The Midwives

by Duncan Ralston

My name is Rosalee, she'd told the old woman, and the old woman had nodded and said, We know who you are, dear child.

She knew the sound. Everyone in Barrows Bay knew that terrible sound by heart. The knitting needles. The Midwives. An elderly woman's laughter. Echoed by a second. Them.

"Please don't hurt him," Rosalee said, her voice a hoarse whisper. "You know what must be done," the ancient woman said. And she did. She supposed she'd always known, just as every living soul in Barrows Bay must, in their hearts. She knew what must be done. For the good of the people. For the good of the town. Stephen wouldn't be given a good home. He'd be sacrificed.

Rosalee crawled backwards on her hands and feet. The slippery, veined umbilical cord dragging along beneath her, slithering like a snake, chasing her like the memory of the thing that ravaged her among the stones.

What a visual

The needle pierced the soft tissue of her left temple, gouged through bone and into the tender meat of her brain.

True Crime junkies like her were the bane of his career.

These so-called fans were ghouls. Serial killer groupies. Drawn to Martin because of his close contact with maniacs. As if that evil, that danger, might rub off on them by proxy.

James Barclay. The Witch Hunter. Escaped. On the loose.

Barclay would come for him. Hunt him down. The Witch Hunter had threatened Martin's life several times and Martin couldn't blame him. He'd played fast and loose with the truth to bump up his sales.

Uh oh

James Barclay had murdered three pregnant women, each in a different state, each the victim of a rape months prior to their deaths. No evidence had linked Barclay to the rapes, though it had been deemed inconsequential in the jury's eyes since the larger crimes were the murders of mother and child.

The true monsters of this world were flesh and blood—men and women who struggled against the darkness in their own hearts and all too often gave in to temptation.

He thought of these women as 'unclean.' He didn't think of them as witches in the fairy tale sense of the word, but in the medieval sense. He believed they'd been..." She looked off for a moment in thought. "That they'd been defiled by the Devil." "The Devil?" "As in Satan. Mephistopheles. Beelzebub."

The bow she'd worn, the bow Barclay had choked the life out of her with, was now tied neatly in her hair.

Ruthless

You can't spell "martyr" without Marty, she thought.

Young Martin had scrawled a single word in red crayon, circled several times for emphasis, a squiggly arrow pointing toward the witch. The word was MOMMY.

No one would tie the slut's death to the Barrows Bay Bridge Club, known to most as the Midwives.

Ruby tossed and turned as the wind howled outside her window, fully aware she wouldn't be able to protect him for long. From Mavis. From the others. From herself. And worse, she feared she might not care to spare him at all.

The large shadow rose, black wings spreading. It stood on four legs—a bird with four legs and wings on its head.

Not with violence, mind. Only words. But often, words can sting more than fists, can't they? The wounds last longer."

For the sake of the others, for the sake of the town, Ruby Savage's boy had to die.

He was moving on autopilot. All he could think about was the salmon tartare he'd had with lunch and how it would be found partially digested during his autopsy.

Lmaooo

"Well, there are rumors the first settlers may have resorted to cannibalism."

Barrows Bay was built upon the bones of its forebears. It's right there in the name. They weren't talking about garden tools."

The cloaked beings watched them. Their silent, eyeless gaze disturbing, a distraction from the business at hand. He focused on the black stone directly ahead of him, seemingly pulsing in time with the rhythm of their hips.

We love a good show

she came like a wraith in the night and slaughtered his first-born son in front of him. She drank his blood. She bathed in it. And it kept her young."

But she bided her time. She waited years. Until that first child was born. And after she killed them all, when she stood among the ashes of their community, bathed in the blood of their first-born child, she named herself Ruby to spite them."

"Ruby Savage is an ancient demon, an eater of children,"

"But she's not your mother. Someone put these stones here to worship her, long before the Ruby washed up here. The thing that she was. The thing still inside of her. The Midwives are her daughters. Five stones for five demons."

"Maybe she's just got good eyes." "She's blind.

Lmao