Initium (The Nocte Trilogy 2.50)

She holds me tight and pats my back, and I fall asleep in her arms, listening to her hum. Before long, I’m dreaming and her voice is Phillip and he’s humming to me, a wordless, tuneless song.

“You’re back,” he says happily, and when he stands up, he doesn’t look well.

“Are you quite alright?” I ask quickly, because he looks pale and alone. He smiles, a sad small smile, and nods.

“It’s nothing to fret over, my heart.”

My heart. How I love it when he calls me that.

“Come to me now. Let me hold you. Let me make you mine again.”

God, I want that. I live for that. I tell him so and he smiles against my forehead, and he does take me, again and again, and it feels so real.

“What would you do for me?” he finally asks when we lie spent together, our sweaty arms and legs entangled, his fingers trailing over my belly and my swollen breasts.

“Anything.”

My answer is immediate and honest. He’s my one bright spot, my one good thing.

“Anything?”

Phillip is pensive now, speculative, and his dark eyes have gotten stormy. I reach out and smooth an errant strand of hair from his face and I nod, assuring him.

“You’re my life, Phillip. Our child is my life. I would do anything for either of you.”

He smiles, and his teeth are pearls. “Good. I was hoping you would say so.”

“Why do you ask?” I inquire, and my voice is polite and so British. We’re polite to a fault, I think.

“Because there are things in life that we can’t understand,” he says vaguely, and his answer isn’t really an answer. “I could try but you’d never believe me. I just wanted to hear you say it, to say how much you love me, how much you’d do for me. What you’d give me…if I needed it.”

“I’d give you anything.” My answer is resolute, and I mean it.

He sees that and he smiles.

“I know you would. Thank you, Livvie. Thank you.”

Chapter Seven

Day turns into night for me, and night into day.

I never know what time it is, and I never leave my rooms. The servants bring me meals, and my only visitor is my mother. She visits me every afternoon for tea. She worries about me, she frets, but she’s also a calm presence that I need. I need to draw from her peace.

“Don’t worry, Olivia,” she tells me. “Everything will be fine, everything will be as it should be. I promise. I will make sure of it.”

I don’t know what she means, but by this time, I don’t particularly care. I’m always lingering on the edge of reality nowadays, half in a dream-world, have in the present. It’s confusing, and becomes more so by the day.

“How far along am I?” I ask her, because time has bled together.

“You only have a few weeks left, my love. You can do this.”

I wrap my belly tightly in my arms, shielding him from the world. Of course I can. That was never a question.

My child grows and thrives, and his kicks and turns get stronger and stronger, even while I seem to get weaker and weaker. My arms get pale and thin, and my mother urges me to walk in the gardens like I once used to.

“No,” I answer firmly, and I crawl back into my bed. My bed is my refuge, my solace. I won’t leave Phillip and he is here.

“You’re wasting away,” my mother points out, and I can feel my ribs against my arms when I answer.