Anabaa, midwife to Queen Latezia delivers the chloroformed royal of a prince. Joy is cut short among the midwife and her attendants, Qiaona, Constance and Lizbett when a stillborn twin expels from the queen's womb. As Anabaa flees through secret passageways in panic with the tiny purplish-black corpse hidden in her apron events unfold and the infant miraculously revives. The surprised midwife swells with relief but before she can make her way back into the birthing chamber of heirs and replace the king's infant with its twin and their slumbering queen-mother she realizes with overwhelming horror King Breretyn has returned to the chamber and taken up his firstborn son and heir from his queen's arms. In this summer solstice hour the king holds forth the newborn prince above the balcony hand railing to the roaring cheers of his subjects. As the kingdom is launched into celebration Anabaa succumbs to darkness in the knowledge she harbors its royal twin outside the palace walls. The Canadian-born author was raised without television and educated back and forth across the provinces between Vancouver and Toronto in tiny one-room schoolhouses and the largest city campuses by an educator-mother possessed with a wanderlust spirit. Jeanette Skirvin, BSc. RDH (Loma Linda University School of Dentistry) resides by the seaside in California.