The Springborn

SABELLA

FEbrUARY 17, 1886

MID-MORNING

“ I won’t do it,” Robbie declares. “I can’t and I won’t.” He removes his hand from my left antler, drops the handsaw onto the ice-glazed grass at my feet, and hugs his body. His exhalations make a series of tiny clouds in the air as he starts to pace.

I remain seated on a tree stump behind Hiram’s barn, trying hard not to shiver inside my cloak and shawl. “Please, Robbie. It will take five minutes at most to saw them off, and I swear it causes me no pain. If someone sees me wearing a ridiculous headdress made from a weirdly shaped scarf as we’re traveling, what will they think?”

He shrugs. “That you like strange hats?”

I release my breath in a huff. “Hat preferences aside, I want to ride in the wagon with Sparrow. She grew four teeth last night. Four! She may very well turn into a two-year-old before we next stop.”

Robbie shakes his head and taps the clawed toes of one foot. “No. I’m sorry, but no.”

From beyond the barn, Yonaz calls our names for the third or fourth time. His accent grows thicker as his patience thins.

“What’s happening over here?” Calder asks as he comes around the side of the barn. “Yonaz is itching to leave, if you haven’t noticed. And where’s the baby?”

“Sparrow’s with the twins. And this one,” Robbie says, pointing to my head. “This one wants the antlers off, and I can’t. It would be like cutting off my own two feet. No. Not a chance.”

Calder’s brow furrows. “Why, Sabella? Are you still ashamed of them?”

“It has nothing to do with that.” I blush as if he’s caught me in a lie. In spite of their assurance that the antlers are gifts, I am still uneasy wearing them. But now is not the time to examine my feelings about the antlers. This is for Sparrow. “I want to ride inside with the baby, and with these branches sticking out of my skull, it’s impossible.”

Calder shakes his head glumly. “I agree with Robbie on this count. It’s a crime to vandalize such magnificence.”

“Fine.” I grab the saw and lift it over my head. “I’ll do it myself.”

“Wait!” Calder says. “Hold on. You’ll hurt yourself.” He lunges for the tool. “If you insist upon removing them for the sake of motherly devotion, I will help you. I think it’s atrocious, mind you, but I would rather perform the loathsome task than watch you slice into your own scalp by accident.”

“Well, I can’t watch.” Robbie stalks off, making tracks in the snow like a giant chicken.

Calder moves to my side and widens his stance. He sets the saw at the base of my right antler and grips my neck with his free hand. His fingertips warm my skin. “You’re certain about this? Absolutely certain?”

“Do it. Please. Before Yonaz decides to leave without us.”

Metal scrapes against the antler’s bony base. I close my eyes. The slow rhythm, the bitter scent of the dust, the firm pressure on my neck—transport me back into my parents’ kitchen.

The smell of Mother’s singed griddle cakes and Father’s tobacco haunts my senses.

Clear as anything, I hear Mother’s late-night, inebriated humming.

I envision Father crouched in the washtub on a Saturday night, cursing as Mother brandishes the stiff-bristled brush and tries to scrub the coal dust out of his pores.

Calder gasps almost too softly to be heard when the first antler comes free from my skull. After a moment, I feel him set the blade at the other antler’s root. Again, my imagination dredges up the past. I see Mother in the grips of one of her sleepwalking episodes, counting her six silver spoons over and over, fondling the last remnants of her privileged upbringing.

I relive the horror of Father’s calloused fingers clutching my neck before dawn, roughly enough to elicit tears. The downward curve of his mouth. The hatred simmering in his eyes.

I remember the pain of being not what they wanted .

“Did I hurt you?” Calder says after the second antler falls. I open my eyes. He bends to swipe a tear from my cheek with his thumb. “I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t you.” I stand and straighten my cloak. Motes of antler dust float through the air when I give the material a shaking. Calder sneezes.

The shed antlers lay at the base of the stump like silver birch limbs brought down by a storm. Calder eyes them in the forlorn way one might regard an injured baby rabbit. He rubs one palm against his chest as if he’s trying to soothe an ache.

I thought I would feel better, less burdened, with the antlers gone. But I do not.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, cupping my shoulder with his hand for a moment.

We walk to the wagons, side by side, in silence.