Chapter Text
On the twelfth hour of the first day of October 1989, Rachel Herschberger gave birth. This was unusual only in the fact that she had not been pregnant when the day first began.
It happened like this.
Rachel awoke at four a.m. to rouse her siblings and start the day. She was the oldest child and woman of the house after the premature death of her mother. Her father led the morning prayer for their family of eight, and then he and the twins, Jacob and Esau, went to the barn to milk the cows. Rachel sent Sarah-Beth, the second-oldest, to deal with the laundry while she herself took care of the three youngest, Mary, Hannah, and Amos, preparing breakfast with them. She packed lunch on the side for the twins who left for work with their roofing crew after a quick meal. Once breakfast was out of the way, Rachel and the children fed the animals, and Sarah-Beth went to help the elderly neighbors with their morning chores. She and their son Isaac, the last one to still live at home, had begun courting a few months earlier, leaving Rachel to take the children to school at eight o’clock.
For the rest of the morning, she busied herself with a pile of clothes that needed darning and preparing lunch for herself and her father, which they ate at eleven. Afterwards, the patriarch took the fresh milk supply to the Stolzfus family on the other side of town, to be sold at the market.
As noon approached, Rachel brought a crate of clean milk bottles to the barn in preparation for the next day. Her mind was preoccupied with the errands she had to run in the afternoon, and so she didn’t immediately notice anything out of the ordinary. Only when a pain that may have been equal to being kicked in the stomach by a horse doubled her over, did she see her tummy swelling and stretching her apron. In a piece of luck, a ball of hay sat within reach and she let herself fall against it to cushion the impact as she crumpled to the barn floor. A scream ripped from her throat, and the lord must have been watching over her for her sister had finished her work and returned home in time to hear her cry for help. Sarah-Beth and Rachel assisted their mother with Hannah’s and Amos’ births, and undeterred by the more than suspect circumstances, her sister did not hesitate to do so again. Minutes later, she put a crying baby boy in Rachel’s arms.
It just so happened that their father returned shortly after to behold the newborn and its mother, who had not shown any sign of pregnancy when he left. Who had, until that day, been suspected unable to conceive.
“The devil’s child,” he whispered, crossing himself.
“A gift from heaven!” Sarah-Beth objected.
“Born out of wedlock!” their father continued as if he hadn’t heard. He ripped the child from Rachel’s hands and would not listen to his daughters’ pleas.
“The council must determine what to do with him.” As a minister himself, chosen nearly two decades ago by the lot of the songbooks, his duties included leading the district and delivering the sermon each Sunday in church. The conflicting nature of holding his first yet illegitimate grandson in his hands etched deep lines into his forehead. He was a role model to the congregation and thus strict in following and enforcing the rule of law laid out by their bishop. Rachel had been put in an impossible situation that would shame their family name.
The realization that she had given birth had scarcely sunk in when her father seized a bucket of water and drowned the boy in it.
Her cries fell on deaf ears, as did her sister’s attempts to stop him. Unable to speak sense into their father, Sarah-Beth ran from the barn to get help from the neighbors, but it was futile. When Isaac arrived, the child had long passed.
The patriarch followed the group of neighbors assembling at their barn a little while later in a peaceful manner, righteous in the justness of his actions. Righteous in the knowledge that his confession would be accepted and his actions forgiven.
Rachel took the boy and held him close, mourning the loss of the life that had only just begun.
The women in the community came together to prepare the burial that same day. Rachel took no notice of their glances and whispers – once she had grieved, she would speak her truth before God and the congregation, and accept whatever punishment the elders saw fit for her miracle. Sarah-Beth ensured she had privacy to spend a moment alone with her child, swaddled in clothes until the hastily commissioned casket would be brought to her. Jacob and Esau abandoned their work as soon as they heard the news and went to the field to dig a hole next to their mother’s grave. When darkness fell, the funeral attendees brought lanterns with which to light the way.
Rachel had at last reached a state of peace when inexplicably, the little body began to move, followed by a cry announcing to the world that this child was fated to live. The women came running, stunned by the wiggling infant cradled in Rachel’s arms. She heard their prayers, saw beyond them the approach of the bishop, whom she had served when she was but a girl, and knew in an instant that she could not protect the boy.
She fled that night, with only the clothes on her back and the child pressed to her chest.
Two days later, as she sat shivering and destitute by the roadside, unable to feed herself or her son, an eccentric English man approached Rachel, offering money for the boy to raise him in the City. She only asked for his promise that her child would be cared for, and not harmed ever again.