“I will miss Jennet's stories,” Ethan said. “By the time I come back here I suppose she will be married and settled in Montreal.”

That silenced both women, who exchanged sober looks over the boxes of books.

“Montreal ain't so far off,” Curiosity said finally. “I suppose folks have traveled that far to hear a good story. Once folks got full bellies and warm feet, a story's what they like best.” And then, looking out the window: “Here come Nathaniel now, and by the look on him he got a story of his own to tell.”

Elizabeth turned to look out the window. Then she put the book she had in her hands down and left the room.

“What is it?” Ethan said, still sitting on the floor before the hearth.

“Your cousin Lily is come home,” said Curiosity from the window.

“Is Luke with her?” asked Ethan as he got to his feet.

“No,” said Curiosity. “But that Simon Ballentyne surely is, and all the rest of the Hidden Wolf folk. Something's up, for sure.”

Hannah, dragged against her will and wishes back into the practice of medicine, found that of all the small tasks she was called on to do, midwifery was the thing she liked the best.

Or had been, until she was called to Dora Cunningham in travail, and found herself in the middle of a scandal the village had been talking about for months. Now she wished she had paid more attention.

The woman on the narrow cot was thirty-five years old, unmarried, and about to bring her fourth child into the world. Only one of the others had survived beyond its fifth birthday, and that boy sat playing with blocks in the corner, his too-small head wobbling atop a spindly neck. He was called Joseph, and while he had little language he was sweet and biddable, content to sit by himself or work at the small tasks he had been taught to take on.

“I want to push now,” Dora said, grabbing for the ropes tied to the foot of the bed.

“Not yet,” said Hannah. “But soon.”

“You listen to her now, Dora, or you'll tear up your fundament worse than last time.” Goody Cunningham had a single tooth left in her head, but somehow she managed to speak clearly enough that Missy Parker heard her from her spot at the door. Hannah knew she had heard by the sharply indrawn breath that was louder even than Dora's moan.

Dora's face was contorted, her eyes near popping out of her skull, as she lifted herself up on her elbows.

“Listen to your mother,” Hannah said. “She's right, you'll tear, and badly.”

Hannah said it calmly, and with little hope that Dora would listen. Curiosity had warned her that Dora Cunningham, normally an even-tempered woman, could turn into a hellion when the misery was at its worst. And still she would find herself in this situation again, no doubt; every village had a woman or two whose generosity or need for affection outstripped good sense. In Paradise, that woman was Dora Cunningham. It was enough of a scandal that her brother Praise-Be had taken his wife and children and moved to another cabin, leaving his mother and sister without male protection.

“I want it OUT!” Dora bellowed. “Get it OUT!”

Hannah had come to the conclusion long ago that no man could really know the woman he called his wife unless he had seen her in travail. The man who had fathered this child had no idea what his few minutes of pleasure had wrought. Not that he would care; men were endlessly philosophical about the agony of childbirth. This one, at any case, might never even know he had a child. Not unless Dora gave up his name and demanded the little bit of support the law promised her.

And that explained Missy Parker standing at the door of the cabin with her hands folded primly in front of herself. Since Paradise had lost its last man of the cloth, Missy Parker had taken many of those responsibilities on herself.

“It's coming,” Dora said. “It's coming now.”

Dora Cunningham was a big woman, well built and comely, strong in body and mind, if not especially bright. If she got it in her head, Hannah thought to herself, she could probably expel her own internal organs. Her first push was evidence of just that, for it brought the child's head to crowning. The next pushed it into the world, but only as far as the neck.

Hannah, all her concentration on the proper rotation of the baby's shoulders, had not noticed Missy Parker moving. From the other side of the bed she leaned over and said, “Now is the time you must ask the question.”

“Ask it yourself,” Hannah answered.

“Oooooooh!” Dora wailed.

Missy Parker leaned in closer. “Dora Cunningham, in accordance with the laws of God and man, I ask you, who is the father of your child?”

Dora opened her mouth and wailed again and shook her head, this time covering her inquisitor with a shower of sweat and spit. Thus it happened that as Dora delivered her fourth child, a girl, Missy Parker was howling as loud as mother and child.

“The name of the father!” Missy thundered, using her immaculate apron to wipe her cheeks. “Tell me now, is Horace Greber the father of this child?”

Dora fell back against the bed and howled one last time. Then her gaze focused on Missy Parker, and something sour came into her expression.

When she had caught her breath she said, “You want the truth?”

“Of course,” said the older woman, unable to hide her eagerness. Three other times she had carried out this ritual with Dora, and three times she had gone away disappointed.

A deep sense of unease came over Hannah, but she forced herself to concentrate on the task at hand. While she examined the child and cut the cord, she listened.