The ghost gave me a long, silently implacable look. “Right or wrong,” she said at last, her voice quiet, “in your heart of hearts, you know which are true and which are not. So does he.”
She meant Thom and the thought made me shiver. There were things he kept silent about, things he didn’t tell me. I knew it and I think he knew that I knew it, too.
“We all have our secrets,” I whispered.
“I know,” she said. “She did, too. Everyone did, perhaps she and her brother most of all.” Her eyes narrowed for a moment. “You should talk to your brother someday about these things.”
I exhaled through my teeth and turned away. “That’s for another day. Right now, I know where I’m needed.”
“All will be well,” she said softly, fading from view. “Trust your visions of the children. All will be well.”
I shuddered again. You’d better be right. I ducked into the dim of the tent and jogged toward the secondary fire, dodging crates of supplies and other detritus on my way. There was surprisingly less chaos going on than I thought there might be, but in hindsight, I guess most people decided it would be a good idea to be elsewhere after Tala’s water broke.
Truth be told, there was a little part of me that wished I was elsewhere, too.
She’ll want you there—she’ll need you there.
That thought was the only thing that kept me moving forward even as I cursed myself for being such a damned loyal coward.
Dammit, Marin. Suck it up and do what you’ve got to do. There’s no way around it now.
I steeled myself and moved faster, heading toward the glow of the fire and the sound of Tala’s voice cursing god and everything else in a tone only a little louder than her normal voice.
Fantastic, I thought with a grimace. This is going to be a long afternoon.
Here comes the twins…
Thanks for the new post. The tale is quite captivating.