Varda carefully unbraided her hair with trembling hands releasing the long strands from the confines of the day, combing her fingers through the thick tresses.

Goodwife Cade had confirmed the suspicions that began with sharp, clenching pangs in her abdomen and subsided in a trickle of blood. It was lost, it was gone and nothing she could do would ever bring it back again.

She shuddered in helpless despair, her mouth open wide, panting with the silent sobs she refused to release. They would remain, tangled into writhing knots, struggling to be free. At least she could keep something inside her.

She brought a shaking hand to her mouth unconsciously as though to push her grief back deep inside where it was only hers to view. She did not like it here, on display for the scrutiny of others. They would inspect it in the cold flicker of candlelight, turning its spasming malformed body over and over in their hands as they shook their sympathetic heads. She could not bear it and so she willed the grotesque squirming thing to retreat to where it belonged, in the dark where it slowly gnawed at the edges of her soul.

She unlaced her robes, carefully avoiding brushing her hands against her belly. She pulled her arms from the sleeves, holding the dress before her. It hung limply from her hands, as empty as she.

She folded the hollow arms over the hollow belly, holding the neck to her body with her chin pressed firmly to her chest. The dress lay softly in her arms as though in a lover’s embrace while she cruelly contorted it into shapes a body should not make. She thrust it into the chest before her, with all the other empty bodies lying neatly together like corpses piled into a plague pit.

She held her hands wide from her body as she had when stretching out the arms of her dress, unwilling to bring them to her stomach. They hung there as tense as the robes were limp, her fingers trembling in the flickering candlelight.

Then she dropped one hand furtively to her belly, running it over the flat pale expanse between her hips. It had only been days ago that she had noticed the very tiny swell that had not been there before. How many times in those days had she carefully moved her hands over that curve, wondering at the difference.

It was still there, the slight change in gradient as she moved her hand slowly downards. With a silent cry of pain she collapsed to the floor leaning heavily against the solid, wooden chest, curling her knees towards her useless body.

How could it be that it was gone, another tiny creature that never was. How cruel that she could still feel her swollen belly, that her breasts still ached when there was no longer any reason for it. She supposed those changes would go too, slowly trickling away like her nothing child and she would be returned to her normal state, flat belly, boyish hips, small breasts and no one but her would know that there had ever been a difference.

That was something at least. No one would know. Not even Sigurd. She had not told him this time, had not wanted to cause him the pain. Some more selfish part of her had not been able to bear the thought of replenishing his endless torrent of grief. She could not bear to comfort him anymore. To listen to him sob as though he were the only one who had lost something. She had been right not to tell him. It was better not to give him hope for there was very little left.

She slowly pushed herself to her feet, opening the chest again and selecting another empty body to clothe her own in. She stood before the mirror carefully arranging her face until she was happy with the blank unfeeling stare that gazed back at her.

She blew out the candles and lowered her aching body onto the bed. Soon Sigurd would come back and she wanted to be asleep before then or at least pretending to.

She knew they would need to try again, that he would want to keep trying until the voracious hunger of her silent grief had devoured her soul and she was truly empty. But she could not do it tonight.