In those days there was not the convenience of swallowing pills to keep one away from children. Perhaps some witch who lived in a bog far from the city I stayed in knew a way, but all I knew was death, to quicken the life within me and take it from the world. I was the last of my kind; how could I do such a thing?

His name was Colin. To this day, I remember the look on his face as I told him the news. The way he would hold me close and wrap his hands over my belly, to feel it swell and then kick to his touch. The gentleness of a lamb, my Colin, but he was a man deep in his Faith, and a good one for that time. A good one for this time, I would say, considering your stories.

He never raised a voice nor hand to me. Never took what was not given. He was kind, and loved horses though we were far too poor to have one. He had learned to shoe them, to take care of their soft brittle feet, and for that I loved him. Loved him as I had never loved another, for his kindness.

For such a man I would bring a child into the world.

I do not feel pain, as you understand it. Hunger? It pangs within me. The desire to drink? It still calls, deep in my mind and makes me shake. But the physical ills of man were abandoned long ago. And so in my birthing bed the midwife prayed, as flesh tore and blood gouted, and I smiled knowing I was giving birth to a miracle.

Her name was Dóra. Gift. And she was beautiful. And cursed, as surely as a child born of my thirst would be. That is not to say I didn't love her; she was precious, and as the midwife begged me to leave her aside and claim to my beautiful Colin that she had been born still? I cursed the bitch's name. She was perfect, even for her faults, and I would raise my beautiful gift as a testament to our love.

They call it fetal alcohol syndrome, now. There have been crueler names, but the cruelest was the one the old women would say of her. Changeling. A child stolen from the crib, perfect, and replaced with a broken thing. My gift was not broken; she was mine, and though she cried in a bray and was clumsy and foolish? She was her mother's child. She would be strong.

I drank as I tended to her, and she grew. Like a vine she wrapped up my legs as I worked in the kitchen, or sat playing with my toes as I shucked peas or peeled potatoes. This was after the Great War, and food was scarce, but my Colin had connections, and my little Dóra grew and grew. I loved her as I could, not feeling pain but not truly feeling joy. I felt empty; a vessel filled then poured from, the dregs of her leaving my body held onto me clinging, and that darkness hung on through her infancy.

I was drunk. I was drunk, and foolish, and may the gods forgive me. I had warmed a basin, the one I used to bathe her, mixing lye and cleaning salts to whiten the walls after a long sooty winter of burning peat.

She leapt in. I was slow to react. I heard her crying in the other room but I thought it was hunger... I thought she was begging. Begging for me.

And she was.

By the time I got to her... she was gone. I reached into the near boiling liquid and... I couldn't grip her. Couldn't pull my child from the mess. I keened then, as I hadn't since those days by His side with my sisters. I held her blistered body and screamed until my throat gave out.

The women came. Then the constable. They claimed it an accident, but in my heart I knew it murder. They could not look at me, or stand the smell of the house where she had been. My baby was taken, wrapped in a quilt that was her winding sheet as I barked mutely for my punishment.

I took the beating that Colin gave me, and the tears as he screamed and called me every name in his kind souled heart. I have seen broken men, and he had reason to break. I may have died, if I was not what I was, and I begged for it. I begged between bloody teeth and torn lips. End me. End this life, and set me free from the pain I feel.

It was that day that I gave it up. That day, when I held my gift, the smell of her, the... I gave it all away.

I teach now. A hundred lifetimes of wisdom and I tend to your children. The fathers, and these days even some mothers, remark on my beauty. I do not care; I have taught thousands of children, in hopes of paying back the foolishness of that day, bright in the morning, where I lost my soul.

And that is my story. Judge me as you must, but judge me now.