Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68024 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68024 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Wake up, Lucy.
What’s happening? Where are you?
Hallows End. A baby is being born, and I need your help. Please, come.
I’m on my way.
I can feel Lucy running through her house to get dressed, and then she’s sprinting out her back door to the bridge.
“Robert, I have a friend visiting from a neighboring village. She is near my cabin. Please, go get her and bring her to help me here.”
He nods and runs away.
A man is coming to bring you to me.
I see him, is her reply.
“Rebecca, I need you to focus. Take a long, deep breath.”
“I cannot.”
“Yes, you can. With me, now.” I inhale deeply, keeping her pretty eyes on mine. “Come now. You can do this. I know you can.”
She breathes with me as Lucy and Robert burst through the door. Lucy’s eyes are full of concern and a little bit of fear as she joins me.
“I take it this is new?”
“Very.”
We work together over the next hour to help Rebecca breathe and push, and then once the baby is born and crying, we clean her up and deal with the afterbirth.
Rebecca and Robert are all smiles as they gently wrap their new son in a blanket that Rebecca made for him.
Once I’m sure the baby and mother are safe and healthy, Lucy and I take our leave, walking back to my cabin.
Once inside, Lucy sighs and drops into one of my chairs.
“Holy crap, Jonas.”
“My thoughts exactly.” I wave my hand, and the hearth fire lights. I need tea.
“So, let me get this straight,” she continues as she wipes her hands over her face, “that poor woman has been pregnant since forever?”
“Pretty much.”
“That’s…that’s…I can’t even. I literally can’t even imagine it. And now, for some reason that we can’t figure out, she’s had the baby.”
“Yes.” I pace to the window, my mind full of jumbled thoughts. “I don’t know how it’s possible. Nothing ever changes here, Lucy. Nothing. It’s the same conversations, the same movements, the same weather. William Northrup is a boy of seven, and he gets an ear ache every month.”
“Does anyone die, over and over again?”
My gaze turns to her, and my shoulders fall.
“Mrs. Horton. She’s ninety-two, and each month, she has a heart attack.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Lucy mutters and shakes her head. “We’re meeting with the others at Xander’s house later today. Maybe they’ll have some ideas as to what’s going on.”
“I’m sorry that I dragged you over here,” I say. “I put you at risk. But it has been so long since I’ve assisted in a birth. I panicked. That’s unlike me.”
“They’ll forget I was here in just a few days,” she reminds me while reaching out to take my hand, twining our fingers. I feel the energy pulse between us. “And then she’ll be pregnant again. Goddess, she went through all of that for nothing.”
She turns tortured eyes to me, and her hand tightens.
“This has to end, Jonas. We’re going to figure this out because Rebecca should not have to give birth, month after month. And Mrs. Horton needs to rest in peace.”
“I can’t even express how much I agree with you.”
Before I forget, I pull my Book of Shadows out of the lower drawer of my desk and add it to a small pile of texts I want to bring back to Salem with me.
“I have to stay here for the day,” I inform her. “I want to be around if Rebecca needs me or in case anything else happens.”
“Maybe you should start sleeping here at night again.”
“No.” I shake my head, leaving no room for argument. “I won’t leave you, not at night. You’re too vulnerable then.”
“But these are your people, Jonas. And they need you.”
“Do you think I wouldn’t choose you?” My voice is harsh, almost ragged. “That if it came down to it, you wouldn’t be the one I’d choose, over and over again? What is the new term? Ah, yes. Fuck that, Lucy. You are my priority, and you will be until the day I finally get to die.”
“Don’t say it like that.” She climbs onto my lap and loops her graceful arms around my neck. “Don’t. Because if I lost you now, I don’t think I could survive it, Jonas.”
I press my forehead to hers, and we sit in the silence, just holding each other as the sun rises.
“Why do I feel like something big is coming?” Her voice is a whisper.
“Because it is.” I sigh and gently press my lips to hers. “It is.”
She nods and then pulls back, and I can hear her talking to Nera in her mind.
Don’t worry, I’m coming soon. All is well.
“He worries.”
“If he’s not with me, he’s a nervous wreck,” she admits with a small smile. “He’s really a mother hen.”
“I’m glad. If I can’t be next to you all the time, I’m relieved that he is. Don’t go anywhere without him from now on, at least until we get this figured out.”