he said, looking directly at her. “Get out. All of you.”
Selina felt the shockwaves ripple around the small group but none of them, it seemed, was brave enough to argue with their lord and master.
So, with enough glares to turn milk sour, they all turned and filed from the room.
The silence they left was deafening, interspersed only by the boy’s cries that were already beginning to calm.
“Can you help him?”
The question seemed pulled from Lord Breton’s very soul, and Selina felt a pang of sympathy for the man.
It was clear he loved his son dearly.
“I can,” she answered firmly, hoping it was true.
“The doctors,” he continued, his eyes fixed on his son’s distressed face, his arms still clasping the boy’s slight shoulders. “All of them said it was just nightmares. That it would pass. But none of them could tell me how to help.”
“I’d imagine that’s because they didn’t know how,” she said frankly as she shooed him out of the way and sat on the edge of Timothy’s bed.
The child’s cries had become pitiable whimpers now, and they pulled on Selina’s heartstrings more than she’d expected.
Leaning forward, she took the boy’s tear-streaked face in her hands and gazed into his eyes.
She didn’t speak.
Blocking out everything else, she just looked.
And he looked right back. Unblinking, unfocused.
Selina waited.
A clock somewhere in the room ticked the seconds.
A dying fire in the hearth crackled every once in a while.
The boy’s sobs mingled with his father’s harsh breathing.
And still she waited.
Suddenly, an icy gust blew through the room, and his face changed. Contorted and twisted until he became someone else. His eyes no longer vacant but angry and scared.
The screams in her head became deafening, but Selina held on.
Another gust of wind extinguished the candles in the room, plunging them all into near darkness.
Still, she held on.
Selina kept her eyes fixed on the brown of Timothy’s.
“You must let him go,” she said firmly, but kindly.
This wasn’t a malevolent spirit. This wasn’t someone who wanted to cause pain. Selina could sense that.
Whoever or whatever this was, it needed her help just as much as Timothy.
“You have to let him go.”
The scream grew louder and louder until Timothy’s mouth opened.
“I can’t!” he shrieked, sounding pained.
He began to thrash on the bed, trying to drag his face from Selina’s hands. But she held on.
“Timothy!” Lord Breton shouted and darted forward.
But Selina ignored him, holding onto the boy, not breaking eye contact.
“You have to let him go,” she shouted.
A surge of love and protectiveness, more powerful than anything Selina had ever felt, shot through her, and she knew with absolute certainty that it wasn’t coming from her.
It was someone else. Someone loved this boy so very, very much. And was tormented by what he was going through.
It was so strong, almost overpowering. Her hands began to shake, her entire body trembling, and a bone-deep weariness began to descend.
“Let me help,” Selina begged desperately. “Let me help him.”
The screaming in her head grew louder and louder, and the boy’s yells grew ever more frantic.
Selina’s limbs shook uncontrollably and grew heavier.
She knew she couldn’t hold on for much longer.
“Please,” she whispered hoarsely right before the scream reached an inhuman pitch inside her head, and Timothy issued one last bellow before both he and Selina keeled over, exhausted.
The icy wind dissipated as though it had never been, and the only sounds left in the room, and in Selina’s head, were laboured breathing and the ticking of the clock.
Selina lifted a shaking hand to her head, which had begun pounding painfully.
She looked at Timothy, who’d fallen back against the pillows, his chest heaving.
Wordlessly, she reached into her basket by the bed and pulled out a vial.
Turning slightly, she held it up to the earl with shaking fingers, in a soundless question.
He looked frozen with shock, his blue eyes wide as they stared at her.
A stiff nod of his head was all the permission she needed to turn and remove the lid, then tip the contents into the boy’s trembling mouth.
He swallowed, staring at her as she stared right back.
Now, it was only the boy. A scared, tired boy.
Selina reached out and smoothed a golden tress of hair from his damp brow. It seemed to settle him, and so she continued to do it until his eyelids grew heavy and he drifted into what she hoped would be a peaceful sleep.
The sleeping draught she’d given him was mild in deference to his age, but it should be enough to keep his sleep dreamless