Read One Small Step, an anthology of discoveries for Free Online Page B

now, well, it’s just not going to happen, is it? Most likely she wants an excuse to get out of work. To lie in with a bub, nestling and feeding, and leave all the hard slog to the younger, fitter, prettier maids. But servants, M’Amie thinks, even housekeepers, don’t convalesce . They drop their little parcels, clean up their own messes before getting back to milord and milady’s needs.  
    Cora’s just snippy because she knows M’Amie has plenty of time. With her wide hips, heavy tits, and regular moons, M’Amie will always be fertile as a field after flood. As if that’s such a good thing. As if that’s such a boon.
    But Cora doesn’t know, does she? She has no idea. The bounty of Matthew’s seed. How quickly it germinates, given the right conditions. She hasn’t got a clue how anxious M’Amie is for what’s growing to be gone… Cora, stiff, formal Cora, can’t possibly imagine what that yearning feels like. Wanting so badly to undo something that’s well and truly done.
    So it was a surprise to find her at Brona’s cottage, blushing, begging a favour. M’Amie hadn’t heard what it was, but she could certainly guess. She’d giggled, seeing Cora so mortified, so debased. And the sound had caught the hedgewitch’s attention. It had attracted her glare.
    With one look, Brona had gleaned what M’Amie wanted. One look, and the old woman was laughing.
    “ Look at you two,” she’d said, grasping their wrists, more firm than friendly. M’Amie and Cora didn’t look anywhere but straight ahead. “You know, if you’d had a quiet word with each other back at the house, you might’ve timed this better.” Brona had lifted an eyebrow at their silence. “I see,” she’d said, after the moment dragged long. “You must know that secrets shared are secrets no longer.” No response. “Good. That’s good.”
    And as Brona told them what they were to do, what favours they could bestow, Cora and M’Amie had risked a sideways glance at one another. Knowing they would share naught.
    Now, slopping through the Grum, her legs squirming black, M’Amie wonders if Cora thinks she visited the witch to advance herself. Or to buy a love potion? A ravishment spell? She grins, swallowing another snort. As if she’s not got natural charms enough to keep Matthew where she wants him. As if she’s the kind of girl who needs to resort to such tactics . She resumes her low chant, garbling, warbling. If she was that kind of girl she’d not be enlisting Brona to get rid of this babe. Maybe she’d be buying sweet-tasting poisons, treats for Matthew’s goodwife and his bright-haired son. If she was that type of girl. Maybe she’d be slipping bespelled drops into his eyes after he comes, when he’s soft and susceptible. To help him see her more clearly, to want her to be something more than a tumble taken whenever he fancies. If M’Amie was that kind of girl, she’d be doing much, much more than gathering poxy leeches beneath a witch’s moon.  
     
    ∞ ¥ ∞ Ω ∞ ¥ ∞  
     
    Little bitch, little bitch , thinks Cora. In her head it’s a tune to rival the incantation she’s mouthing at the witch’s behest. Little bitch, little bitch , echo the nightjars.  
    Smarmy and smug, M’Amie is . Cora feels a bite, rips the bloodsucker from her hamstring before it gets too set in its suckling. Firm and healthy and brimming with — what? She tears another wyrm away, flicks it into a lidless jar. With time , answers a whisper, nagging from the back of her mind. Young, elastic, fresh-bellied time .  
    Cora stops singing. Drops a curse and a thumb-sized writher into silver-edged ripples.
    “ Start over,” M’Amie says, wading over to squint into Cora’s jar.
    The housekeeper glares. “What?”
    “ The tune,” the maid explains, so smug, so smarmy. The moon casts weird shadows across M’Amie’s face, complicates it, but Cora can hear the girl’s expression. “If you mess it up—” M’Amie widens her mulish