leaves, Cecily saw with a start a tiny foot poking up above the diminishing pile.
She swallowed hard, suddenly realising what the creature in the leafy grave was. And why Wolfie had barked.
‘Oh. My. Lord!’
Cecily fell to her knees and used her hands to scrape away the remaining leaves. And there it lay: a tiny but perfectly formed newborn baby girl. Her eyes were closed and the only visible sign of life was the rosebud lips that were formed into an ‘o’ as they sucked involuntarily.
Unable to process what might have happened, Cecily reached down and took the baby into her arms. The child was covered in dust and dirt, and the stump of her umbilical cord was seeping yellow pus. Cecily could see the pattern of tiny ribs through the skin; the stomach unnaturally distended, her tiny legs resembling a large frog.
‘But she’s alive,’ Cecily whispered. ‘Oh Wolfie.’ Her eyes blurred with tears. ‘I think you just saved a life. Come on, let’s get this little one back to the house as fast as we can.’
The baby hardly moved in Cecily’s arms on the journey back and her breathing was so shallow that Cecily could barely detect it. When she arrived at the house, she laid the child on a blanket on the kitchen floor and Wolfie settled down to guard her.
‘Now, you stay there and don’t move, okay?’ she said, before racing back outside and into the barn they used as a storeroom. Bill had packed away all the baby paraphernalia in there before Cecily had arrived home from hospital. Some of it still lay in its original boxes and she searched through the pile for feeding bottles and terry towelling diapers. She also grabbed the shawl that she remembered spending weeks knitting, before heading back to the house, thinking she could collect whatever else she might need later. For now, the baby urgently needed milk.
‘Heaven only knows how long the poor thing has been lying there,’ she said breathlessly to Wolfie, who hadn’t moved from his spot beside the baby and watched her with mournful eyes. ‘Let’s just hope it’s not too late.’ She grabbed a jug of milk from the refrigerator, warmed some in a saucepan, then washed the bottle in hot water before filling it.
‘Come on up here,’ she said to the baby as she wrapped the shawl around the tiny form then settled the child in the crook of her arm. She eased the teat between the baby’s lips and wriggled it around.
‘Come on, baby, suck for me,’ she encouraged. ‘It’ll make you feel so much better if you do.’
Nothing happened, and then Cecily remembered a tip from one of the books she had read when she was pregnant.
If the baby does not respond to the teat, attempt to dribble the milk on its lips.
Cecily did so, then waited with bated breath for a reaction. Finally, she noticed the tiniest sucking movement, and quickly thrust the teat back inside the tiny mouth.
‘There we go!’ Cecily let out the breath she didn’t realise she’d been holding.
The suckling was weak at first and it seemed like most of the milk was leaking back out of the baby’s mouth, but finally it became a little stronger and Cecily could see the movement of swallowing in the child’s throat.
‘Thank the Lord.’ Cecily let out a small sob, just as the baby decided to throw up most of the milk she’d managed to take down.
Reaching for a cloth, Cecily wiped herself and the baby down as best she could. The baby emitted small mewling noises that sounded like a pathetic attempt at a cry.
‘She must have gotten at least some of that into her little stomach?’
And sure enough, a few minutes later, a small trail of green tar-like liquid oozed from her backside.
‘At least your system is working. Lord knows how long you were lying there before Wolfie found you.’
Eventually, exhausted from the exertion, the baby – who had yet to open her eyes – relaxed her grip on the teat and exhaled.
‘Are you asleep?’ Cecily whispered as she bent her head to try and hear the sound of breathing. She could see the baby’s chest rising and falling. As she slept, Cecily sat there in an agony of indecision. She knew she should call for Dr Boyle to come and check the baby over; lying in the woods for however long must have left her dehydrated or perhaps with other medical conditions that Cecily hadn’t even heard of. But