Nights you need a torch to see anything, here on the outskirts of town away from the candles, the light that emanates from the chandeliers in the houses with thick walls. Mamma called us to the stable, bring a torch, Jeannette, Isabella! We, her daughters too young to marry. The man and woman speak our language but broken. They seek shelter here from the cold and the rain. This is not uncommon. We have a steady stream of refugees passing through, this bloody war, the church and the reformers. It’s the reformers, mostly, who flee.

The woman holds a bundle. Blood between her legs. “A child not my own. The son of God.” The father stands back in the shadows, but I see the stunned look on his face, eyes round, chewing lips. How did we get here?

The book gets the details wrong. There couldn’t have been wise men; it had to be women attending. Women’s blood gave men the willies in Biblical times. Three wise men are nonsense, Mamma says. She whispers the truth to us in the dark.

Soon Mamma will be dead, Papa long taken and gone. That’s what we get for trumpeting our mixed blood, me with our Italian grandmother’s name, Jeannette for the French in us from Papa’s family. Mamma says the world goes mad on blood. There’s no difference between her and Papa. Blood is all the same.

How did this woman see to do anything out here, in the edge-of-town darkness? She birthed the baby on the stable floor. Was this like the nativity? New hay, old hay, dung and stray feed for the steer all over the place. I can’t imagine what this will look like in the light of day, the blood in the stuff of the stable.

The real miracles are fire, light. Shadows. It’s a miracle that we can see.

The woman sets her baby in the manger. “Bring the torch, Jeannette,” Mamma says. “Isabella, another blanket.” My sister runs from the stable, and I watch as she is swallowed by the night.