‘Dawn? ‘Amber hit on the door with her palm. There was no reply. She hadn’t heard from Dawn in days and had grown increasingly worried. Each morning she had knocked on the Corbin’s door and each day she had been ignored. She feared that death had visited little William and the family were grieving in silence.
‘Elizabeth? Reighn? Please!’ Again she knocked, and heard footsteps sounding quickly inside.
The door opened and Dawn rushed out and almost knocked Amber aside. ‘It’s William…’ She tried to say, but Amber had already pushed passed her and was making her way up the stairs.
Dawn followed quietly behind. She sat on a stool by the window, and watched Amber lean over William’s colourful blankets. His arms lay by his side and his toothless mouth yawed motionless. Elizabeth sat on the bed by her brother, her hands clutched together between her legs. She looked at William sadly.
‘Oh you poor thing,’ Amber whispered, thinking him dead, but then William twitched and she flinched. ‘He’s still alive, Dawn, we need some warm water.’
‘He…’ Dawn said. Amber waited for more but nothing else came.
‘Elizabeth, love, darling... Fetch your brother some water, there’s a love.’
Reighn entered the room, stroking Elizabeth’s hair as she passed him. He closed the door and stood in the corner of the room. ‘How long do you think he has, Amber? Without proper medicine?’ He said the words softly, hiding his harboured intentions of stealing his son to the border.
‘There’s not much fight left in him,’ she smoothed his soft cheek and looked up to Reighn. ‘It could be hours, it could be days. He’s done well to last this long.’
He moved to the hearth, away from Dawn’s snivelling. He had grown increasingly cold to her defeatism, as if tears could help their boy!
Several embers burned dully, and he stoked them with a bent piece of iron, they suddenly sprang to life and crackled brightly.
‘If he had medicine... Do you think there would be a chance?’
‘There’s always a chance, Reighn. But there’s nothing here for him.’
‘I know...’
Dawn wiped her eyes and looked up at him.
‘What are you thinking? You’ve got that guilty look in your eye.’
Amber picked up William and turned to Reighn, both looked at him curiously. He turned and stoked the fire again, a gesture he knew would confirm Dawn’s suspicions that he was guilty of something. He straightened and was about to brush off her curiosity when Elizabeth returned with a kettle filled with boiled water, distracting them.
William’s fingers clasped Amber’s, and she turned to Dawn.
‘Will you take him? He needs his mother’s warmth.’
Dawn looked frightened, and turned from Reighn to Amber. ‘But he doesn’t want me... I only make him ill.’
‘Don’t say such a thing, darling.’ Amber said, and carried the light bundle of blankets towards her.
Dawn trembled, but Amber placed him in her arms, and stroked her hair, and told her she would be well.
Elizabeth began to sniffle, and Amber comforted her in the darkening room. Reighn stood alone by the fire, stoking it slowly.
‘There’s a place where babies go when they’re too sick to grow…’ Amber said quietly, and Dawn, as though expecting the words, closed her eyes and turned her head to the window. She lay her forehead against William’s, but could feel no breath.
‘Heaven.’ Whispered Dawn.
Reighn listened earnestly, thinking of the grave on the outskirts of Mortehoe where the countless young of former generations had been buried. That’s all that waited for William, no peaceful afterlife in the arms of the Creator, just a slow decomposition amongst the scattered bones of strangers. He had spent the day deliberating on how to smuggle his son out of Mortehoe and offer him into the hands of those who might be able to help, but now, looking down into the ashen face of his boy, he didn’t care how he would do it. He only knew that he must, regardless of the means or the aftermath; he would do whatever it would take to keep William alive. Come nightfall he would take him and make for the border, and live the rest of his life knowing he had tried.
Dawn took her face from William’s and regarded him before lowering her head. Amber took him from her and lay him on the bed, covering his face with blankets. It was over.
Elizabeth put her hand to her mouth and asked something of Amber, her voice breaking. Amber hugged her tightly.
‘No...’ Reighn said, looking blankly at the lifeless bundle upon the bed. Frozen, his knuckles turned white as he grasped the mantelpiece. It had taken weeks and yet it had happened outside of time, unexpectedly and unfairly. He had planned to change it. He had had a plan. He was going to save his boy. It was decided.
He felt dizzy, his thoughts burned in him and yet none of them held fast. Time both stopped and flew, and the next thing he knew was he was opening the doors and windows in the house to let his son’s soul escape, just as his father had done when his brother had died in infancy.