Page 142 of When the Sky Breaks

A long moment passed in silence.

“And, Da?” I finally looked up.

“What is it, boy?” he asked gently.

“How the hell am I supposed to tell Sorcha?”

“Did she make it to the church?” Ansel asked when we returned.

I nodded, unable to bring myself to speak.

“She passed on the way home,” Da supplied for me. “Is Sorcha alright?”

“I gave her a bath and put her to bed,” Ansel replied. “She didn’t stir. Still cold. Still bleeding. But she’s with us. Barely.”

“Word from Kadish?” Da asked.

Ansel shook his head. “It could be days still.”

And then Da held out his arms. “Go sit with your wife. I’ll take Lucy and have Cavan draw up plans for a funeral.”

I froze, my daughter’s already-cold body still tight against my chest.

“What if she doesn’t wake up before we have to bury the baby?” I fought to get the words out.

“I’ll take a footprint,” Da said. “I’ll have it cast for Sorcha to keep. Now go be with her. If you and baby are both gone when she wakes there’ll be no coming back from it. Alright, boy?”

“We wait as long as we can,” I instructed. “Keep her body in the cold. Give Sorcha a chance to wake up.”

“We’ve got forty-eight hours at best,” Ansel replied, “but we’ll tell the priest not until morning after next. Now go. Bathe. Eat. Then see if you can get Sorcha properly warm. She’s too cold and too still.”

I swallowed hard. Too cold. Too still. Like the tiny bundle in my arms.

I spent the next two days sitting at Sorcha’s bedside, too restless to climb in next to her, too anxious to move away. I found myself fidgeting constantly. Brushing hair back from her face, trying to rub warmth back into her hands, pacing back and forth to the window where I could see the tiny coffin set out on the cobbled patio, ground still stained with Ansel’s and Sorcha’s blood.

Da brought me food and made me eat. Ansel pulled off my shoes and coat and shoved me into bed beside Sorcha each night, though I didn’t even close my eyes. I just lay a hand on Sorcha’s chest, stared at the rise and fall of her breathing, and silently begged her to wake before the funeral.

She didn’t.

Morning came. And then it came again. And suddenly Da was tugging my arms into my coat and promising that Cavan would sit with Sorcha while we went to the church.

“Sorcha, please wake up,” I begged before we left. “Please don’t make me lose both of you. Please don’t make me tell you she died once she’s already in the ground. Sorcha, please. We fought so hard for her. Please, love. You deserve to see her one more time.”

There was a knock on the door.

“Priest’s waiting,” Ansel said.

Kadish arrived in the afternoon, two days after Lucy’s funeral.

Sorcha still hadn’t roused.

And I hadn’t left our bedroom except under threat from Da.

I stood leaned against the doorframe as Cavan let Kadish in and the healer deposited his bags on our dining room table—like he had so many times before in far more bearable circumstances.

“You said there was an emergency?” Kadish asked blithely when he arrived at the cottage. “So where’s my glowing mother-to-be? I’ll fix it. Don’t fret.”

“Not the time, Kadish,” Ansel muttered from his place behind Sorcha’s desk. He’d spent every waking moment sending telegrams to the Outer Court libraries in Edinburgh and the Inner Court in Russia.