Was it possible to feel alone when one was pregnant? If so, Desdemona Pettigrew was sure she felt more alone than she ever had before.

Guilt gnawed at her entrails, making her queasy as she lay in the dark, staring unseeing up at the ceiling above her bed. Dezzie was keenly aware of Arthur’s absence on the mattress beside her. Hesitantly, a hand reached out to rest on the bedspread: it was cool, though not as cool as she had been to him earlier.

Once she had gotten her head together enough to stand once more—and hastily dismiss their part-time housemaid for the evening—Desdemona had gone through the motions of a wife concerned for her husband. She had written letters that would never be sent, had sat in the parlour with an eye to the clock, and had ultimately gone to bed early for lack of a useful occupation. If she told anyone what had happened, Dezzie knew she would have to explain why, a truth she was not yet ready to tell. Besides, the spectre of guilt hung over her like a shroud, and the witch did not feel as though she was deserving of help, of reassurance.

She cried and, at some point, fell asleep.

Dezzie didn’t know what time it was when a stirring outside the door woke her, and she remained silent as a figure—presumably her husband, though to be frank, she had not expected to see him tonight or perhaps ever—moved gradually to sit on the other side of the bed. The smell of smoke and whiskey clung to him enough that she would have been certain of his presence even if he hadn’t spoken, but he had.

I came back.

It was a low bar to meet, admittedly, but the witch could not help but feel an overwhelming sense of relief that he had, that her tongue-lashing and the prospect of her quadroupling in size had not scared him off forever. She remained quiet for a long moment before scooting into a sitting position, undone curls pooling down around the shoulders of her nightdress.

“Are you well?” she asked softly, a question with seemingly infinite meanings in that moment.