Lisette, Priestess Of Spring Pregnancy __full__ -

By dawn, her belly would be flat again. She would rise, thin and shivering, and the village would hand her a bowl of lamb’s broth. They would not speak of what had passed. But the plum trees would burst into flower by noon.

“Priestess,” whispered the baker’s wife, kneeling. “My hens have stopped laying.” lisette, priestess of spring pregnancy

She touched a hand to her navel. The tendrils within pulsed once, twice—a heartbeat that was not hers, but the world’s. By dawn, her belly would be flat again

She was not the oldest woman in the village, nor the most learned. But when the first crocus dared to pierce the frost-crusted earth, the people looked to her swelling belly. For Lisette was the Priestess of the Spring Pregnancy—a holy condition renewed each year, as mysterious and reliable as the returning light. But the plum trees would burst into flower by noon

She blessed them all that evening: the old man whose joints had locked in the cold (she laid her belly against his knees, and they creaked open like buds), the child who had not spoken since the first frost (she let the child’s ear rest against her navel—a sound like sap rising, like a seed cracking its shell—and the child laughed), and the young couple whose bed had been barren for two winters (she took their joined hands and placed them over her heart, then over hers, and whispered: “When the snow leaves, so will your grief.” )

The old faith held that winter was a long death. The womb of the earth grew cold, barren, and silent. To remind the world of its promise, the spirits chose one woman each generation to carry the season itself. Not a child of man, but a gerbre , a “green one”—a living seed of spring that would grow heavy in her for forty days and then dissolve into the soil at the equinox, fertilizing the world’s rebirth.