiersten who was waiting near the bottom of the steps.

I held up my hand towards her, asking her to give us a minute.

“Are you serious?” I whispered back. “Is that … I don’t know, even legal?”

“Legal? Bryn, if you don’t stop that crap, I swear to all-that-is-holy, I am going to slap you right in the face. There are no laws here. There are no rules. We are making this junk up as we go along.”

I pinched her on the shoulder. “I know that, mean girl. I’m just saying, isn’t that kind of bad mothering? To hand over your baby for a trade?”

Winky frowned at me. “I ain’t this baby’s mother, and neither are you.”

“Yeah, but we took responsibility for it when we murdered it.”

Kiersten had come up to stand behind me, overhearing my last statement.

“You murdered a baby?”

I turned and fake laughed. “Heh, heh … yes and no.”

She stood there, waiting for me to explain.

“So okay, here’s the deal. We were at the canner place, looking for Bodo. And we met this girl there, the Queen of the canners, and she had this baby here.” I gestured to the bundle that I suddenly noticed was seriously ripe-smelling with baby doodles. “And she asked us to kill it by cutting off its head with an axe. She was obviously off her rocker, so we pretended to kill the baby and then took it from her.”

“Yeah,” said Winky. “And now we have this thing with no diapers, no milk or whatever, and we have no clue how to take care of it. So, it’s probably going to die. So what do you say we trade this baby here for Bodo? That’s a good idea, right? Little baby for big baby?”

Kiersten tilted her head to the side, thinking. We all stood with baited breath, like we were in a courtroom waiting for the jury to announce the verdict in a murder trial.

She looked over her shoulder and yelled, “Melody! Get out here! I know you’re standing right there!”

Melody came flying down the stairs, obviously having been listening at the door just out of sight. She arrived five seconds later, breathless, wisps of her blond hair stuck to the sides her face with sweat. “I’m here,” she said, nearly choking with happiness. “You’re going to let me hold it? Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod … thank you, Kiers. I promise I’ll give it back in just one minute. One minute is all I need,” she said, holding out her shaking hands. She was bouncing up on her toes, her expression one of pure rapture.

Kiersten nodded at Winky.

Winky reached behind her to detach the cloth that she had wrapped around her and the baby to keep it secure. She ducked her head and pulled the cloth over to release the bundle from her front completely, gently handing it over to Melody.

Tears were streaming down Melody’s face by the time she had her arms around him. “Oh, my dear sweet baby boy … you are so, so beautiful,” she said, moving the blanket aside to expose his puffy baby cheeks.

“He stinks pretty bad,” said Winky, screwing up her nose. “I wouldn’t get too close if I were you.”

Melody’s eyes never left the baby and never lost their soft and gentle tone. “He just needs a little diaper change, that’s all. He’s a little angel, stinkies or no stinkies.” She leaned down and put her nose to his forehead, inhaling deeply. She hiccuped a small sob. “Oh, God … there’s nothing like the smell of a baby’s head. Nothing in this rotten world could ever take away that bit of heaven.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, since the only smell I was getting from him would never be called heaven in my book. But I wasn’t going to be the one to burst her baby-worshipping bubble.

I looked at Kiersten, trying to gauge her reaction to the whole thing.

She was crying silently behind her sister, but when she saw me watching her, she moved quickly to wipe her face. She walked up to stand by Melody’s side.

“Babe. Look at me.”

Melody shook her head, crying for real now, no longer happy. “No. I know you’re going to tell me to give him back, and I know I have to, but just let me hold him for a little while longer. Please.” Her shoulders hunched over the baby in what appeared to be a protective move.

The baby started to mewl and that was all it took to start all four of us cry along with her.

The anger and the fear and the dire straits of the moment kind of fell away as I stared at Melody, listening to her weep. My heart was breaking for this poor girl. She was the youngest mother I’d ever known, and she’d lost her baby. Our parents and grandparents and neighbors and friends had been cruelly taken from us, leaving us here all alone, scared and broken. I could see now how a baby might feel like a new, fresh beginning - the embodiment of hope. And then to have that hope stolen away when it died … it was too much to contemplate. I reached up and rubbed Melody’s back in sympathy, begging her big sister with my eyes to take the deal.

“You don’t have to give him back if you don’t want,” Kiersten said in a trembling voice. “They’ve offered to trade him for Bodo.”

Melody cried harder, pulling the baby up and burying her face next to his. “I want to, but I can’t,” she said, her voice muffled. She lifted her head. “I know what it’s like to lose a baby. I won’t let you do this to yourself,” she said to Winky, extending the baby out away from her now, trying to give him back. She looked over at her sister. “See? I said I’d give him back. I just needed to feel him in my arms for a minute and smell him once.” She looked down at her chest, which now had two wet circles on it.

“I think he peed on you,” I said.

“That’s not pee,” she said, softly. “That’s milk. When I heard him cry, it started flowing.”

“Whoooaaa,” said Winky, her arms not moving, remaining at her sides. “That’s kind of … gross and cool at the same time.”