Chapter 8: The Path to the Midwife of Story
They departed the Dawnlands just as the sky shifted from rose-gold to a muted lavender, the color of breath between waking and full day. The willow walls of the Awakener’s dwelling seemed to bow as they passed, as though blessing their departure.
The Deep Listener inhaled deeply.
“Your home smells the same,” she said.
“Warm fruit, sweet herbs, and whatever trouble you’re brewing.”
The Awakener nudged her softly with her shoulder.
“It smells like possibility, thank you very much.”
“It smells like you nearly burned your kettle,” the Deep Listener shot back.
“It was only on fire for a moment.”
“A moment too long, if you ask me.”
They shared a grin — the kind a person only ever shares with someone who has known them across ages of seasons and selves.
They walked in companionable silence for a while, the forest unfolding before them in softened hues. Pines gave way to birches, their pale trunks reflecting the morning like quiet sentinels. Ferns rustled at their ankles, brushing their calves like old friends eager to say welcome.
A memory surfaced between them, as memories often do when old companions fall into step.
“Do you remember,” the Awakener began, “the day Elder Marai made us attend the birthing of the season’s first lamb?”
“Oh goddess.”
The Deep Listener pressed a hand to her mouth, a laugh climbing up before she could stop it.
“She said it would be a sacred moment,” the Awakener continued, eyes brightening, “but you fainted before the lamb even crowned.”
“I did not faint,” the Deep Listener protested.
“I knelt. I merely… needed the earth.”
“The earth caught you,” the Awakener teased. “Face-first.”
The Deep Listener swatted at her sleeve, cheeks flushed in mock indignation.
“And you — you spent the whole labor sobbing.”
“It was beautiful!”
“It was loud.”
“It was life!”
“It was messy.”
They dissolved into warm laughter as they crossed a narrow stream, stepping from stone to stone. The water was cool, clear, humming with the music of the Midwife’s domain. The Awakener splashed the last step for good measure, sending droplets onto the Deep Listener’s skirt.
She squeaked. “You menace.”
“Consider it a baptism,” the Awakener said with a wink.
The forest thickened ahead, the trees curving inward as though bending to listen. Vines draped like curtains, opening to a path of soft clay. The air warmed, scented with sage, lavender, and something else — something round and pulsing.
Life.
The closer they walked, the more the world changed.
Roots intertwined in patterns underfoot, spiraling toward a central source. The ground vibrated faintly, like a heartbeat beneath the soil. Tiny lights — fireflies or something older — flickered around them in slow, reassuring rhythms.
“We’re nearly there,” the Awakener murmured.
“Yes,” the Deep Listener said.
“I can feel the threshold breathing.”
They emerged into a clearing shaped like a great cradle — soft earth, low grasses, stones arranged in a spiral that led toward a center of warm, amber glow. At the heart sat a structure halfway between a cottage and a cocoon:
walls of woven reeds and dried grasses
a roof draped in flowering vines
windows shaped like half-moons and curved in gentle arcs
smoke rising in soft, spiraling ribbons, as if reluctant to leave the warmth inside
And there, kneeling at the entrance, hands deep in a basin of water glowing faintly with healing light,
was the Midwife of Story.
Her hair, dark and streaked with silver, fell in thick braids down her back. Her tunic was earth-toned and supple, smudged with clay and herbs and the unmistakable markings of someone who had held countless thresholds in her palms.
She lifted her head the moment the two Keepers stepped into the cradle of her sanctuary.
Her eyes — deep brown, steady as the soil — widened with recognition.
“Oh,” she breathed, voice thick with wonder and sorrow and relief.
“Thank the Mother.”
She rose slowly, wiping her hands on her apron.
With each step she took toward them, the ground hummed a little louder, as though it knew her feet by memory.
When she reached them, she opened her arms without hesitation.
The Deep Listener stepped forward first, folding into her embrace.
The Midwife held her fiercely — one hand on her back, the other at the base of her skull, the way she’d held countless new beginnings.
Then she held the Awakener, gripping her shoulders, forehead pressed to forehead.
“You felt it too,” she whispered.
“The unthreading.”
The Awakener nodded, tears gathering.
“We did. And we came as soon as we could.”
The Midwife exhaled, a tremble running through her.
“I’ve been hearing it for weeks. The stories coming half-born. The dreams arriving in fragments. The young ones waking in the night without words for what’s missing.”
Her voice broke.
“I feared I was failing them.”
The Deep Listener took her hand gently.
“No, love. You were not failing. The world is. The weave is loosening.”
“And the circle…” the Awakener added softly, “is gathering.”
The Midwife’s eyes — full of fire and grief and deep, ancient strength — lifted toward the forest behind them, as if she could see the paths stretching outward to the other Keepers.
“Then we begin,” she said.
“Whatever is unraveling… we mend it together.”
And as the three women stepped into the Midwife’s sanctuary,
the earth beneath them pulsed once—
a soft, unmistakable beat.
Another Keeper was stirring.
