MacAlister's Hope by Laurin Wittig

could see Annis’s back stiffen.
    “Fia told you?” She mimicked the chief’s posture, crossing her arms over her chest and lifting her chin. ’Twas not the reaction Kieron had expected from her. “She did not tell you everything, I wager.” She glared over her shoulder at Kieron and he could tell by the satisfied glint in her eyes that something was wrong. “Did she tell you,” she said as she slowly returned her attention to Symon, “that she lay like a wanton with that one?” She stabbed a thumb in his direction as Kieron’s breath stopped.
     

     
    Hours later, Fia knelt on one side of the bed, ready to help Elena, while Mairi knelt on the other side, holding her mum’s hand in hers, pouring all the Lamont healing gift into her. The labor had taken a toll on all of them, but no one, least of all Elena, had given up.
    The midwife did not look up from her position between Elena’s knees, but said, “We are almost there, my lady. I think one more contraction will do the trick. Prepare yourself.”
    Elena responded with a loud groan as she pushed with all the strength left in her. Fia pushed upon her stomach to help, and at last the first bairn was pulled from his exhausted mother. The mid-wife quickly handed the bairn to one of her apprentices, and within minutes the second one slid free of her mother, and was handed to the second helper. Neither bairn cried, nor moved.
    “Mum?” Mairi said, her voice tight but steady. “They are born.”
    “Just a little more, Elena. We are almost done,” Fia said quietly to the glassy-eyed woman, with as much encouragement as she could manage. “One more push.” Elena managed a weak effort and collapsed but it was enough to deliver the afterbirth.
    Fia looked from Elena to where the bairns still lay silent and unmoving. “Mairi, you stay with your mum. I must see to the bairns.” Just as she said that there was a weak cry from one of the babes, and an answering murmuring from the apprentice who was cleaning him.
    “What is it?” asked Mairi.
    “A wee laddie,” the apprentice said, bringing the bairn to cuddle next to his mum.
    “And the other,” Elena asked, her voice hoarse and weighed down with exhaustion.
    “A girl,” the second apprentice said, but did not look up from where she was not-so-gently rubbing the child’s blue-tinged skin.
    “She will be fine, my lady.” The midwife glanced over her shoulder to her apprentice but neither woman looked hopeful.
    Fia moved to the apprentice with the baby girl. “Elena needs a brew of raspberry, thistle, and mother’s heart, to slow her bleeding,” she said to the lass who was not much older than Mairi. “Will you go to the kitchen and see it made? And tell Symon he may come in soon, that Elena is well and we are just cleaning up. Do not speak of the bairns yet.”
    The girl bobbed her head, handed the cloth she had been chafing the baby with, and left. Fia quickly looked over her shoulder to make sure the midwife was attending Elena. Mairi kept watch over her new brother, one hand on him, and one in Elena’s. The tiny girl struggled to breathe, and despite the apprentice’s efforts, she was still faintly blue and deathly still. Fia knew there was no time to waste if she was going to save this bairn. She pulled out the Winter Stone and held it over the baby. Under her breath Fia said those remedies she knew of to help the bairn, but the stone stayed stubbornly white. She searched her mind, but still found no response from the stone. The child gasped, as if she could not draw in breath, as if something was caught in her throat or her lungs. At this thought, the stone went pink, with that ribbon of bright green once more weaving through it.
    Acting on instinct, Fia dropped the stone on the table and lifted the tiny body into her hands, laid the babe’s chest in one hand and gently, but firmly patted her back, the infant version of a hard back pounding. Once. Twice. Thrice and the girl coughed. Another