says you have a unique name for it.”
“A marshmallow.” I grinned. “It’s named after a sweet, sticky mound of white fluff from my old world that can be eaten as a dessert.” Carolan, Alanna and ClanFintan knew my true identity. Sometimes it was a relief to be able to relax and make references to my prior life without worrying about betraying myself. Relaxation, I suddenly realized, must have been Carolan’s reason for getting me to chatter. Being on the receiving end of his much renowned bedside manner was a new and not totally unpleasant experience.
“So, now that I’m not hyperventilating anymore, what’s next?”
“Nothing too horrible,” he reassured me. “Just some questions first, then I will examine you.” The confidence in his voice soothed my puke-frazzled nerves. “Tell me how long you have been feeling ill.”
I started to reply with a quip, but he held up his hand, cutting off my words.
“You must be honest, Rhea. If you are not totally truthful, I will have a difficult time being of any aid to you.”
I sighed. “Almost three weeks, or, as Alanna would say, three seven-days. It’s just been so obvious for the past two weeks that I couldn’t hide it from her.” I shared a pretended long-suffering look with him. “You know how nosy she is.”
He rolled his eyes as he began feeling the glands in my neck. “You need not tell me how tenacious she can be when it comes to the welfare of those she loves.” He began taking my pulse. “How long have you been purging yourself?”
“Purging?” I was confused. Bulimia had never interested me. I’ve always been strictly an “eat everything in sight and work out like a fiend” girl when it came to weight management.
“Relieving yourself of what you’ve eaten. Vomiting,” he clarified.
“Well, I certainly haven’t been doing it on purpose.”
“Of course you have not!” He paused in his examination, giving me a shocked look.
For an instant a sarcastic remark rose to my lips, then I reminded myself that he wasn’t pretending to be shocked at what my twenty-first century peers would consider a norm. I know it sounds hard to believe, but sometimes I forget I’m no longer in a world where beauty is defined by anorexic, strung-out models with boob jobs.
“Right, well, I’ve been actually vomiting for a little over a week, but I’ve been feeling like I could puke any second for almost three weeks.” Before he could get confused I added in a teacherly, informative voice, “To puke is to vomit.”
“To puke,” he pondered as he opened a huge leather bag that seemed to always be with him. “That is an interesting term.”
We smiled at each other.
“Have you had any other symptoms besides your stomach upset?” He asked.
“Well,” I said hesitantly, “I’ve been feeling kind of weird and depressed and jumpy.” I figured that about covered everything from my emotions being all out of whack to the possible hallucinations last night.
He patted my arm reassuringly as he pulled out of the bag a long, funnel-like object that seemed to be made of construction paper. “Please sit up and breathe deeply,” he said, and I complied as he used the funnel as a sort of crude stethoscope.
He appeared okay with what he heard, because he put the funnel-scope away and continued with the examination, gently probing, prodding and looking all over (and within) my body as he questioned me. He asked me everything from what kinds of flowers my maidens had been cutting for the daily arrangements that filled my bedchamber with fragrance, to how often I’d been pooping.
Finally, he finished. Patting my nervously folded hands, he began, “I am very certain you—”
“Have a brain tumor!” My stomach rolled in revolt and I felt my palms dampening.
Carolan chucked. “You have no tumor, Rhea, but you certainly have something within your body now that was not there just a few months ago.” His eyes sparkled, and I wanted to choke him until they bulged out of his face.
“A friggin aneurysm. I knew it. Somehow I was exposed to something radioactive when Rhiannon the Bitch traded places with me.” I fell back on the pile of pillows, trying unsuccessfully to stop my eyes from filling with tears.
“By the Goddess, Rhea, will you not listen!” Carolan’s voice was frustrated but definitely tinged with humor. “You are not dying. You are not ill. You are, quite simply and blessedly, pregnant.”
“I’m…I’m…I’m…”
“I estimate you will give birth mid-spring.”
“A baby?” I realized I sounded like a dolt, but my mind had literally become mush.
“That would certainly be my experienced diagnosis.” He smiled as he collected odds and ends and fed them back into the mouth of his doctor’s bag. “A girl,” he added.
“A girl? How do you know?” My hands unclasped themselves and crept down to cup my deceptively normal-looking abdomen.
“The firstborn of Epona’s Chosen is always a girl child. It is a gift from your Goddess to you and your people.”
I felt stunned. Sure, I had missed a period, but I hadn’t given it much thought. I’d chalked it up to stress. A new world in a different dimension where mythology lives. Becoming Goddess Incarnate. Battling demonic hordes. Stufflike that was bound to throw off anyone’s system a little, to say the least. I noticed that Carolan suddenly seemed in a big rush to leave.
“What’s your hurry?” I sounded on the verge of a crying jag, which, at least, now made sense. Hormones.
“Alanna will want to announce the wonderful news to the people. The celebration will continue all night!” I blanched and he laughed. “No, you will not be required to attend, but there will be many toasts to your health and the health of your child.” He turned to face me one last time before he opened the door. “Congratulation, Rhea. Let me be the first of many to wish your daughter health and happiness!”
I could hear him telling ClanFintan he could come in now as he rushed past my still worried-looking husband. The centaur approached me, folding his legs and settling fluidly to the floor by my side. His expression was grim as he studied what I realized must be my glazed, Barbie-exposed-to-math-word-problems expression.
“What is it, love? What has happened to you?”
“You!” A semi-hysterical giggle escaped from my lips.
His brow furrowed in concern. “I? I have injured you?”
I reached up and touched his cheek. “You haven’t injured me, you’ve impregnated me.”
He blinked twice, his expression blank. Then realization folded over his face.
“A child!” His deep voice resonated with joy. “We are to have a child?”
“Yes…” I knew I sounded reticent, but I had gone from tumor to baby in just a few heartbeats.
