Chapter 86 What’s wrong with the baby?
The darkness does not stay.
It fractures again, splintering into light and shadow, and I am dragged back into awareness in pieces, like a soul stitched together poorly.
Flashes.
That is all I get at first.
A woman's face was red and swollen from crying.
Hands clasped together, knuckles white.
The smell of iron and burned herbs.
Then sound returns, muted and warped, as if I am listening through layers of water.
I heard sobbing, not a quiet sobbing. It was weeping.
I try to move, but I have no body. Or maybe I do, and it simply no longer listens to me.
Confused, I turn my head, and the room comes into focus in jerks. Scarlet curtains hang heavy around the space, their colour too vivid, too alive for the stillness that fills the air. Candle flames flicker unevenly.
The midwives stand scattered around the room.
They are crying.
One presses a hand to her mouth, shoulders shaking. Another has sunk onto a stool, her face buried in her palms. One stares at the floor like she cannot bear to look at the bed.
At me.
A cold dread curls in my chest.
Why are they crying?
I try to speak.
Nothing comes out.
Panic surges, sharp and sudden.
I search the room wildly, desperate for something, anything, that makes sense.
That's when I see him.
Theron stands near the far wall, half-shadowed by the scarlet drapes. He is tall, motionless. His dark coat hangs open, wolf fur brushing his shoulders.
He does not move.
He does not speak.
His face is unreadable yet full.
Grief sits on him heavily, but dense, compressed. His jaw is tight. His eyes are dark and distant, fixed somewhere far beyond the room.
For a moment, an awful, suspended moment, I think he cannot see me.
"Theron," I try to say.
My mouth opens.
No sound.
Fear grips me.
He finally moves, slowly and carefully. He heard me, I thought, and he was coming to me.
But he wasn't.
He walked toward the cot.
My heart leaps.
The baby.
My baby!
Relief surges so fiercely I almost cry, until I notice something wrong.
My baby was too quiet. He wasn't crying. Nor was he wriggling.
The small bundle in the cot lies still.
Too still.
A terrible understanding begins to creep into me, cold and deliberate.
"No," I whisper, though I still cannot hear myself. "No, no, no! Please!"
Theron reaches the cot and pauses.
For a heartbeat, he simply stands there, looking down. His gaze was terrifically unreadable.
Then he bends.
He lifts my baby into his arms.
My son.
He is wrapped in soft cloth, his small head resting against Theron's chest. His face is peaceful. Too peaceful. His tiny fists are unclenched, resting limply at his sides.
He does not cry.
He does not stir.
The world tilts violently.
"Why isn't he moving?" I plead. "Please! Please! he was crying! he was alive!"
Theron cradles him with a care so tender it hurts to watch. One arm supports the baby's back, the other cups his head protectively. His fingers tremble as they brush the child's cheek.
He strokes him gently.
Once.
Twice.
As if coaxing him back.
As if whispering words I cannot hear.
My chest tightens painfully.
I try to run to them.
I cannot move.
"Theron," I scream silently. "Talk to me. Tell me what's happening."
He presses his forehead to the baby's head.
His lips move.
I cannot hear the words, but I know they are prayers he does not believe in.
The midwives avert their eyes.
One of them whispers something to another, her voice breaking completely.
"It's no one's fault," she says shakily.
That sentence tells me everything.
"No," I choke.
I surge forward again, desperate.
"He's still here," I insist. "Look… he's still here!" But no one heard me."
Theron straightens slowly and turns toward the door.
"No," I whisper, my voice breaking though I cannot hear it. "Don't take him away."
He begins to walk.
Panic explodes inside me.
I tried to chase after him, but I couldn't
"Theron!" I call again and again. “Please…don’t…don’t leave…give him back…I need him…"
"Theron!"
"Theron!!"
"Noooo!"
Nothing.
Not even an echo.
The room does not react to me.
It is as if I am not there at all.
Theron reaches the doorway.
He pauses once.
Just once.
His grip tightens slightly around the baby, his thumb brushing over the small, still chest over the moon.
For a terrifying second, I think he might turn back.
Look at me.
See me.
Then his jaw clenches.
And he walks out.
The door closes behind him with a soundless finality.
Something inside me collapses.
I fell, but there is no ground.
The scarlet curtains blur, bleeding into darkness. The midwives' sobs fade into distant murmurs, then into nothing at all.
I reach out instinctively, clawing at the empty space where my child should be.
"I didn't even get to say goodbye," I whisper into the void.
The darkness answers by swallowing everything.
Black.
Complete.
Unforgiving.
And I am left alone with the echo of a cry that never comes.