"Did you hear? Someone found snakes in her belly last night." "You're joking. Which daughter?" "Annika Ferrara. They say the foetus is a snake. The whole lane is talking." Annika stopped in the shadow of a willow and let the words hit her like stones. She did not step into the lane. She only listened. "That's what old Bruno said," the first woman went on. "He sold a charm to Rolf yesterday and then he saw the signs. He says it's a debt, a bargaining mark. Poor thing." "Poor thing?" the second woman scoffed. "Poor thing should have kept her mouth shut. You don't cross the river spirits and expect to stay whole." "Do you think it's true?" a third voice asked from a stall. "I saw her at the clinic. Her belly moved wrong." "You saw her? What did she look like?" the first woman asked, leaning in. Annika's name moved like a fresh cut through the gossip. She kept her hands in her coat pockets and let the willow shade the angle of her face. She was twenty-one and wearing her father's old coat. She had left home before sunrise with a basket of snake feed to avoid the whispers. The market had eaten breakfast and filled its teeth with rumor by the time she arrived. "She walked like she was sick," said the clinic attendant. "But her eyes—" Her voice dropped so low that it was a dare. "They