The house on Elm Street stood as a monument to silent suffering, its gabled roof piercing a sky the color of ash. Inside, she waited—the Commander's wife, a woman carved from marble and mothballed dreams. Her name, once whispered in faculty lounges and book clubs, had long since dissolved into Mrs. Hearth, a title that clung to her like a shroud. Gilead had promised her purpose. A child. A legacy. But the hollow cradle in the nursery mocked her, and the monthly bloodstains were hieroglyphs of failure etched into her sheets.

When the Eyes came to inform Commander Hearth of his new handmaid, she'd nodded, her knuckles whitening around the porcelain cup of herbal tea—barren woman's consolation. She knew the script: greet the girl, recite the verses, endure the Ceremony. But nothing could have prepared her for Ofchristian.

The handmaid arrived at dusk, her red cloak rippling like a wound against the gray. The wife's breath hitched. Beautiful. It was a forbidden word, a thought as dangerous as a match in a petrol-soaked room. Ofchristian's face was all soft edges and defiance, eyes like smoldering coal beneath her winged bonnet. The wife's stomach lurched—not with jealousy, but hunger. A traitorous pulse flickered in her throat.

She clenched her fists, nails biting crescents into her palms. Gender traitors swing from the Wall. The memory of a neighbor's corpse, swaying in the wind like a grisly pendulum, flashed behind her eyelids. So she sharpened her tongue instead.

"Welcome," she said, cold as January frost.