“This story is equally cruel and tragic and full of love and warmth. I thoroughly enjoyed how the magic and legends wove in and out of a story that perfectly captured the grief of the situation. I was so conflicted at the end - I wanted more, but it was perfect as it was. I’m so glad I read this, and I’m sure you will too.”
For thousands of years, humanity has called her a child-killer. They have it backwards.
She sits with unborn children while they die, so none die alone. In all that time, she has never had a living child of her own.
Then she finds one growing inside her—a child her poisoned body cannot carry. She has three months to decide whether to let a grieving mother carry it, or end its life and spare it her curse.
For an immortal who has spent millennia longing for death, the choice should be simple. Instead, the woman and her young daughter draw her back toward the world she has spent so long trying to escape.
But becoming a mother means confronting the sister she failed, the child she lost, and the ancient betrayal that turned her into the monster humanity fears.
A dark, mythic speculative novella about motherhood, grief, sisterhood, and the making of female monsters.