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Thursday, 2 August 1798

The Following Morning

Morning arrives, but I didn’t sleep at all.

My body is wrecked, heavy-lidded and tight-muscled, begging for rest, yet my mind refuses to loosen its grip on anything. Exhaustion settles into my bones without ever tipping me into sleep.

I lay awake listening for things that weren’t there. I got up more times than I can count, checked the corridors, the doors, the windows. Stood staring out into the dark as if I could will whatever came for us last night to show itself again, even as I kept myself braced for it to crash through the door to finish what it started.

And I kept thinking of Ellen.

Her not being here last night should have been a comfort. Instead, her absence—being beyond these walls, beyond what I could see or guard—was utter torment. Not under my care. Not where I could reach her.

More than once, I nearly got dressed to go fetch her myself. Each time I forced the thought down with reason and habit and everything my da taught me about not giving in to irrational fear.

If Ellen had been in danger, real danger, my mother and father would have known. They would have acted and sent me for her without hesitation.

I’m not naïve enough to think my mother hasn’t noticed the way I look at Ellen.

I had to convince myself of this, cling to it like a lifeline, because it was the only thing that kept me tethered to the confines of this castle.

It’s madness. I know it’s madness.

But last night made a liar out of everything sensible I’ve ever believed, and once the unbelievable becomes possible, there’s no clean edge to the fear. Anything can reach anywhere. Anything can come for anyone. Anything can be taken from you.

The sun is up now, bright enough to make the world look ordinary, but nothing chases away the shadows that linger. They sit in the corners of the hall, in the back of my mind, in the quiet places where certainty used to live.

Somewhere below, someone is moving about the kitchen with the calm efficiency of morning. I catch the faint clink of crockery, the muted scrapes of chairs skittering across stone, the familiar scent of tea brewing. Comforts that feel almost insulting after a night like the one we survived.

I make my way down the stairs, each step heavier than the last, and push open the door to the breakfast room.

The table is set as it is most mornings, as though last night didn’t happen at all. Bread. Butter. Oatcakes stacked neatly.

What stops me more than anything is the presence at the head of the table.

Mannie is sitting in my father’s spot.

He’s sitting comfortably too, as though he has always done so, one ankle crossed over the other, fingers folded loosely around a cup. He appears well-rested. Bright-eyed, in the way of someone who hasn’t spent the night replaying an unbelievable turn of events.

He looks at me with amused eyes. It unsettles me more than his knock did and causes my skin to prickle.

“Well,” he says lightly, “you look positively bushy-tailed.”

I don’t respond. Somehow that—that casualness—is what nearly snaps my restraint.

Then my attention catches on Ellen.

She stands near the hearth, watching the kettle, her posture easy, her presence like an all-encompassing balm. As if sensing me, she glances over and smiles. Not her usual polite, practiced smile, but one touched with real warmth.

So warm and genuine that it catches in my ribs. So contagious that I mimic the gesture.

Since Aileen’s visit, she seems less guarded with me.

One look at her, and at least one aching fear scratches itself off my list.

Róisín rushes in from the kitchen, arms full of plates and a folded length of linen

“Ellen,” she says, “will you fetch the batch of fresh bread from the kitchen?”