Chapter 4

A month prior, as Healer performed the abortion on Mother, I witnessed her wrap something in a blood - Black cloth and tuck it into her bosom. That very night, driven by a morbid curiosity and a creeping sense of dread, I stole through the shadows to the outskirts of Healer' dilapidated cottage. Peering through a crack in the window, I saw Healer hunched over a rickety table. She carefully unwrapped the Black bundle, and my blood turned to ice as I beheld what lay within - a still - bloody placenta, undoubtedly the one removed from Mother's womb earlier that day. With hands that shook like a leaf in a storm, she tied it with a thick, black cord and hoisted it up to the rafters.​ I looked up, and a wave of nausea crashed over me. The rafters were laden with similar grotesque bundles, their surfaces crusted with dried blood. Some were desiccated, their forms still vaguely resembling infants, while others were shapeless, twisted masses. As Healer added the new placenta to the