Page 144 of When the Sky Breaks

Sorcha

Iwasn’t sure how long I’d been asleep, only that—blessedly—I wasn’t nauseated when I finally awoke. It was dusk and Neal sat beside the bed with dark circles that hinted he’d been up for days on end.

“What happened?” I murmured, pushing myself to sit upright.

Something in my body felt off. Different.

I remembered vomiting blood. I remembered Ansel shooting himself in the foot and then Irene giving me some kind of draught. And then my water had broken.

That was what felt different. I’d given birth. I’d held my perfect, beautiful baby for a few precious, fleeting moments. Then fainted in Neal’s arms.

I glanced around the room, no cradle, no swaddled bundle of blankets tucked into someone’s arms. My stomach sank. So then where was . . .

“Sorcha, you’re up.” Neal’s voice jarred me out of the reverie. “Love, you’re awake. Oh thank God. Thank God.”

“Neal, where’s the baby?” I asked. “How long has it been? Did you name her without me?”

He paused, his eyes flickering away for a fraction of a second.

“Neal?” I asked, already dreading that I knew the answer. “What happened?”

“She was so beautiful, Sorcha,” Neal said, voice breaking. “Perfect. Truly perfect.”

“Neal, where is she?”

“We baptized her Lucy Rose.” Neal swallowed hard, cleared his throat. “I thought you’d like that. She looked like a Lucy.”

“Was? Looked?”

“Sorcha, she died four days ago,” Neal said.

And suddenly I felt myself moving. I didn’t know where I was going, what I was doing. But I couldn’t lie idle while my firstborn infant rotted in the ground. So I got up—stumbled out of bed on blood-streaked legs that tried to buckle like a newborn fawn’s. Neal moved to take my arm, to help me, but I shrugged him off. Somewhere in the back of my mind I heard him telling me to lay back down, pleading. It sounded like he was speaking through thick glass.

I paid it no heed.

Out.

I needed out.

Of this room. This house. This nightmare I’d woken up in.

Seventy

Sorcha

. . .

Seventy-One

Neal

Icould not fathom how Sorcha had disappeared so quickly when she could hardly walk from loss of blood. She’d left footprints of it on our front path when she ran.

But for two days we searched. And for two days we couldn’t find her.

Any time I thought maybe we were getting close? Something got in the way. A herd of sheep, flock of pigeons, a seal with pups, an overexuberant livestock guard dog. It was deliberate and directed, which meant she was alive. But she didn’t want to be found.

It was after midnight now on day two. Pouring rain with ripping winds pounding the western coast of the island. I had argued with Ansel and Da and Cavan—at length—that I should still be out looking. But eventually they won, convinced me to stay and let a handful of our guards go after her instead, at least until the storm cleared. Da tried to convince me to sleep. I refused.