The Springborn

SABELLA

FEbrUARY 12, 1886

AFTERNOON

T he basket Calder spoke of this morning calls to me like forbidden fruit whispering into the ear of the starving. It held me as an infant when the old woman handed me over to my father, and it now sits hidden, two floors above my head. I cast a glance at the boards of the ceiling, imagining the shape of the woven hamper.

It is mid-afternoon. Atop the cookstove, stew simmers in anticipation of the evening meal. Fresh bread cools on the table, scenting the air. Usually, I would indulge myself by sampling the warm heel of the bread, but today, I am too stirred up to eat. All I can think of is that basket.

Calder has not returned. With Father at work and Mother insensible in the chair beside the stove, no one would be the wiser were I to take a peek at the basket. It would take no time at all, for I know its exact location. All my life, it’s been kept in a trunk in the far corner of the attic. When I was twelve years old, Father himself showed me the trunk to ensure that I would never unintentionally disturb it or the basket within. Every year since, on the anniversary of the day he received me, Father warns me anew not to meddle with the basket under any circumstances. He is set on edge by anything to do with magic, and after my “change,” it seems he became convinced the basket was ensorcelled. It is a great wonder he has tolerated its presence—and mine—for so many years. Perhaps he fears casting either of us out could cause a worse calamity to fall upon his household than mere antlers.

I go upstairs and slide the ladder out from underneath my parents’ bed. I place the ladder against the wall, directly under the hatch that allows access to the attic. I think of Calder Hadrian as I climb the wooden rungs. How did he come to know of the basket, and why did he ask me about it?

With one hand, I push the hatch up and open. My head and shoulders fit easily through the hole. Hazy light streams in through the single, square window at the end of the attic. Everything here is exactly as it was the last time I dared to visit. Beside a crooked wooden chair covered in lacy cobwebs sits the trunk. Gray dust, fine as pollen, coats its lid. Its metal fittings are red-brown with rust, and mice have nibbled the leather straps into tatters. I kneel beside it and work the latches. My heartbeat thuds with trepidation and unexpected excitement.

I should not tamper with the forbidden. I should return to the kitchen and peel potatoes like a good daughter. I should …but this time, I will not. Is not the basket mine as much as it is Father’s? And what if it holds some clue as to my origin—a note from the woman who bore me, or some keepsake she wished me to possess?

What if opening it releases the magic to cure me of recurring antlers? A miracle like that would be worth almost any risk.

Still on my knees, I open the trunk. I have done this twice before, driven by curiosity or rebellion. On both occasions, mere seconds passed before I lost my nerve and shut it again.

Not today.

An unfamiliar scent rises up to tickle my nose. Dust and old wicker, as expected, but mingled with something sweet and strange.

A flat lid sits atop the rectangular basket. A leather loop and wooden pin hold it shut. It is the perfect size to hold a picnic, but barely large enough to contain an infant. Was I unusually small when my parents received me? Their narrative about that day has never ranged beyond a few facts: on his way home from work one night, Father met a ragged old woman seeking coal in exchange for a closed-lidded basket. Out of respect for her age and pity for her wretched state, he agreed to the transaction—only to discover an infant inside after her hasty departure. He ran home, dumbstruck with joy, to present Mother with her heart’s greatest desire.

How happy they were.

For a time.

I touch the wicker with my fingertips. Nothing happens. No flash of light, no puff of smoke, no sparks. It is only a basket. A simple container for ordinary uses.

Never before have I taken the basket out of the trunk, but now I lift it upward, my fingers clenching its handles, finding it heavier than I expected. Something shifts within the woven walls. A tiny squeak warns me that a colony of mice has made this their home, but I am not afraid of mice.

I set the hamper on the floor beside me and throw open the lid.

Two blue eyes stare up at me from a tiny, round face.

I gasp and fall onto my backside.

“Sabella!” Mother shouts from the kitchen. “Where are you, child? The fire has almost gone out!”

“I’ll be right there,” I reply. Taking a deep breath, I get on my knees again and peer into the basket. A flannel-wrapped baby coos and waves its small, wrinkly fists. There is no clue to the child’s gender in its countenance, even as its expression changes from delighted to distressed.

A high-pitched wail proceeds from its mouth, building in volume like the shrill whistle that announces the end of the miners’ shifts.

“No, no, no,” I say. “Hush.” If Mother hears…

Perhaps, if this is a magical basket, all I need to do is shut it. The baby can return to wherever magical babies come from, and I can return to housework and forget this happened. “Hush now, baby,” I say soothingly, “Go back to where you came from. Please.” I close the lid and slip the pin through the loop.

I pray and wish, beg and hope.

For a moment, silence fills the attic. I sigh. And then the earsplitting shrieking resumes.

“Sabella!” Mother yells. I can hardly hear her through the baby’s screams. “What in the name of heaven is that noise?”

“No, no, no,” I say. “This cannot be happening.” Yet I know it is. This baby is one hundred percent real, and I am one hundred percent in trouble.

I open the basket and scoop up the infant. It stops crying and rubs its rounded cheek against my chest as if it thinks I’m its mother and source of nourishment.

“Was that a cat I heard, Sabella Jenkins?” Mother shouts. “Your father won’t abide a cat in the house!”

“I wish it were a cat,” I mumble.

What can I do? I cannot hide this child, nor can I let it suffer hunger. I know nothing of caring for babies. I have no choice but to present this little one to my mother.

My disobedience will cost me dearly, blast it. And curse that wretch Calder for tempting me to touch the basket in the first place. I’m half inclined to hunt him down and punch him. Or to present him with this child. But he’d surely dump the poor thing off at an orphanage, and I cannot stomach that thought. The tales I’ve heard of the county orphanage are too terrible to reflect upon.

I clutch the baby tightly and descend the ladder, praying my trembling knees won’t give way and send us both crashing to the hard floor below.

The smell of scorching stew fills the air, but I make no move to attend to the pot I left on the stove. None of us have eaten supper, and it seems as though we never will. The instant Father stepped through the door, Mother assaulted him with tears and shrieks—and the news that we are now a family of four.

Calder has not yet returned, and I pray he does not. Unless he possesses the ability to turn back time, his presence could only make things worse.

The baby sleeps in a drawer of the corner cupboard and I stand watch, overcome with an inexplicable, otherworldly calmness. Have I passed through fear and into a state of numbness? My heartbeat throbs slowly, evenly. She holds my gaze like the sun holding a planet in orbit, without a word or visible display of power.

The child is a girl. This I discovered while rewrapping her swaddling after I brought her downstairs. She is perfectly formed, with ten tiny pink fingers and ten impossibly small toes. Her cheeks are rosy and her mouth puckers as if she dreams of suckling. Standing beside her, I feel like I am on trial. I suppose I am, in truth. I sinned by disobeying Father and opening the basket, and I will suffer the consequences he metes out in judgment.

Mother occupies a chair at the table, worrying a handkerchief in her lap, moaning and muttering. Father paces the floor like a caged lion. His thinning hair clings to the contours of his head and perspiration glues his grubby shirt to his chest and underarms. Streaks of coal dust give his face a monstrous quality—which befits his terrifying mood.

“They’ll say it’s hers,” Mother says coldly. She drops the handkerchief onto the table in order to sip tea mixed with medicine. If the drink is half as bitter as the look on her face, she ought to pour it into the slop bucket. “They’ll call her a whore and we’ll all be tossed out of town. You know Davy Rees will not tolerate immorality among his miners’ families.”

“What, then, do you propose we do, woman?” Father’s voice is the low growl of a riled beast. It makes my skin rise into goose pimples.

“Leave it in the mines,” Mother replies, as if the idea of murdering a baby affects her no more than the price of figs in Rome.

Tears sting my eyes, but they are tokens of anger, not sorrow. “How can you suggest such a thing? Is that what you wish you’d done with me, Mother?”

She looks away and doesn’t answer. Which hurts more than if she had simply agreed.

Father stops pacing. “If we leave the child where it will be found quickly, what harm would there be in it? Yes, I think you’re right, wife. Billy Jones is watchman tonight. He sleeps on the job, which’ll be a grand favor to us. The new vein’s our best option. Men start there at five. The wee thing will hardly have a chance to get hungry before it’s passed along to another family.”

A sudden, protective love for the child expands to fill my chest. “We could keep her,” I say. “We could say we found her, or adopted her from the orphanage. Why couldn’t we keep her?”

The look Father gives me pierces like an iron nail. “I cannot fathom raising another child tainted by magic, as this one surely is. It’s too much to bear thinking of, let alone doing.”

“The mines it shall be,” Mother declares. In spite of all her neglect and selfishness, I have never before hated her—but I hate her now.

Tears blind me as I lift the baby out of the drawer and carry her to my room. The room is only big enough for a narrow bed and a small dresser, but I would gladly share it with her. We could be sisters, best friends. My heart aches for such companionship.

But she cannot stay.

I lay her on the faded patchwork quilt and slide the flannel blanket off her head. Her ears look slightly pointed to me, but perhaps my estimation of them is tainted by suspicion. I feel the soft spot on top of her fuzzy skull, how it throbs lightly with her pulse, and then I let my fingers explore further, searching for any hint of antler nubs. Do I hope to find she is like me? Perhaps a little. It would be a comfort to have someone in the world who could truly understand my plight.

Her head is smooth. Faultless. She smiles in her sleep, and in this moment, I know that I would die for her.

This morning, I was only myself. Now I feel that I am so much more. Someone belongs to me, and I to her. It is a burden and a blessing, terrifying and enlivening.

I lie down beside the baby and watch her breathe in and out. Was her arrival part of my destiny as someone drawn out of the basket? How many children have come out of that ordinary-looking hamper?

Impossibly, mercifully, my eyes drift shut. I sleep without dreaming. The baby’s whimper startles me awake. I find my father standing over us with the look of a harried judge resigned to hanging a habitual criminal. “It’s time,” he says sternly.

With no other plan, I decide to accompany him to the mine. I will pretend to be in accord with his decision. To try to fight him would be folly, for he could wrench her away from me with barely any effort. I am no match for muscles built by long shifts spent hacking at solid rock. The best I can do for this baby now is to keep her close to me.

“I will carry her, Father,” I say in a meek voice.

“Suit yourself. But don’t forget to cover your head. Almighty, those blasted antlers grow fast at night. Hurry now. I’ll wait by the door.”

“Hush, baby,” I say as I wrap her in my best shawl. That done, I reach up to touch my head. Father was right. Midnight has come and gone, and my antlers are spikes, inches long and budding with points. I wrap my head with a thick, woolen scarf, and cover that with my largest bonnet. I tie a shawl over the bonnet to hold it firmly in place. Next, I tear a wide strip off an old sheet to make a sling for the baby. When I slide her into it, her body curls against mine, warm and trusting. I wrap my heavy cloak around us both, and on slow and solemn feet, I go to meet my father.

My mind whirls as I try to construct a plan. Every idea falls flat. I have no money, no relatives or friends who might offer aid, and it is the brutal middle of winter. But one thing is certain: I will not be leaving this baby alone beneath the cold, black earth tonight, no matter what Father says.