The Misbegotten

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The day the child walked in from the marsh was one of deadening cold. A north wind had blown steadily all day, making ears and chests and bones ache; the child’s bare feet crackled through a crust of ice on the watery ground. She came slowly towards the farmhouse from the west, with the swollen river sliding silently beside her and the sun hanging low over her shoulder, baleful and milky as a blind eye. A young woman quit the farmhouse and crossed the yard towards the chicken coop. She didn’t see the child at first, as she wrapped her shawl tightly around her shoulders and turned her face to the sky, to watch a vast murmuration of starlings that was coming to roost in the horse chestnut tree. The birds chattered and squealed to one another, shifting in flight like a single amorphous being, like smoke, before they vanished as one into the naked branches.

The child kept walking, right through the gate and into the yard. She faltered when the young woman did notice her and call out – not hearing the words, just the sound, which startled her. She stopped, and swayed on her feet. The farmhouse was large, built of pale stone. Smoke scattered from its chimneys, and through the windows of the lower floor a warm yellow light shone out onto the muddy ground. That light pulled irresistibly at the child, as it would a moth. It spoke of heat, of shelter; the possibility of food. With jagged little steps she continued towards it. The yard ran slightly uphill towards the house and the effort of the climb caused her to zigzag, stumbling left and right. She was so close, so nearly able to put out her hand and soak it in that golden glow. But then she fell, and did not rise again. She heard the young woman cry out in alarm, and felt herself handled, gathered up.

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