by A. W. Exley
“There is another. Come on little one, turn over for me,” Gwen muttered as she pushed on Cara’s stomach.
Chills raced over Cara’s body and she began to shiver, even as sweat coated her skin. The wave didn’t end. Instead, pain built upon pain inside her until she struggled to breathe.
Something was wrong.
“What’s happening?” Nate demanded from behind her.
“This babe is facing the wrong way. If I can’t turn her—” The midwife’s voice trailed off.
Cara already knew what would happen if the child inside her became stuck. One of them would be sacrificed for the other. A life for a life. Their son was born, and now she was being asked to give up her life to save another. It wasn’t fair. She never asked for two.
She moaned as the pain raged inside her. Dimly she was aware of Amy handing the baby to Faith. Her friend paced at her side while Gwen manipulated Cara’s middle.
“Is it working?” Nate asked.
Worried eyes looked up. “Not yet.”
Cara bit her lip as Gwen’s fingers dug into her side. It hurt. A fire burned inside her, and every prod of Gwen’s fingers was a poker stoking the flames.
The midwife shook her head. “I might have to turn the mite internally.”
“See! That’s why she had to have little hands.” Cara tried to laugh but it came out as sobs.
The pain circled around her and pulled at her mind. She was so tired, why didn’t it leave her alone?
Amy glanced to Helene, quiet in her chair, and she wrung her hands. “She promised the house would save you both.”
“What if the house can only save one, not two?” Cara tried to meet Amy’s worried gaze but it hurt to even hold her eyes open. “You know what to do.”
Something had gone wrong. Even her connection to Nate seemed distant. The valve between them blocked, unable to channel her pain to him. Yet it continued to try to reach him, rushing down the conduit only to hit the obstacle. Bit by bit, it backed up until the pressure grew too much.
Then it blew back over Cara. She tried to breathe, but her lungs wouldn’t work. She drowned in an ocean of pain as a tidal wave swept her away.
She only managed a single gasp before the room went black.
Cara’s eyelids fluttered open. She blinked against the sudden dark. A lone lamp in one corner illuminated three women, bathed in golden light. One was a blonde woman Cara didn’t recognise. Another was Helene as she once was, made beautiful again with a smile full of mischief and laughter. The third woman was Isabella, with her dark hair rising from a widow’s peak and her high cheekbones.
Her mother smiled at her and opened her arms.
Cara screwed up her eyes and then opened them again.
“I don’t want to die,” Cara whispered to her mother. Her vision blurred with tears as her body and heart were torn in different directions. She wanted to reach for her mother and feel the maternal embrace just once. But a tiny voice warned that if she took her mother’s hand, she could never return to Nate.
“You’re not leaving me.” Nate said the words by her ear, and yet they were distant and muffled as though he yelled them under water. He gripped her tight as if by sheer will he could keep her in their realm.
Isabella walked closer to the bed with a hand outstretched. Cara reached out for her mother. So close. The tips of their fingers met, and the pain vanished from Cara’s body to be replaced by love. It would be so easy to grasp her mother’s hand and leave behind everything that caused her pain.
Isabella touched each of her fingertips to Cara’s. “I never wanted to leave you, Cara, and I am sorry for what Lucas became. It wasn’t him. Csenger twisted him into a monster.”
“I know that now.” Why was her mother talking about her father? There were other things she wanted to ask, and so much she needed to know. Perhaps she could spend some time with her mother and then come back with the answers she had pursued around the globe?
“If you come with me now, then this part of your journey will be over, but we will show you another.” Isabella pointed to the other two women, waiting for her to join them.
“Please, cara mia, don’t leave me.” Nate’s voice was rough with pain and love as it echoed from far away.
Cara mia. My beloved. She had someone here who loved her with all that he was. She couldn’t leave him alone with their son and Rachel. Their adventure as a family had only just begun.
“I’m sorry. I’m not ready.” Cara curled her fingers into her palm and broke the contact with her mother.
“I understand. Stay, my love, and we will wait for you,” Isabella said and dropped her arms to her sides.
Cara sobbed as her mind crashed back into her body. She drew a long breath, as though her lungs had been starved of air. The lights flared around the room and dazzled her.
“She’s breathing again,” Amy said from close by.
Why was Amy bending over her with the stethoscope? The glint of light on metal played over the instruments next to the bed. Amy had unrolled her surgical equipment.
“Can you push once more, love?” Gwen was asking.
Cara turned her head, wiping her face on Nate’s arm. She caught the fabric of his sleeve between her teeth and moaned as she tried, once more, to expel the child within her. Their connection was clear again, and with Nate entwined around her, they both pushed.
“Another boy!” Amy shrieked.
“You have two boys,” Gwen said.
“Two?” Nothing was making sense. How could there have been two? Someone must have miscounted.
“We have twin boys, you clever and gorgeous woman.” Nate kissed her forehead.
Amy and Faith each held a child. As Cara watched, Isabella and Helene stepped forward, kissed each child on the forehead, and then returned to the woman in the corner. As they all smiled, the light above them dimmed until they faded into the shadows.
24
Cara stared in wonder as Amy laid a child in her arms. A smattering of dark hair tinged with auburn covered his head. This child didn’t cry or fuss, he just stared at her with a solemn regard as though he had done this before. She was exhausted, covered in sweat and blood, and parts of her burned, but none of it mattered. Not when she held the new life in her arms.
“What will we call them?” Nate murmured from beside her. He held out a finger to the child Cara held, and a tiny hand curled around his digit.
They never even agreed on one name, let alone two. “I don’t think either will suit Isabella. This one has a serious expression that reminds me of my grandfather Gideon.”
At the end of the bed, Amy stared at Helene and narrowed her eyes. She walked towards the unmoving woman when Cara stopped her.
“There’s no need to disturb her, Amy. Helene has gone.” Only now did Cara understand Helene’s whispered words.
“Gone?” Amy frowned and took a step closer.
Cara swallowed down the lump in her throat and fresh tears moistened her eyes. Her heart was full and yet broken at the same time. “Helene left with my mother and another woman I didn’t recognise.”
“That was Hannah,” Faith said as she handed her bundle to Nate. “She’s the soul of the house and the first woman to die here.”
Amy reached out a hand to Helene and then dropped it to her side. “She died and we didn’t even notice. We were all too worried that we would lose you and the baby.”
A life for a life. Helene had plotted with Amy to ensure Cara delivered in the house. At the fall of dusk, when the veil between worlds thinned, she gave her own life to save Cara and the baby.
“Just like Helene to plot her end and use it to benefit another. I will miss her.” Nate closed his eyes for a moment and his shoulders heaved in a deep sigh. He dropped his attention to the baby in his arms, who fussed and grizzled.
Cara leaned her head on his shoulder. At least Helene was at peace now, and disease and madness could no longer reach her. “We will all miss her, but she isn’t really gone. A
part of her will always be here.”
Faith winked. “Just like she planned. Now I think the rest of your family wants to meet the new babies.”
Just as Faith flung the door open, Nan, Nessy, and Rachel burst through. The older women gasped on seeing two swaddled babes, and Rachel stood wide-eyed.
“How is everybody?” Nan demanded as she approached the bed.
Cara beamed. Now that she and the children had survived their ordeal, she felt quietly pleased with her efforts. But her joy was tempered with sorrow for the soul who left them. “I am fine, as are both boys thanks to Helene, who surrendered herself to save us.”
“Oh.” The smile dropped from Nan’s face, and three curious sets of eyes turned to the woman who appeared to be asleep by the window.
“A noble sacrifice,” Nessy said, and the room fell silent.
Helene appeared so peaceful, it was easier to think she had just closed her eyes to rest for a moment, worn out by events of the day. “Don’t disturb her. Nate will care for her shortly.”
“Let us give thanks for what she achieved. We should have guessed you were so large because you were cooking twins in there!” Nan clapped her hands together. The action startled the babe in Nate’s arms, and he let out a howl.
Nate held the screaming child at arm’s length, and from the look on his face you would have thought he held a bomb about to detonate. “What do I do now?”
“Give him to his great-grandmother.” Nan took the baby off Nate and cooed to him as she rocked him in her arms.
Rachel sat in the chair by the bed, and Nate took the baby from Cara and set him in Rachel’s lap, lifting her arm to cradle his head. Cara levered herself up in the bed, and the action revealed the necklace that had tumbled from her grasp. Nate picked it up and held it out to her.
“Where did you get that?” Nessy asked as Cara took the chain.
Cara rubbed a thumb over the pendant with its smiling mother looking down on the child in her arms. “Queen Victoria gave it to me. I think it’s an artifact. She said she kept it with her through the birth of each of her children.”
“May I?” Nessy held out a hand, and Cara laid the modest item in her palm.
The older woman stared at it with wonder, and then tears misted in her eyes.
“Do you recognise it?” Cara asked.
Nessy curled her hand around the piece of jewellery. “Yes. It’s mine.”
“Yours?” Today was a day for strange occurrences.
Nessy wiped away the tear that ran down her cheek. “My mother gave it to me. She said a gypsy woman gave it to her and that it would always protect a mother and child. I used to wear it around my wrist, as a bracelet. When I had to give up my little girl, I tucked this in with her and prayed it would protect her and her children.”
Nan had soothed the fractious baby in her arms to sleep, and now she peered over Nessy’s shoulder at the piece in her hand. “I remember that. You were wearing it when I had Isabella. You gave it to me to bite down on when the pain became too much at the end.”
Cara stared at the pendant and a shiver worked over her skin. Nan and Isabella were the first mother and child to survive childbirth in her maternal line. What if the locket had helped them too?
“Cara, what exactly did Victoria tell you about the locket?” Nate asked.
“That her mother gave it to her and she thought it fitting that her hand deliver it to mine. She said our lives are much intertwined.” Cara stared at the necklace. A small token infused with motherly love. When she touched it, the faint tingle when the queen gave it to her had turned into a stronger buzz. The locket contained a power that had grown while Cara delivered her boys.
Cara pondered the queen’s words and glanced to Nan. “Do you think it’s possible the queen knows?”
That Nessy had given birth to a daughter who was given to the Duchess of Kent to replace her stillborn child was a fiercely held secret. People had died to keep it.
“If Victoria knows the truth of her parentage, she’s keeping quiet on the subject.” Nate took the sleeping baby from Nan, who lifted the other one from Rachel.
“This one has the look of Gideon about his eyes,” Nan said as she stared down.
“That’s what I thought.” Cara pushed down the cotton blanket to stare at the child she held, with his jet-black strands of hair. He struck her as a tiny version of his father. “This one looks like Nate. Shall we call our little demon Lucien?”
“Did you know that Lucien means light?” Rachel said.
“No, I didn’t know that. I thought it derived from Lucifer.” A demon named after the light. Fitting for their child.
“And Gideon for the one who takes after your side of the family,” Nate said.
“Gideon and Lucien. Two names for the boys to grow into.” Nan gently kissed a small cheek. “Your clever mother has delivered an heir for two titles. Little Gideon can inherit his great-grandfather’s earldom while Lucien will be the next Viscount Lyons.”
“If either boy takes after just one of you, you will have your hands full.” Nessy gave the locket back to Cara and hugged her.
“Why don’t we take these two away to marvel over, while you have a wash and change into a clean nightgown?” Nan suggested.
“It is rather crowded in here.” Cara stared at the corner where her mother had stood.
Then the older women left with the youngest generation.
Nate picked up Helene in his arms, as gently as if she were made of expensive porcelain. He stared down at her ravaged face, now softened by death. “I’ll lay her out in a spare bedroom for now.”
Faith brought more warm water, and Amy helped Cara to wash. Soon the sheets were changed and Cara returned to bed cleaner, but no less tired.
“Could you send Nate back in, please?” Cara asked her friend.
“Of course. We’ll leave you two alone while we deal with everything else. I’ll sort out a light supper in case you’re hungry.” Amy hugged Cara and slipped out the door.
Nate returned and stretched out on the bed, and then he gathered Cara into his arms and she rested her head on his shoulder. They sat for several minutes in silence, a single beat sounding through their bodies.
After a while, Cara whispered into the silence, “What happened? All I remember is being overwhelmed by pain. I drowned in it. When I opened my eyes, my mother, Helene, and Hannah were standing in the corner. Waiting for me to join them.”
His hand curled into her arm and then released. “Our connection failed and you stopped breathing. Amy asked me for permission to remove the child from you. She was listening for your heartbeat one last time when you started coughing.”
Two worlds had collided and coexisted in the lingering twilight. One world in which those she loved battled to save her, and another that offered the chance to be with her mother. It wasn’t fair that she had to choose. “My mother asked me to take her hand and embark on a new journey, but I said I wanted to stay here.”
Nate placed a fingertip under her chin and tipped her face so he could kiss her. “I am grateful that you didn’t leave with your mother and Helene. I wouldn’t survive losing you again.”
The next day, Helene was laid out in the front parlour while Cara and the boys rested upstairs. Once Cara had hated the house, but now she didn’t want to leave. Helene’s spirit joined the others, and her protection spell was cast upon the dwelling. Within felt lighter, as though love and warmth rained upon it and dripped down to permeate the timbers and bricks.
When the time came to leave, Cara stood in the hallway and laid her palm against the wallpaper. “Thank you, Hannah, for sending my mother to me, and for taking in Helene.”
The light in the parlour blinked on once.
Outside, Nate’s carriage and the mechanical horses waited for her. She insisted on taking Helene back to Lowestoft with them for her funeral. Society was horrified that she had kept a dead woman in the bedroom while she gave birth. Not that Cara cared, and it gave them s
omething else to gossip about instead of speculating about the living arrangements of Clarence and Sabine.
The funeral for Helene was surprisingly well attended. The countess had touched many lives, and familiar faces along with a few new ones sat in the pews. Jackson, who Helene referred to as her little sparrow, read a touching eulogy that had many people reaching for handkerchiefs and dabbing at their eyes.
He spoke of how many thought her mad, when she actually saw the world clearly.
Nate spoke of the beautiful woman who entranced a young boy and encouraged him to run away and seek adventure and fortune.
After Helene’s mortal remains were laid to rest in the warm earth, Cara kissed her boys and watched Amy and the nanny take them away. Nate took Rachel by the hand and muttered something about shooting practice.
Cara needed to be alone. Part of her still struggled to comprehend that Helene gave her life so selflessly. Had it truly been a life for a life, or did the maternal love contained within Nessy’s locket protect her and the boys? They were questions she would never know the answers to. Most likely it took all the magic in the house that day to pull three of them safely through their travails.
As Cara stood alone by the freshly turned earth, Malachi approached and coughed into his hand.
Cara took his hand. “Hello, old friend. Thank you for coming.”
Malachi squeezed her hand. “Extraordinary woman, the countess. Had a knack for swooping in on the exact book I wanted.”
“I hope she will still guide my search for artifacts. I have Faith now who can see through the veil of death.” She looked forward to returning to the Soho house, although the boys would consume much of her time now.
Malachi took off his hat as they stared at a worm working its way through sod. “Speaking of artifacts, I found a match for that little flute of yours. It would appear to be the pipe used by the Pied Piper of Hamlin.”
Cara had asked Malachi to find out about the little flute that Count Mancilla wanted to win in their wager. “But that’s a fairytale.”