“That’s a question for the future,” said Nanny sensibly. “I’m asking you about the past. The recent past. Since your marriage.”
But Melena’s face was vague and blurry. She nodded, she shrugged, she rocked her head.
“The obvious theory is an elf,” said Nanny.
“I wouldn’t have sex with an elf!” Melena shrieked.
“No more would I,” said Nanny, “but the green does give one pause. Are there elves in the neighborhood?”
“There’s a gaggle of them, tree elves, up over the hill someplace, but if possible they are more moronic than the fair citizens of Rush Margins. Really, Nanny, I’ve never even seen one, or only from a distance. The idea is repulsive. Elves giggle at everything, do you know that? One of them falls out of an oak and smashes his skull like a rotten turnip, and they gather and giggle and then forget about him. It’s insulting of you even to bring it up.”
“Get used to it, if we don’t find a way out of this quagmire.”
“Well, the answer is no.”
“Then someone else. Someone handsome enough on the outside, but carrying a germ that maybe you caught.”
Melena looked shocked. She hadn’t thought of her own health since Elphaba was born. Could she be at risk?
“The truth,” said Nanny. “We must know.”
“The truth,” said Melena distantly. “Well, it is unknowable.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I don’t know the answer to your question.” And Melena explained. Yes, the cottage was off the beaten track, and of course she never passed more than the curtest greetings with local farmers and fishermen and thickheads. But more travelers took to the hills and woods than you would credit. Often she had sat, listless and lonely, while Frex was off preaching, and she had found comfort in giving passersby a simple meal and a buoyant conversation.
“And more?”
But on those boring days, Melena muttered, she had taken to chewing pinlobble leaves. When she would awake, because the sun was setting or Frex was there frowning or grinning at her, she remembered little.
“You mean you indulged in adultery and you don’t even have the benefit of a good saucy memory about it?” Nanny was scandalized.
“I don’t know that I did!” said Melena. “I wouldn’t choose to, I mean not if I was thinking clearly. But I remember once when a tinker with a funny accent gave me a draft of some heady brew from a green glass bottle. And I had rare expansive dreams, Nanny, of the Other World—cities of glass and smoke—noise and color—I tried to remember.”
“So you could well have been raped by elves. Won’t your grandfather be pleased to learn how Frex is taking care of you.”
“Stop!” cried Melena.
“Well, I don’t know what’s to be done!” Nanny lost her temper at last. “Everyone’s being irresponsible! If you can’t remember whether your marriage vows have been broken or not, there’s not much good in acting like an offended saint.”
“We can always drown the baby and start over.”
“Just try drowning that thing,” muttered Nanny. “I pity the poor lake asked to take her in.”
Later, Nanny went through Melena’s small collection of medicines—herbs, drops, roots, brandies, leaves. She was wondering, without much hope, if she could invent something that might cause the girl’s skin to blanch. In the back of the chest Nanny found the green glass bottle spoken of by Melena. The light was bad and her eyes weren’t strong, but she could make out the words miracle elixir on a piece of paper pasted to the front.
Though she had a native skill in healing, Nanny was unable to come up with a skin-changing potion. Bathing the child in cow’s milk didn’t make the skin white, either. But the child would not allow herself to be lowered into a pail of lake water; she twisted like a cat in panic. Nanny kept on with the cow’s milk. It left a horrid sour stink if she did not rub it off thoroughly with a cloth.
Frex organized an exorcism. It involved candles and hymns. Nanny watched from a distance. The man was beady-eyed, perspiring with effort even though the mornings were colder and colder. Elphaba slept in her binding cloth in the middle of the carpet, oblivious to the sacrament.
Nothing happened. Frex fell, exhausted and spent, and cradled his green daughter within the crook of his arm, as if finally embracing the proof of some undisclosed sin. Melena’s face hardened.
There was only one thing left to try. Nanny gathered the courage to bring it up on the day she was to leave back for Colwen Grounds.
“We see that peasant treatments don’t work,” said Nanny, “and spiritual intercession has failed. Do you have the courage to think about sorcery? Is there someone local who could magick the green venom out of the child?”
Frex was up and lashing out at Nanny, swinging his fists. Nanny fell backward off her stool, and Melena bobbed about her, shrieking. “How dare you!” cried Frex. “In this household! Isn’t this green girl insult enough? Sorcery is the refuge of the amoral; when it isn’t out-and-out charlatanism, it is dangerously evil! Contracts with the demons!”
