Chapter 18: Daddy

Rhiannon's POV

I had been in the north wing with Hester's tea going cold when a sudden chill seized my chest.

A sharp, wordless dread flared in me.

Then I looked at Poppy's empty bed.

I ran. I don't remember the stairs or the path.

I remember the hill, and Corbin kneeling in the frozen grass with both hands out, not touching my daughter.

"Don't wake her," he said without turning his head. "She's in the middle of it."

I dropped beside him.

Poppy was on her hands and knees in her yellow raincoat.

Her small shoulder blades were moving under the cloth in slow, wrong waves.

"Baby," I said.

"She can't hear you," the Stone-keeper called from the slope. "Not yet."

"Then what do I do?"

"What your mother did for you," Corbin said, quietly. "Talk to her. Keep talking."

His voice was steady.

I didn't ask how he knew what to say. I had no time.

"Poppy," I said. "It's Mama. I'm right here."

Her back bowed. A sound came out of her, thin and high, and I felt it in my own bones.

"It hurts," she whimpered.

"I know it does, sweetheart."

"I don't want to."

"You don't have to want to. It's going to be over soon. Look at me."

She lifted her head.

Her eyes were gold, and for the first time they found my face.

"Mama?"

"Yes."

"Why are my hands funny?"

Her fingers were curling in on themselves. The nails were turning dark.

I did not cry.

I kept my face calm. I had been a healer for years, and I knew what a frightened patient looks for.

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