House of Salt and Sorrows - Erin A. Craig Page 0,120

finally returned to the Salt, would he know to look for his other sisters? Surely they’d be kind to him and show him love.

“Let me take care of him,” Papa volunteered, reentering the room. He tucked Morella beneath the clean sheets. “I will take care of my son.”

Morella burst into a fresh set of tears once he and Hanna left the room. “He’s going to hate me.” Her lips trembled, and I took her hand. It was shaking.

“He loves you,” I repeated. “You need to calm down. You’ve got the other baby to think about.”

She shook her head with such violence, she managed to undo the careful braid Camille had just plaited. “No. No. I’m not going through that again. I can’t deliver another dead child.”

My hand settled on her belly, searching for any sign of movement from the other twin. My heart sank as I shifted positions, praying to Pontus for a sign of life. Just as I pulled away, her stomach jumped, the baby inside lashing out as if to say, “I’m still here. Don’t forget me.”

She grimaced.

“See? The other baby is alive and well. And feels very strong!” I tried to laugh, hoping she’d smile back, but she rolled to her side, away from me.

“I can’t do it,” she whimpered.

At the edge of the bed, Camille shifted, clearly uncomfortable waiting. She raised one eyebrow at me, silently asking what we should do. Remembering the tray of lotion and oil, I crossed to the bureau.

“Why don’t Camille and I rub your feet?” I suggested, picking up the little vial of lavender oil. It would relax her and hopefully mask some of the foul odors lingering in the room. Breathing through my mouth helped only so much. I could taste the blood in the air, like copper coins weighing heavily on my tongue.

We knelt on either side of Morella’s legs. Spilling out several drops of the silvery fluid into my palm, I showed Camille how to rub the arches of her feet with ever-increasing pressure.

Morella groaned as a mild contraction clenched her abdomen. When it passed, she continued to weep. Her hysteria built, growing ripe and foul like a great blister, ready to burst and soak us all with its poison. She’d drive herself crazy, lingering on the agony and pain of the first delivery. She needed a distraction.

“This smells nice, doesn’t it?”

Her fingers clenched, balling up the sheet into a tight fist before smoothing it out, stretching the linen till threads snapped and unraveled.

“Does it remind you of the lavender fields near your home?”

She’d mentioned the fields of flowers before. Perhaps if I could get her talking about her childhood, she’d relax and stop putting so much stress on the remaining child.

Another contraction passed, and she frowned. “My home? No, we didn’t have lavender in the mountains.”

It was my turn to frown, though she didn’t see. Her eyes were shut, anticipating the pain of the next wave. “I thought you lived in the flatlands.”

She shook her head. “No. I grew up near one of the sharpest peaks in the range. But there were the most beautiful flowers just outside my village. Scarlet red, like shining rubies. They have a peculiarly sweet scent. It’s hard to describe but impossible to forget. I miss them so.” Her face scrunched as she tensed again. When the tightness passed, she opened her eyes. “There’s one on my vanity, that little glass flower.” Her bottom lip pushed out wistfully. “You can’t smell it, though.”

Camille slid off the bed to retrieve it for her. “It’s beautiful,” she said, handing it to Morella to focus on. “Like an exotic geranium.”

A memory stirred inside me. I’d heard something about little red flowers before. Something Cassius had said…

The Cardanian Mountains. The Nyxmist flower and the People of the Bones…

Viscardi’s people.

Another contraction, harder and longer than those before. Morella dropped the little bauble into the bedding as she doubled around the pain.

When her breathing returned to normal, I picked up the glass sphere, considering. “I’m sure once this is all over, Papa will get you a bouquet of these, the biggest you’ve ever seen. He’ll probably fill the whole house with them!”

Her smile was weak, her energy drained. “They only grow outside that village. It’s so far from Salten, they’d never make the journey.”

All of this sounded exactly like the People of the Bones. Surely a follower of Viscardi would have no qualm brokering an agreement with him. I dug my fingers into her arch,