Silence: Part Two of Echoes & Silence (57 page)

“Why didn’t I wake though?” I looked at the basket. “Did she cry? Wake for a feed? I feel so lost, like I’m missing a piece of my day.”

“You are.” He laughed, leading me to the bed. He sat me down and lifted the basket up beside me so I could see my sleeping baby. Her little mouth was turned down, her bottom lip sitting slightly out, her thin eyelids shifting and moving with sleep. “She had a feed at two and five, and you didn’t wake because I made sure you didn’t.”

I looked up at him, my mouth popping open. “You kept me under!”

“I had to, my love—Falcon advised me to.”

“Why?”

“After what you went through, if you were up and down with a baby all night, or lying awake worrying about her waking up, your mind wouldn’t have coped, and you’d be a mess today.” He touched my shoulder. “It’s okay. You’re okay, the baby’s okay. Just take a moment to wake up and shake off the panic, you’ll see.”

“Okay,” I breathed, nodding. “I’m okay.”

“Good.” He sat down on the other side of the basket. “Because I was thinking…”

“Uh-oh.”

“No, I think you’ll like this thought.”

“Go on then.”

“She can’t live in a laundry basket. Let’s go into town today—buy a cradle and some pink blankets.”

“Um, yes, that would be good,” I said, my tone layered with a thick glob of sarcasm, “if it weren’t for the evil witch lingering somewhere out there—waiting for us to do
just
that.”

“I’m not worried.” He shrugged. “Her power is no match for ours, Ara—not the two of us combined.”

“Hm, well, let me just ask Drake about that before we assume.”

“Ask him. And he’ll tell you we’re perfectly safe.”

“We’re safe
here
.” I motioned around our bed, meaning the island. “Because Safia’s soul is black. She can’t enter Lilith’s Realm. But—”

“I already talked with Drake about it,” he said, wearing that slightly arrogant, know-it-all smile. “He’s coming with us—just to be sure.”

My mouth was still wide and round, ready to make my point, so I snapped it shut with a little pop, and folded my lips forward in thought. “Well, okay then. I’m happy with that.”

“I knew you would be.”

“And what about Morgana?” I asked, placing the cane basket safely back down on the floor, where it couldn’t fall. “Has anyone tried to resurrect her yet?”

“Bad news on that front right now, I’m afraid.” He squatted beside me where I knelt on the floor, his forearm resting over his thigh. “We’ve put the… head,” he said delicately, “back on, and covered her in vampire blood, but…”

“It might take time,” I said absently, tucking the blue blanket around the baby’s chest. “It might—”

“It might not work.” He flipped my chin so I was forced to look at him. “Prepare yourself for that, Ara. Morg was of witch blood as well as vampire—her makeup is an entirely different matter. Witches are not typically born as immortals. She was a freak of nature to begin with.”

I jerked my face away from his touch.

“I’m sorry.” He stood up. “But you may just need to accept that she’d dead.”

My nose stung with grief and my eyes filled up with hot liquid. I stayed kneeling on the ground by the basket until David went into the bathroom, then let the tears drip steadily from within my lashes and down my cheeks. And it felt good to cry—so good that I scooped the baby up and sat on the floor, my back to the bed, and sobbed into her blankets for a while. I wasn’t really sure why I was crying. Maybe because of Morg, maybe not. Maybe because of everything that happened, maybe not. But then, if I really thought about it, I didn’t feel all that taken apart by it. I felt confident in my abilities as a mother, and as a queen. I felt good about the fact that I’d had the strength to give birth on my own, and that same fact also made me feel powerful. So what, then, was wrong with me?

I hit my eye socket with the heel of my palm, telling myself to stop, holding my breath then as a thin strip of light moved across the sitting room toward the fireplace, the bathroom door opening again, a flushing sound concealing my sobs a little. But as much as I tried to stop them, to regain some dignity, I just couldn’t. A huge one beat down my lungs and came back out again all jagged and pathetic.

David stopped dead, dropping a sweater to the floor by his bare feet, and I turned my face away from him as a look of horror crossed his.

“Oh God, Ara.” He landed beside me, knocking me sideways a bit as his arm came down around me. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for that to sound so harsh.” He kissed my head firmly. “She’ll be okay—Morg. We’ll—”

“That’s not why I’m crying,” I said, spit and tears spraying from my lips.

He seemed to sink back a little, coming forth again into the embrace with a little more courage. “Then what’s wrong? Did I do something to—”

“No,” I sobbed, burying my face in the now-awake baby.

“My love, please,” he begged, brushing my hair back. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” I wailed, thinking better of it then crying, “And everything is!”

His body jolted then in a breathy laugh, and he wrapped me up a bit tighter, sinking down into a more comfortable position. “Just cry then, my love. It’ll help.”

I leaned back and buried my face in his shoulder, saturating his black t-shirt as all the agony and fear and loneliness and heartache poured out of me. I could feel the previous day and all its events slipping away somehow, falling behind me into the blackness of moving on. And in that moment, even the fact that my immortality meant that my milk would never come in and I would never feed my baby didn’t seem like such a cruel ending to a long and soul-bending journey. The baby would be okay. She would drink from a bottle and there were positives to that—like more sleep for me and a chance for David to bond with her. And I would be okay, too. I could believe that a little more now, as everything I tried to hold onto—to leave inside and grow strong from—freed itself from my shattered little heart.

“Ara,” David whispered, his deep voice coming across softly in the dimness of early morning.

“Mm?”

“I love you, do you know that?”

I nodded. “Mm-hm.”

“And we’re gonna be okay, I promise.”

I wiped my cheek along his shirt sleeve and lifted my elbow onto his thigh, bringing the baby up to lay more between us. I wanted to thank David for being here to hold me while I sobbed, but I knew, even though I always would, I didn’t
have
to feel eternally grateful. We were married, and there was no other place in the world he would rather be than catching my tears when the world fell apart for me. It would always be something I could count on, which made the tears to come—all those nights ahead of me when the world would get too much, when the memory of everything would surface and overwhelm me—not so long and heavy. He’d be there, his arms around me, keeping the world out while I let my guard down for a while. And I loved him for that—maybe even more than I did for being the father of my child.

***

We may not have been all that clued-in when we were shopping for paint, but when it came to baby products, I’d had months in front of a computer with too much time to plan and dream.

In truth, I had the nursery planned out in my head the second I found out I was pregnant. So as I breezed around the baby store, tossing things in the cart without even checking the price, David just followed with the baby in his arms.

“I want one of those baby seats that strap into the stroller—straight from the car,” I mused.

“For all the trips out to the grocery store?” he asked with a little laugh, winking at me.

I stopped walking. “Oh my God, you’re right.” Motherhood had always been a given thing in the back of my mind. Even as a little girl I’d thought about and imagined juggling groceries with a hungry baby, or trying to cook during the ‘unsettled’ period of the day. But never, in my wildest fantasies, had I imagined I would live in a giant manor, with maids and a chef, and no real need to go shopping, or to cook. Or to clean. To do anything, really.

I looked back at my shopping cart, my shoulders dropping.

“Aw, sweetheart, I was joking.” David put his hand on my shoulder and leaned in to kiss my head. “You can have anything you want. I said that when we got here and I meant it.”

“But you’re right, David.” I picked up a toy mirror that would strap onto the baby’s rear-facing seat so the driver could still see her. “I don’t really need any of this stuff. Not even a stroller.”

“Ara, the manor is huge. You need a stroller. And if you want that stroller with the carseat thingy, then get it.” He settled back on his heels a bit and looked down at me, his mouth resting in a playful pout. “But it’s not about the stroller, is it?”

I shook my head.

“Aw, sweetheart, come here.” He wrapped his arm around my neck and pulled me in for a hug. “I know this isn’t the life you planned—this isn’t even the life you
want
. But it’s our life. And we’re happy, or at least we’re going to be. You’ll see. Raising a family will be different for us, but I promise you, I am going to make sure that you love every minute of it.”

I nodded, my brow brushing against his stubbly chin. “I’m okay. I just needed a moment to let go of all the plans I made when I was young, you know—to realise that life isn’t ever how you think it will be.”

“And for us, even the simplest of things will be different.”

“Yes,” I said, tucking my finger into the baby’s curled fist. “No swing sets and play dates for this little one.”

“She’ll still have all of that, Ara. I promise.”

“How? Who can we invite over? And where will she even go to school? And—”

“Okay,” he cut in, moving a step back so he could face me. He readjusted the baby in his arms and took a deep breath. “Ignorant as I’d prefer to be, it’s just become clear to me that this isn’t going to work.”

“What’s not?”

“You were right—when you once said that we couldn’t raise our daughter as a…” he lowered his head, and his voice, and said, “Princess—among vampires. I’m beginning to see that.”

“But. Then. So… what do we do?” I asked, rolling my hands out in a questioning gesture.

His lips arched with thought and then his brows pushed up. “We accept Vicki’s offer—move in with Gran.”

“What!” A few people turned and looked at us, going back to their own business when I glared at them. “You can’t be serious?”

“I am.” His grin stayed on his face the whole time. “I think we should raise her there—in your old house. Around family.”

“And what about Safia?”

“We’ll stay at the manor until both Safia and Walter are dead, and Jason is found, and then we’ll move. And then you can use your carseat-stroller-thing every day if you like.”

“And what will you do?” I asked, inching closer to press my shoulder lovingly against his. “If we’re not King and Queen, we’ll need real jobs.”

He laughed loudly, tossing his head back a little, and the baby jumped, settling quickly again as he patted her. “We’ll still be King and Queen, my love. We’ll just run things from the outside world.”

“You mean the
real
world.” I started walking. “And in the real world, if a mom at school asks what my husband does, I don’t want to say he runs a monarchy from home.”

That comment was rewarded with another of his very human laughs. “Then I suppose you’ll just have to tell them I’m a bloodsucker.”

“So you’re going back to law then?” I asked, smiling when the laugh I was waiting for filled the aisle again.

“I suppose I could,” he said thoughtfully. “We don’t need money, and without the restrictions of the Set Council, I can pursue any career I desire.”

“That must be liberating.”

“It is, and…” He walked a step quicker and took my hand, balancing the baby carefully in the crook of his forearm. “I just realised that, for the first time since you and I met, we’re actually free to live together, no more restrictions and rules. Just… completely free.”

I squeezed his hand, grinning up at him like some lovesick puppy. “I love the way you just so neatly put things into perspective for me. You know, we’ve just been through so much hell lately—the breakup and everything before it, leaving Loslilian, winning it back, having the baby.” I nodded at her. “I hadn’t even stopped to think about all the things we’ve gained while we’ve been so busy thinking about what we’d lost.”

“And we’ve gained a lot.” He leaned over and kissed my head, then the baby’s. “Nothing else in the world matters but what I’ve got right here within my reach.”

I snuggled into him for a second. “And the carseat-stroller.”

“And the carseat-stroller,” he corrected, laughing.

“Oooooh, will you look at that!” A fluffy hen with a very frizzy perm rushed over to us, waving her hands about as if to rid the world of all its flies. “Ooh, a little baby. Look at that angel. Will you just look!”

David looked scared, but I’d been waiting for just this sort of moment all my life.

“Oh, he’s so tiny,” she clucked. “How old is he?”