At my door, I left Mama to her silent wandering and entered into my own snug room. The curtains hung massive against the far windows, darkening what was normally a cheerful chamber and competing with the little fire left to burn in my grate. Wearily, I threw myself into the chair and stared at the embers burning like so many watchful eyes behind the iron bars, flaring into life, and I nodded back, drifting off into a half sleep, and then it seemed Halcy’s face stared back at me in the fire just as she had on Leadbetter’s Island. Again her wide and frightened eyes begged me, again her mouth slowly opened as if to speak, and there was seaweed in her hair and the deep dark scent of damp ground round her. I stared back at her, and when she offered me her tiny bundle, I took the little moving body into my own arms and looked down into its scrawny red face—but Papa’s eyes looked up at me, blinking, his mouth opening and closing in an effort to speak. I dropped the baby and turned and fled, terrified, back to where I saw Mama and Papa waiting for me through the trees. But when I reached them, I ran right through them.

“Mama!” I was on my feet, my heart pounding in my chest, the fire sunk to a dim glow, and the room gone quite chill. “Mama?” I whispered, shaking. I felt my way over to my bed, where I sat down heavily, the tears streaming down my face. The clock chimed one. I wept, fully clothed and unable to move. I heard a rustling in the hall, and then the knob turned and Mama herself walked in.

“Mama,” I sobbed.

“What is it, Maisie?” She drew to my side. “You have frightened me terribly.”

I could not answer her, I was weeping so.

“What is it, Maisie?” She put her hand on my shoulder and brushed the hair off my hot, wet cheeks, only making the tears come faster.

“There now,” she whispered, and setting her lamp upon the table by the bed, she turned me gently round and began to unfasten the buttons at my back. “Hush, Maisie.” Her fingers were firm as they eased the fabric loose, and eased my shoulders from the cloth. Still I wept, but the squall had begun to lessen. “Hush, Maisie,” she said again, and I leaned my head against her and raised my hands to my tearstained face.