fetal and eerily quiet. He set the little half-baby down by the exhaust hose, where he’d put shriveled Frederick in a hopeless hope that the baby would suck, would ingest, finally.

And ingest Frederick did. His dry and desiccated jaw swung open like a snake’s, unhinged and spread wide, and he swallowed little George, ate him up in three convulsive swallows, the new baby making Frederick’s belly swell like a balloon. Alan swallowed panic, seized Frederick by the heels, and shook him upside down. “Spit him out,” Alan cried, “Spat him free!”

But Frederick kept his lips stubbornly together, and Alan tired of the terrible business and set the boy with the newest brother within down on a pile of hay he’d brought in to soak up some of Edward’s continuous excretions. Alan put his hands over his face and sobbed, because he’d failed his responsibilities as eldest of their family and there was no one he could tell his woes to.

The sound of baby giggles stopped his crying. Edward had belly-crawled to Frederick’s side and he was eating him, jaw unhinged and gorge working. He was up to Frederick’s little bottom, dehydrated to a leathery baby-jerky, and then he was past, swallowing the arms and the chin and the head, the giggling, smiling head, the laughing head that had done nothing but whine and fuss since Alan had cleared it of its volume of detergenty water, fresh from their mother’s belly.

And then Frederick was gone. Horrified, Alan rushed over and picked up Edward—now as heavy as a cannonball—and pried his mouth open, staring down his gullet, staring down into another mouth, Frederick’s mouth, which gaped open, revealing a third mouth, George’s. The smallest mouth twisted and opened, then shut. Edward squirmed furiously and Alan nearly fumbled him. He set the baby down in the straw and watched him crawl across to their mother, where he sucked hungrily. Automatically, Alan gathered up an armload of rags and made ready to wipe up the stream that Edward would soon be ejecting.

But no stream came. The baby fed and fed, and let out a deep burp in three-part harmony, spat up a little, and drank some more. Somehow, Frederick and George were in there feeding, too. Alan waited patiently for Edward to finish feeding, then put him over his shoulder and joggled him until he burped up, then bedded him down in his little rough-hewn crib—the crib that the golems had carved for Alan when he was born—cleaned the cave, and cried again, leaned up against their mother.

Frederick huddled in on 

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