Free Prized by Caragh M. O'brien Page B

have rain to remember my mother, whenever it first starts.”
    She regarded him thoughtfully. “When did you lose her?”
    â€œWhen I was seven. There was a fever in the village. My two youngest brothers died then, too.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” she said.
    Will smiled. “I don’t expect I’ll ever get over it, actually, but I don’t even try to anymore. It’s just been part of me for so long. What about you? Is there something like rain for your parents?”
    She already knew what it would be, and a calmness settled around her heart. “Orion,” she said. “The constellation. Whenever I see it, I think of my father anyway. He taught me about the stars.”
    â€œIt won’t be out in the summer,” he reminded her. “But it’s the looking for it that will count, even if you can’t find it.”
    She glanced up at him. “You’re good at this,” she said.
    â€œYou were ready,” he said simply. “That’s all.”
    She inhaled slowly and let out a long breath. Her eyes turned
once more to the corpse under the blanket, and she slid off her hat, striding idly toward the workbench. “How’d Benny die?”
    â€œIt was sudden,” Will said. “They said he clutched at his chest before he went. I’m guessing his heart gave out. If you please, don’t go any closer.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    He stepped in front of the body. “I’d just rather you didn’t. Let me show you the garden.”
    â€œAre you doing an autopsy?” she asked.
    Will lifted a hand to his jaw and rubbed his chin. Then he laughed. “What are the chances?” he asked the ceiling.
    â€œWhat?” she asked. “I mean, it’s not surprising. You must do them all the time.”
    He shook his head. “I’ve never done one before. I could hardly get myself to cut into him. I had to stop because I thought I’d be sick. And now the one person who might know something about bodies shows up in my barn.”
    â€œNews travels fast here, doesn’t it?” Gaia asked.
    â€œNews about a new midwife? Yes. I’d say so.”
    She went to hang her hat on a peg by the door. “Just so you know, being a midwife does not make me an expert in autopsies, but I was born curious. Want help?”

CHAPTER 5
    in the morteur’s barn
    S HE GLANCED BACK to see his eyebrows raised in gentle surprise. He put his fists on his hips and cleared his throat.
    â€œYou’re serious?” he asked.
    â€œSure. I find it hard to believe you haven’t done this before.”
    â€œThere’s no point, normally,” Will said. “It can’t change the fact that someone’s dead. It’s my job to clean up the corpse the best I can, dress him, and make the coffin. I try to do it as respectfully as I can.”
    â€œThen what’s different this time?” she asked.
    â€œBenny was an expool,” Will said. “It always bothered him that he couldn’t be a father. He begged me before he died to try to see if I could find out anything that would help anyone else. I tried to tell him I wouldn’t know what to look for, but he made me promise. He said it was time I learned.”
    â€œAre many men here infertile?”
    â€œThe expools are,” he said, nodding. “Every boy is tested around his fourteenth birthday. If his sperm aren’t viable, he’s out of the pool of eligible men who can marry.”
    â€œYou’re kidding,” she said. “Is it very many men?”

    â€œIt’s a lot. Maybe four or five hundred out of the eighteen hundred men here.”
    â€œI had no idea,” she said. “That’s horrible! What do they do?”
    â€œWhat can they do? They just go on like everybody else,” Will said. “Some try to get in with the libbies when they can. They really aren’t much different from the men in the pool who