of the Dark Man’s children, and that someday she would marry another one of his children.
“You and the rest of his kids be different,” her mother had explained to her. “The day you was born, the Dark Man chose you. You be special, and there’s things the Dark Man can do for you.”
But she hadn’t felt special.
She hadn’t felt anything at all, really.
She’d just grown up, doing as she was told.
And on some nights, when she felt the silent call summoning her, she’d gone out into the swamp and stood in the Circle with the rest of the children watching the ceremonies.
Watching the weddings.
Witnessing the inductions of the babies into the Circle.
And giving the gift.
Unconsciously she fingered the mark on her chest, the scar that bore witness to the gift she’d given, and the needles that had painlessly penetrated her body so many times when she was a little girl.
Then, two years ago, the Dark Man had singled her out for a special ceremony.
She had been dressed all in white that night, and when she’d been called to the altar, she had at first thought she was going to be married.
But that wasn’t possible, for she wasn’t pregnant yet. Indeed, the Dark Man had not even selected a boy for her to live with.
But she had obeyed the summons—as all the children obeyed the Dark Man—and gone to the altar, where the Dark Man had spoken only to her, his voice reaching into her mind, putting her slowly to sleep.
When she had awakened, her life had changed.
She was no longer in the swamp.
She was here, in this house where she’d been ever since.
And she could no longer speak.
During the ceremony, her voice had been taken from her.
The Dark Man had explained it to her, telling her that of all the children, she was the most special. Out of all of the children, he had chosen her to look after the babies.
Lavinia had accepted the loss of her voice as she accepted all things.
She hadn’t cried, but like the rest of the Dark Man’s children, she had never cried in her life.
Soon she had realized that it didn’t really matter that she could no longer speak, for there was no one to speak to anyway. Most of the time she stayed in the house, looking after the babies, and the Dark Man, too.
And the house was wonderful.
In all her life she’d never seen anything like it.
Upstairs, there were six rooms on the main floor—beautiful rooms, with walls covered with polished wood and fuzzy paper. One of the rooms was lined with shelf after shelf of books, and though Lavinia couldn’t read, she still loved to go into that room and touch the books, smell the aroma of their leather bindings and wonder what the words on the pages might say.
But most of her time was spent in the rooms under the house, taking care of the babies.
As the water came to the right temperature, Lavinia put a bottle filled with formula into the pan, then went into the nursery. It was a windowless room, painted white, containing a dozen cribs.
Four of them were occupied; the rest were empty.
She leaned over Tammy-Jo and Quint Millard’s little son, and tickled him under the chin. His eyes opened sleepily and his arms began to wave around, his fingers finally grasping the tube that led from the needle in his chest to the bottle hanging from an IV rack next to the crib. Gently, Lavinia pried his fingers loose from the tube, slipping a rattle into his hands instead. Distracted, he fingered the rattle clumsily, finally inserting its handle into his mouth. Lavinia smiled—as long as he wasn’t playing with the tube, trying to pull it loose, she wouldn’t have to strap him down.
Two of the other babies—children who had been here almost a year now, and who would soon be going back to the swamp—were sound asleep, and as Lavinia hovered over them, she wished she could still speak, for she would have liked to be able to sing one of the lullabies she knew to them. Instead, she contented herself with tucking a blanket gently around one of them, and replacing the teddy bear that had slipped from the arms of the other. The sleeping baby stirred only slightly, then wrapped its arms around the stuffed animal before dropping back into a deep sleep.
Finally Lavinia went to the crib containing the newest baby, the one the Dark Man had brought to her only