Nora Roberts - The Hollow

“I’m just not going there. I’m getting glimpses of you,” she said to Cal with a quick laugh. “A little guy, when you still needed your glasses. Fairly adorable. I can get zips of the three of you running around, and a younger boy, a girl. A toddler-another girl. She’s so cute.”

“You have to go deeper.” Cal squeezed her hand. “I’m right with you.”

“That might be the problem. I think I may be picking up on things you remember, your pictures.” She squeezed his hand in turn, then drew hers free. “I think I have to try it alone. Give me a little space. Okay, everybody? A little room.”

She turned, reached the corner of the house, then followed its line. It was so sturdy, she thought, and as Cybil had said, so handsome. The stone, the wood, the glass. There were flower beds sleeping, and in others sweet and hopeful shoots that must have been daffodils and tulips, hyacinths, and the summer lilies that would follow the spring.

Strong old trees offered shade, so she imagined-or maybe she saw-the flowers that shied from sunlight blooming there.

She smelled smoke, she realized. There must be wood fireplaces inside. Of course there would be. What wonderful old farmhouse didn’t have fireplaces? Somewhere to curl up on a cold evening. Flames sending dancing shadow and light, and the warmth so welcome.

She sat in a room lit by firelight and the glow of a single tallow candle. She did not weep though her heart was flooded with tears. With quill and ink, Ann wrote in her careful hand in the pages of her journal.

Our sons are eight months old. They are beautiful, and they are healthy. I see you in them, beloved. I see you in their eyes and it both comforts and grieves me. I am well. The kindness of my cousin and her husband are beyond measure. Surely we are a burden on them, but we are never treated as such. In the weeks before, and some weeks after the birth of our sons there was little I could do to help my cousin. Yet she never complained. Even now with the boys to look after, I cannot do as much as I wish to repay her and cousin Fletcher.

Mending I do. Honor and I made soap and candles, enough for Fletcher to barter.

This is not what I wish to write, but I find it so hard to subscribe these words to this paper. My cousin has told me that young Hester Deale was drowned in the pool of Hawkins Wood, and leaves her infant daughter orphaned. She condemned you that night, as you had foreseen. She condemned me. We know it was not by her will she did so, as it was not by her will the motherless child was conceived.

The beast is in the child, Giles. You told me again and again that what you would do would change the order,clean the blood. This sacrifice you made, and I and our children with you was necessary. On nights like this, when I am so alone, when I find my heart full of sorrow for a girl I knew who is lost, I fear what was done, what will be done so long from this night will not be enough. I mourn that you gave yourself for nothing, and our children will never see their father’s face, or feel his kiss.

I will pray for the strength and the courage you believedlived inside me. I will pray to find them again when the sun rises. Tonight, with the darkness so close, I can only be a woman who longs for her love.

She closed the book as one of the babies began to cry, and his brothers woke to join him. Rising, she went to the pallet beside her own to soothe, to sing, to offer her breast.

You are my hope, she whispered, offering one a sugar teat for comfort while his brothers suckled.

WHEN QUINN’S EYES ROLLED BACK, CAL LIFTED her off her feet. “We need to get her inside.” His long, fast strides carried her to the steps leading to the side porch. Fox rushed ahead, getting the door, then going straight into the family’s music room.

“I’ll get some water.”

“She’ll need more.” Cybil hurried after him. “Which way’s the kitchen?”

He pointed, turned in the opposite direction.

Because Quinn was shivering, Layla whipped a throw from the back of a small couch as Cal laid Quinn down.

“My head,” Quinn managed. “God, my head. It’s off the Richter scale. I may be sick. I need to…” She swung her legs over, dropped her head between her knees. “Okay.” She breathed in, breathed out as Cal massaged her shoulders. “Okay.”

“Here, try some water. Fox got you some water.” Layla took the glass he’d brought back, knelt to urge it on Quinn.

“Take it easy,” Cal advised. “Don’t sit up until you’re ready. Slow breaths.”

“Believe me.” She eyed the brass bucket Gage set next to her, then shifted her gaze to the kindling now scattered over the hearth. “Good thinking, but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to need that.”

She eased up until she could rest her throbbing head on Cal’s shoulder. “Intense.”

“I know.” He pressed his lips lightly to the side of her head.

“Did I say anything? It was Ann. She was writing in her journal.”

“You said plenty,” Cal told her.

“Why didn’t I think to turn on my recorder?”

“Got that.” Gage held up her minirecorder. “I pulled it out of your purse when the show started.”

She took a slow sip of water, glanced at Fox out of eyes still blurry in a pale, pale face. “Your parents wouldn’t happen to have any morphine around here?”

“Sorry.”

“It’ll pass.” Cal kissed her again, rubbed gently at the back of her neck. “Promise.”

“How long was I gone?”

“Nearly twenty minutes.” Cal glanced over when Cybil came back in carrying a tall pottery mug.

“Here.” Cybil stroked Quinn’s cheek. “This’ll help.”

“What is it?”

“Tea. That’s all you have to know. Come on, be a good girl.” She held the mug to Quinn’s lips. “Your mother has an amazing collection of homemade teas, Fox.”

“Maybe, but this tastes like-” Quinn broke off when Joanne walked in. “Ms. Barry.”

“That blend tastes pretty crappy, but it’ll help. Let me have her, Cal.” Brushing Cal aside, Joanne took his place, then pressed and rubbed at two points at the base of Quinn’s neck. “Try not to tense. That’s better. Breathe through it. Breathe the oxygen in, exhale the tension and discomfort. That’s good. Are you pregnant?”

“What? No. Um, no.”

“There’s a point here.” She took Quinn’s left hand, pressed on the webbing between her thumb and forefinger. “It’s effective, but traditionally forbidden for pregnant women.”

“The Adjoining Valley,” Cybil said.

“You know acupressure?”

“She knows everything,” Quinn claimed, and took her first easy breath. “It’s better. It’s a lot better. Down from blinding to annoying. Thank you.”

“You should rest awhile. Cal can take you upstairs if you want.”

“Thanks, but-”

“Cal, you ought to take her home.” Layla stepped forward to pat a hand on Cal’s arm. “I can ride into the office with Fox. Cybil, you can get Gage back to Cal’s, right?”

“I could do that.”

“We haven’t finished,” Quinn objected. “We need to move on to part two and find out where she put the journal.”

“Not today.”

“She’s right, Blondie. You haven’t got another round in you.” To settle the matter, Cal picked her up off the couch.

“Well, hard to argue. I guess I’m going. Thanks, Ms. Barry.”

“Jo.”

“Thanks, Jo, for letting us screw up your morning.”

“Anytime. Fox, give Cal a hand with the door. Gage, why don’t you take Cybil back, let Brian know everything’s all right? Layla.” Jo put a hand on Layla’s arm, holding her in place while the others left the room. “That was smoothly done.”