Chapter Text
Hilda’s so small and soft.
It frightens Zelda and very few things do.
How can something so pathetic ever protect itself?
She’d expected her sister to come out more ready for the world after malingering for 13 months and 10 days inside their mother.
But Hilda’s like one of those kittens she and Edward had discovered under the porch last winter--all rounded tummy and milk breath, eyes blind to danger.
But even that kitten--furious at being separated from the warm nest of its darker siblings—had mewled and cried, had thrashed its skinny orange limbs against Zelda’s palm.
Hilda doesn’t even seem to have it in her for a proper wail the way other babies do.
An owl, mother had said, looking at the poor thing’s neatly dissected belly. Just nature, she’d explained as Edward went to fetch the shovel.
Zelda reaches into the bassinet and pinches Hilda on her chubby thigh until she whimpers.
She twists the flesh as much as she dares.
Hilda cries, finally. Loud and angry.
It’s a start.