Dead Man's Deal The Asylum Tales - By Jocelynn Drake Page 0,114

knew I had never tried to put one down for a nap. While I was grateful that the little guy wasn’t screaming his head off the moment Skye disappeared, I still didn’t know what to do to get him to sleep.

Turning around, I spotted a large white rocking chair in one corner near the crib. My mom had kept one in my sister’s room when she had been a baby. She said that it had been handed down over a few generations and that she used to rock us to sleep when we were fussy.

Sitting on the thick cushion, I settled the little guy against my shoulder while I rubbed my hand over his tiny back in a slow, circular motion. He shifted and drew in a deep breath, pressing his little chest against mine before he wrapped one arm around my neck and put his head on my shoulder. Slowly rocking the chair, I hummed a nameless tune that had no beginning and no end. I didn’t know the song. I kept humming as his breathing evened out.

It had only taken him a few minutes to doze off, but still I rocked him, humming what I was sure was a lullaby. I turned my head toward him and the soft scent of soap and baby powder hit my nose. But there was more there, something I didn’t have a word for. It wasn’t so much a smell, but something from that tiny body that drove down into my chest, as if it were mending things broken there. All the weight that had rested on my shoulders slipped off to be replaced by this little head. The aches in my back, hands, and knees dissolved with the sound of his breathing. The pound of his heart against my chest soothed so many echoes of pains from my past.

Reluctantly, I stood and turned toward his white-and-blue crib. Closing my eyes, I pressed a kiss to his temple before I laid him on his stomach on the mattress. I continued to rub my hand on his back while he shifted once and yawned before settling into a deep sleep. My fingers drifted up to thread through his soft blond curls, reminding me of how I looked in my own baby pictures taken a lifetime ago.

A gentle hand moved across my back in the same motion that I had been using on Squall, helping to ease an ache that had grown and letting the peace seep back in, so it no longer hurt to breathe. I looked over to find a little old woman standing beside me, her snowy-white hair pulled up into a loose bun on the top of her head. She looked up at me with fathomless green-gray eyes and smiled.

“I knew you could do it, my boy,” she said in a low voice that seemed to hold me in an embrace that nearly brought tears to my eyes. “You’ve done wonderfully, but then you understand this so much better than those who tried to teach you.”

“Understand what?” I asked in a wavering voice.

She reached down and took my hand in her old one. She held it out so that my open palm hovered over Squall’s sleeping form. “Life. Nature. The ebb and flow of all things.”

As she spoke, I could feel a subtle throb of energy emanating from the baby’s body. She pulled her hand away and I could feel more. There was the energy from the earth seeping up through the house and in through the open windows. There was my own energy and the energy from all the animals nearby. While the woman next to me produced no energy of her own, she brought all the energy around me into instant balance, so that it was one harmonious song. The same song I had been mindlessly humming to Squall.

I pulled my hand back to grip the railing of the crib. I felt as if I should be afraid or anxious, but the emotions drained away before they could fully form. I was at peace, standing in this room next to the old woman because she brought everything into balance. She stepped a couple feet away, dropping her hand from my back, but the feeling of peace didn’t wane as I had expected.

“You know, you can stay here if you want,” she offered. “Your life would be exactly what you experienced today. You would be wrapped in the earth and life. It would be hard and simple, but also