The ache that pounded inside her was deafening in the silence. Why couldn't the whole world hear it? Attie wanted to scream, to run, to break things and hit people until they understood the writhing snakes of terror and worry inside her.

For the first time in her life she wished she was older. Either that, or younger, as young as Aurora. It would be heaven not to know, not to worry, not to care.

Attie always thought of her mother as being rather tall and — as Archie put it so fondly — statuesque. But Iris barely made a hillock under the covers and Attie thought there was too much empty bed surrounding her.

Attie had never been the sort of child to tumble into her parents' bed, frightened by a nightmare or thunderstorm. Orion had explained that nightmares were simply her imagination and that thunderstorms were what happened when warm air collided with cold.

Still, she had seen her parents snuggled together with Archie snoring away, Iris's head tucked under his chin. Iris's hair should be streaming glinting silver over the pillow and she should carry a slight smile of delight on her lips as she slept. If dreams were imagination, then Iris must have the most astonishing dreams, for she lived every day in a world of her imagination.

Attie crept onto the large mattress stealthily as might a disobedient family pet.

But Archie was asleep and there was no one to shoo Attie from the sickroom or remind her that she was not a comforting sort of presence. It wasn't true, Attie thought rebelliously. Otherwise why was she the only one — well, almost the only one — who could keep Aurora soothed to let Miranda rest?

Attie crawled closer until her head shared her mother's pillow and she lay staring unblinking at Iris's profile. Iris smelled of lavender soap combined with the revolting laudanum-tinged cough concoction left by the physician who had seen her the day before. Attie rather thought she would throw the bottle across the room before she would take a drop of it, but the first time in her life she didn't have the answers. She had no way to help Iris get well.

It was just a cough. A silly little cough from being caught out in the rain. Of course Iris, being Iris, had stayed out of doors to enjoy the scents of the garden. She said she liked to feel the rain running down her cheeks, and the vibration of the thunder rumbling through her bones.