( He stills. It is natural to him, inertia, as if he were born to death and made exorcist through the timid, contorted extension of his flesh, purposed. As if he were less man, more lake — a surface untroubled. Indifferent. Resilient.

His eyes strain, to look at her as if he sees light, blinding. He anticipates, briefly, a state of disaster: that she brings news of further wickedness, of cruelty, of death, of pox, of plague, of madness. Malice and misfortune come three in the cradle. She has only delivered the first babe.

His fingers draw to a curl, half-moons tracing the flesh of his palm. In his head, sallow screams. )

And the dead...? ( This, then, has been the marriage: dark waters. The insidious sorcery of the land. Disaster. )