"You sense it too, don't you?"

Levicy didn't turn from the window, the thin light from the wood stove highlighting her statuesque figure through her nightgown. Even after bearing so many children, Levicy Hatfield was still a striking woman in both body and face. Cordelia paused on the threshold, the floor chilled under her bare feet. She had wrapped a sparse, linen shawl around her shoulders. She felt hollow and wiry, nothing like the vibrancy she had assumed would accompany pregnancy.

"Somethin' is brewing." Levicy continued, her brown eyes fixed on the dark shapes of the trees beyond. "Bet you, Sally McCoy felt it long before this night. She's got the gift, that one, for all her husband's preaching. The sight as some call it."

Cordelia approached gingerly, casting a wary glance towards her in-laws' bedroom. The door was closed and no sound came from it. For once, Anse wasn't coughing himself bloody. She wondered why Levicy wasn't taking the chance to sleep peacefully.

"I was able to sleep a little but..." Cordelia paused, unsure of how to explain herself.

Levicy gave half a grin over her shoulder. "I believe I was wrong about you. There are some things only women born in these hills will feel in their bones. You come by it natural. You sure your people are all Yankees?"

Cordelia returned her grin weakly. "As much to my knowledge."

"Come and sit. There is a little coffee left over."

Earlier, close to midnight, they had brewed hot coffee and made quick meals of venison and biscuits for the men. There was a large party of them, even Johnse joined late. After days of secrecy, Cordelia had finally learned their plans. They were going to raid the McCoy property itself and bring back the patriarch unharmed to face justice. No one else was to be taken or injured. As Anse had said, cut off the head of the snake.

"I am thankful that Anse remained here. Out on a night like this, it surely would have killed him." Levicy wrapped her worn fingers around her cup. "But I don't believe it was wise to let Jim Vance lead."

Cordelia swallowed a bitter mouthful of stale coffee, grounds catching in her throat. "I was worried too when I heard it."

"I wish they had put Johnse and Cap in charge. Or perhaps just Cap as Johnse is compromised with that bride of his."

Cordelia stared down into the muddy depths of her cup. Before they had left, Cap had kissed her temple. His closeness heated her blood despite everything that had happened. He then had lingered, his breath stirring her hair. Nuzzling his face into her hair, his grip on her elbow tightened.

We'll talk when I get back, Cordelia. He'd whispered hoarsely.

Cordelia's reserve broke and she nodded. However, she felt it prudent not to mention the baby, not right before he left on a raid.

"I've been dreaming again," she blurted out, unable to keep it in.

Levicy crooked an eyebrow at her. "Tell me."

"They happened more frequently a couple months ago before I came to live with you. Before my father... before the shooting with Bad Frank." Cordelia rubbed the back of her stiff neck. "But it started again a couple nights ago. I don't remember many details-"

"Do you recall anything?"

"Smoke," Cordelia choked out. "And blood."

"They never should have gone. They never should have planned this raid, it's got a bad feeling around it, leavin' me jairy." Levicy shivered. She reached out and patted Cordelia's hand. "You tell him yet?"

"No, I didn't think it the right time."

"That's wise. My son doesn't need anything, but McCoys on his mind this night."

Cordelia wondered if that was all any of them thought about anymore. One family with too many dead sons and the other driven into the hills to scratch a living off the land like Adam driven from Eden. Both had already lost so much. She shuddered to think that perhaps more was left to be taken. Her stomach rolled and she groaned. Levicy grabbed an empty bowl from nearby and Cordelia vomited into it.

"Tis the way of it, I'm afraid," Levicy commented, brushing Cordelia's hair from her shoulder. "Let's get you back to bed."

As she let Levicy lead her to her bedroom, Cordelia realized that this woman would probably be the closest thing to a mother she'd remember in her adult years. As she tucked her into the bed, her stern features softening with concern, Cordelia was surprised to be happy at the prospect. She and Levicy Hatfield had more in common than either had ever considered.

"Thank you, Levicy," Cordelia said, grasping her hand before she left.

Levicy squeezed her fingers, cocking her head to the side. "I'm mighty glad to have another woman around this place."

"Even a Yankee?"

Levicy snorted and patted her hand. "We can't have everything now, can we?"

Whistling awoke her and the muted clop of horse hooves on dirt moving past her window on the trail below. She winced in the light of morning and realized it was well past dawn. Levicy had let her sleep late. Peering out the window, she watched the slow progression of returning Hatfield men. All were somber eyed and gray with exhaustion. Randall McCoy was nowhere to be seen. Her husband passed the window on his slow moving steed. He didn't cast a glance towards the window where she stood, but threw back a swallow of moonshine from his flask. The only cheerful one was Cottontop, whistling a bright tune as he took up the tail of the parade.

Cordelia heard the front door open. Levicy, Anse, and Jim Vance spoke haltingly in hushed tones. She couldn't make out anything from where she stood, but knew that the raid had been a failure. Though she would have expected harsh words and shouting, not this deadly stillness. It was almost worse.

Swallowing down the bile rising in her throat, Cordelia inched towards the door and opened it a crack. The speaking had slowed to a pause, the silence poisonous with anticipation. Cordelia held her breath.

"Well, what do we do now, Jim?" Anse asked. "Kill them all?"

Fire and smoke rushed into her memory. More McCoys were dead. That was the only thing those words could mean. Cordelia gripped the door before shutting it on a truth she couldn't face. Perhaps Jim McCoy had been shot down, his other siblings burned up to ash, maybe the little girl her father had saved not six months earlier.

More blood was on their hands. On the hands of her unborn child.

Cordelia moved stiffly towards the window and stared out into the first morning of the New Year. An owl flew by the tree beside her window and perched, peering with yellow eyes into her own. She didn't move to make a mark on the glass. It didn't matter anymore, bad omen or not. The curse on the Hatfields and McCoys was upon her.

Dry eyed, she set about getting ready for the day. Ignoring the twinge in her belly, she pulled on her work dress, her back to the room. She didn't hear the door open. Nimble fingers moved down her back as her husband helped button up her dress. 

"Seems I'll be going away for sometime."

Cordelia didn't look over her shoulder. "Why?"

Cap's hands hesitated at her neck before brushing her curls over her shoulder. He curved his arms around her waist and rested his head wearily into her shoulder, the golden scruff on his chin pricking exposed skin. 

"The raid did not go as planned."

"... how many dead?"

"Two. Maybe three of them."

"Randall McCoy?"

"No."

Cordelia squeezed her eyes shut. "Jim McCoy?"

"He wasn't there."

Cordelia's mind reeled. "One of their girls?"

Cap's hold on her tightened. "And their son Calvin."

That meant the only McCoy son left was Jim. All of his brothers and one sister, dead. 

"You said maybe three."

"The mother. Maybe."

Cordelia's knees went weak. The lack of sleep and her morning sickness made her light headed. Now with this revelation, she nearly fainted. Sally McCoy, the one with the sight that even her enemy's wife spoke of in reverence, was dead. Possibly. Cap held her up and moved her towards the bed. He wouldn't meet her eyes as he knelt in front of her, but gripped her hands in his ice cold ones.

"Pap is sending me and Jim Vance away to lay low for a bit," he explained tonelessly. "You need to stay here with the family."

Cordelia nodded dully. "Of course. How long will you be gone?"

"Not sure. I hate the McCoys as much as any in my family, but women and children..."

"Innocent blood," she murmured. "That's the blood that will not wash off."

Cap rose swiftly to his feet and released her hands. He paced towards the window. "I know I said we'd talk when I got back-"

"Cap," she cut him off and pressed a hand to her torso. "There is nothing for you to be concerned about with that letter. It was a silly impulse to keep it. I should have destroyed it long ago. That life isn't for me anymore."

"But this life, it isn't worthy of you. I've always known it."

"Whatever you might think, it doesn't matter. This is the life I choose." Cordelia rose to her feet and came up behind him. She laid her head on his shoulder blade. "I chose you and that's the end of it."

Cap ran a hand over his face with a gruff laugh. "I don't need you feeling obligated."

"I'm not obligated." Need filling her with urgency, she wrapped her arms around his waist as though she were hanging on for dear life in the midst of a flood.

As he peered down at her, a strand of hair fell over his blind eye. Cordelia lightly brushed it away and his hand caught hers. He pressed a kiss at the center of her palm. "I've always wanted you."

"Then let's have no more talk of these things." Cordelia managed a pained smile. "You go with Jim Vance and stay safe. I'll be fine here."

They rode off not a half hour later, Cap shooting her a strained smile over his shoulder before following down the trail with Jim's dog trotting behind them. Levicy came up behind Cordelia and patted her shoulder.

"You still didn't say anything," she said.

"No."

"Good. Now let's get the supper on."

That night when Cordelia dreamed of blood, she awoke with a start. Her legs were sticky and wet. Lighting a candle sitting by the bed, she pulled back the quilt with shaking hands to find a lake of blood between her thighs. There was no pain, no fever, none of the other symptoms of miscarriage, but when Levicy walked into the room at the sound of her weeping, her expression confirmed Cordelia's suspicion. She was losing the baby.