She touched a hand to her navel. The tendrils within pulsed once, twice—a heartbeat that was not hers, but the world’s.
She was not the oldest woman in the village, nor the most learned. But when the first crocus dared to pierce the frost-crusted earth, the people looked to her swelling belly. For Lisette was the Priestess of the Spring Pregnancy—a holy condition renewed each year, as mysterious and reliable as the returning light. lisette, priestess of spring pregnancy
“Priestess,” whispered the baker’s wife, kneeling. “My hens have stopped laying.” She touched a hand to her navel
For a moment, nothing. Then the woman gasped. A ripple of warmth traveled up her arms, and behind her ribs, something small and fierce—a promise—began to beat. But when the first crocus dared to pierce
She blessed them all that evening: the old man whose joints had locked in the cold (she laid her belly against his knees, and they creaked open like buds), the child who had not spoken since the first frost (she let the child’s ear rest against her navel—a sound like sap rising, like a seed cracking its shell—and the child laughed), and the young couple whose bed had been barren for two winters (she took their joined hands and placed them over her heart, then over hers, and whispered: “When the snow leaves, so will your grief.” )
Lisette had been chosen seven years ago, when her own mother—the previous priestess—had walked into the first rain of March and vanished into a spray of white blossoms.