Birthmarked - Softcover

O'Brien, Caragh M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312674724 ISBN 13: 9780312674724

Publisher: Square Fish, 2011

Synopsis

In the future, in a world baked dry by the harsh sun, there are those who live inside the wall and those, like sixteen-year-old midwife, Gaia Stone, who live outside. Gaia has always believed it is her duty, with her mother, to hand over a small quota of babies to the Enclave. But when Gaia's mother and father are arrested by the very people they so dutifully serve, Gaia is forced to question everything she has been taught to believe. Gaia's choice is now simple: enter the world of the Enclave to rescue her parents, or die trying.

About this title

About the Author

Caragh M. O’Brien is the author of the BIRTHMARKED trilogy and THE VAULT OF DREAMERS trilogy. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Ms. O’Brien was educated at Williams College and earned her MA in the Writing Seminars from Johns Hopkins University. Her young adult science fiction has been honored by the YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults, the Amelia Bloomer Award, the Junior Library Guild, and numerous state reading lists. A former high school English teacher, she now writes young adult novels full time from her home in rural Connecticut.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Birthmarked

By Caragh M. O'Brien

Square Fish

Copyright © 2011 Caragh M. O'Brien
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780312674724

Chapter One: The Baby Quota

In the dim hovel, the mother clenched her body into one final, straining push, and the baby slithered out into Gaia’s ready hands.
     “Good job,” Gaia said. “Wonderful. It’s a girl.”
      The baby cried indignantly, and Gaia breathed a sigh of relief as she checked for toes and fingers and a perfect back. It was a good baby, healthy and well formed, if small. Gaia wrapped the child in a blanket, then held the bundle toward the flickering firelight for the exhausted mother to see.
      Gaia wished her own mother  were there to help, especially with managing the afterbirth and the baby. She knew, nor­mally, she wasn’t supposed to give the baby to the mother to hold, not even for an instant, but now the mother was reaching and Gaia didn’t have enough hands.
      “Please,” the young woman whispered. Her fingers beckoned tenderly.
      The baby’s cries subsided, and Gaia passed her over. She tried not to listen to the mother’s gentle, cooing noises as she cleaned up between her legs, moving gently and efficiently as her mother had taught her. She was excited and a little proud. This was her first delivery, and it was an unassisted delivery, too. She had helped her mother many times, and she’d known for years that she would be a midwife, but now it was finally real.
      Almost finished. Turning to her satchel, she drew out the small teakettle and two cups that her mother had given her for her sixteenth birthday, only a month ago. By the light of the coals, she poured water from a bottle into the kettle. She stoked up the fire, seeing the burst of yellow light gleam over the mother with her small, quiet bundle.
      “You did well,” Gaia said. “How many is this for you again? Did you say four?”
      “She’s my first,” the woman said, her voice warm with awed pleasure.
      “What?”
      The woman’s eyes gleamed briefly as she looked toward Gaia, and she smiled. In a shy, self-conscious gesture, she smoothed a sweat-damped curl back around her ear. “I didn’t tell you before. I was afraid you wouldn’t stay.”
      Gaia sat down slowly beside the fire, set the kettle on the metal rod, and swiveled it over the fire to warm.
      First labors were hardest, the most risky, and although this one had progressed smoothly, Gaia knew they’d been lucky. Only an experienced midwife should have tended this woman, not only for the sake of the mother and the child, but for what would come next.
      “I would have stayed,” Gaia said softly, “but only because there’s nobody else to come. My mother was already gone to another birth.”
      The mother hardly seemed to hear. “Isn’t she beautiful?” she murmured. “And she’s mine. I get to keep her.”
      Oh, no, Gaia thought. Her pleasure and pride evaporated, and she wished now, more than ever, that her mother were there. Or even Old Meg. Or anybody, for that matter.
      Gaia opened her satchel and took out a new needle and a little bottle of brown ink. She shook the tin of tea over the kettle to drop in some flakes. The faint aroma slowly infused the room with a redolent fragrance, and the mother smiled again in a weary, relaxed way.
      “I know we’ve never talked,” the mother said. “But I’ve seen you and your mother coming and going at the quadran­gle, and up to the wall. Everyone says you’ll be as great a mid­wife as your mother, and now I can say it’s true.”
      “Do you have a husband? A mother?” Gaia asked.
      “No. Not living.”
      “Who was the boy you sent for me? A brother?”
      “No. A kid who was passing in the street.”
      “So you have no one?”
      “Not any more. Now I have my baby, my Priscilla.”
      It’s a bad name, Gaia thought. And what was worse, it wouldn’t matter because it wouldn’t last.

 

Excerpted from Birthmarked by Caragh M. O’Brien
Copyright © 2010 by Caragh M. O’Brien

Published in 2010 by Roaring Brook Press
All rights reserved. This work is protected under copyright laws and reproduction is strictly prohibited. Permission to reproduce the material in any manner or medium must be secured from the Publisher.

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Excerpted from Birthmarked by Caragh M. O'Brien Copyright © 2011 by Caragh M. O'Brien. Excerpted by permission.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Square Fish
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312674724
• ISBN 13: 9780312674724
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 5
• Number of pages: 384