The midwife had no love for nights like these, when the sky opened and rain tore into the dusty dry land of her little town. Rain was rare in Lowell, and thunderstorms rarer still, and the midwife knew that tonight was a bad night to bring a baby into the world…

The sleepless nights began in summer, and it was not until the late winter that the tragedy of King Had was immortalized in the rhymes of schoolchildren…