For years 16-year old Gaia Stone knew she would be a midwife. Gaia learned all of her skills from her mother, the only midwife in Western Sector Three of Wharfton. Everyone serves the Enclave, and midwives are required to advance the first three babies born each month. Advancing means that the babies are taken from their birth families immediately after they're born and taken to live inside the Enclave, a life of privilege and security.
"You can't," she whispered. "You can't take my baby. She's mine."
"I have to," Gaia said, backing away. I'm sorry.
"But you can't," the woman gasped.
"You'll have others. You'll get to keep some. I promise."
"Your baby will be well cared for," she said, using the phrases she'd learned. "You've provided a great service to the Enclave, and you will be compensated."
Suddenly Gaia's parents are taken to the Enclave for questioning, and Gaia is ordered to take up her mother's duties as midwife and serve the Enclave in Western Sector Three.
Gaia has never questioned the Enclave, never worried about the monthly quota of babies.
No deformed babies were ever advanced, for any reason. For Gaia, one accident had guaranteed a life of poverty outside the wall, with no education, no chance for good food or leisure or easy friendships, while the girls her age who's been advanced were now in the Enclave, with boundless electricity, food and education...She would make sure that the babies in her care had the opportunities she'd never had, those lucky three every month.
Gaia learns that her parents are in the Enclave prison, accused of being traitors. Gaia is determined to do whatever she needs to do to help her parents escape from the Enclave.
Birthmarked is filled with twists and turns, a code that needs to be cracked, promises that need to be kept, and romance.
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Rating: 7 out of 10 stars
* mild language, sexual inferences
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