A hand touched her shoulder, and she shrieked.
“Gwyneth child, you said you was going to bed.” Rosie. Just Rosie.
She dragged in a breath and shoved her hair from her face. “Did I?”
A tsk was the woman’s only answer. Steady hands smoothed the tangled hair away and started to braid. Slow, deliberate movements that brought a single notch of order.
There is no order, only chaos. Your father is gone.
Gwyneth shuddered and couldn’t stop.
Rosie sighed. “You gotta take better care of yourself, child. You eat the pudding I brought you and then get yourself into bed.”
Your father is gone.
She looked at the bed and her stomach cramped. ’Twasn’t a soft mattress, nay. ’Twas hard wooden planking covered only in a red-stained rug. Hard. Forbidding. Cold as the grave. “I…can’t.”
Thad is gone.
The heavens cried out, low and moaning, and a slender tongue of fire shot through the sky. Gwyneth jumped. “What was that?”
Rosie’s breath came out and in, slow and steady. “A summer storm over the bay, child. Thunder and lightning. Nothing more.”
Thunder and lightning. Death and destruction, to take him away forever. Another mocking laugh from the clouds.
Air wouldn’t come, her lungs wouldn’t fill. A cloud of gray edged out her vision.
“You stay with me, now. Take pity on an old woman, I can’t carry you into bed alone if you faint. You hear me?” Rosie gave her a little shake.
She blinked until the fog retreated a bit. “I can’t do it again. I can’t lose anyone else, I can’t. I can’t.”
Rosie crouched down before her. Somehow her face looked soft and comforting while her eyes snapped with flint. “You haven’t lost anyone else, Miss Gwyn.”
Thunder roared. We will devour him whole. We will steal him from you, we will kill him…and we will destroy you.
“The storm.” She choked back a sob. She mustn’t cry. Uncle Gates would hear her. He would come. “The storm will take Thad.”
Rosie gripped her shoulders and leaned close until her face was all Gwyneth could see. “That storm’s here, not in Bermuda with Thaddeus. Do you understand that? It’s our storm, not his. He’s fine and well, and he’s out adventuring like he loves to do.”
Like he loves more than you. Because you are nothing but a broken glass figure. Shattered. Worthless.
Though she closed her eyes tight, still she could see the sizzling flash of lightning. “He is never coming back.”
Warm hands framed her face and bade her listen. “Look at me, child.” When she obeyed, she found Rosie’s eyes damp. “I don’t believe that for a minute. But what if you’re right? What if Thaddeus never comes home?”
Gwyneth shook her head, a frantic attempt to keep the words away.
“What would you do then? Waste away until you die too? Let the nightmares taunt you into doing something stupid?”
Another sob tried to bully its way up her throat, but she held it back with a hard swallow.
Rosie shook her head. “You do that, missy, and you let them win.”
We’ve already won.
“They’ve already won.”
The woman snapped upright, her eyes sparking. “Oh, no, they haven’t.” She reached past Gwyneth to the paper-strewn vanity top and came up with a book. Its worn leather cover looked familiar, but what was it?
“ ‘Blessed Lord, let me climb up near to Thee…’ ”
The prayer book. Of course. But what good could it do? Perhaps God had listened to those men who had first prayed the words. Perhaps He had let them climb onto His lap. But they had been so very much stronger than she, strong enough to flee persecution and build a new life in this wild land.
And what, beloved, have you done?
She lifted her head and turned it toward Rosie, though she had not been the one to whisper those words. Those soft, silent words that filled her heart rather than her ears. That beat back the shadows just a stitch and lifted that foggy veil just an inch.
“ ‘…and love, and long, and plead, and wrestle with Thee, and pant for deliverance from the body of sin, for my heart is wandering and lifeless, and my soul mourns to think it should ever lose sight of its beloved.’ ”
Mourn, came the hissing breath that clawed up her spine. Mourn the loss of your beloved. He is gone. They all are. Everyone you loved.
A shiver overtook her…but then a warmth seeped in. Am I gone? Am I dead?
“No.” Her lips formed the word, though no breath gave them voice.
No. I AM.
Yes. He was. She closed her eyes again and watched as another flash of light danced across their shuttered lids.
“ ‘Wrap my life in divine love, and keep me ever desiring Thee…’ ”