Page 1 of The Stolen Child

Prologue

The woman never lets her gaze waver from the boy. She greedily takes in the soft curve of his cheeks and the dimple in his chin. Even from this safe distance, she sees the steel blue of his eyes as he looks up to his mother adoringly – eyes so like his father’s.

The mother reaches over to brush damp blond curls from his forehead, warm from the afternoon sun. The tenderness of the moment catches the woman off guard. A surge of pain, sharp and intrusive, hits her, and it takes all her willpower not to shout, ‘Stop!’

She closes her eyes momentarily and breathes in and out until the pain subsides. The woman looks again at the little boy and focuses only on him, not the mother. A resolute smile forms on her lips as she observes his plump, pink hands cradling his bottle. She knows, with unwavering certainty, what she must do to protect the boy and keep him safe from his father.

The woman’s smile widens, her heart aching with the intensity of her love for this boy whom she can only watch from afar. She commits to memory every extraordinary detail, her mind painting a vivid picture of what it will feel like to hold him. Her arms ache with the intensity of her longing, a longing that will consume her if she does not make it happen.

Soon.

PART ONE

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand

For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

‘The Stolen Child’, William Butler Yeats

THEN

July 1983

Kimberly

The Carousel, Spanish Coast

Kimberly lay back on a blue plastic sun lounger, sighing as the warmth of the late afternoon sun washed over her. Her husband, Jason, stood in the shallow water of the kiddies’ pool of the Carousel, a cruise ship with the Blue Wave line. He was playing with their two children, Robert and Lily. She took in Jason’s toned and tanned physique. As a young girl, Kimberly and her best friend had dreamed of marrying stereotypical tall, dark and handsome men. They’d have two children each, a boy and a girl, and live happily ever after.

‘Two out of three, ain’t bad,’ Kimberly sang softly, tears filling her eyes again. She bit the inside of her cheek, and the unbidden emotion obeyed the command, staying hidden.

It was five days into their two-week family cruise around the Mediterranean. A delayed honeymoon, they’d called it. Kimberly had been pregnant with Lily when they’d got married last year. Between chronic morning sickness and taking care of her then eighteen-month-old son Robert, now Jason’s stepson, they’d decided to wait.

Today had been a sea day, a chance to relax by the pool and recharge their batteries, before they arrived in the Spanish port of Barcelona the following morning. Kimberly fidgeted on her sun lounger, keeping her attention on her family. She grabbed a scrunchie and pulled her blonde, shoulder-length hair into a ponytail. Her eyes darted to each child, back and forth. Lily was now six months old, wearing bright orange armbands and giggling as she tried to escape her father’s hold. With her light-brown hair pulled into two tiny bunches on top of her head, Lily was undoubtedly adorable. Quick to smile, their daughter was a big hit with the eight hundred passengers on board the Carousel.

Kimberly turned her attention to Robert, who was two and a half years old, and slight for his age. He’d progressed to a floating ring round his tummy, which had cute dolphins etched on it. His face was scrunched in determination as he tried to swim from one side of the pool to the other. He’d do it too, Kimberly knew. He kicked his legs furiously behind him, but in doing so water splashed over Lily’s face, and she squealed in protest.

‘Hey!’ Jason snapped to Robert, pulling Lily closer to him protectively and wiping her eyes gently with his hand. ‘Watch what you’re doing, buddy. Your little sister is only a baby.’

Kimberly pulled her Wayfarer mirror sunglasses off in irritation. She moved to the pool’s edge and swung her legs into the shallow water.

‘He’s playing. Please remember that he’s only a wee baby too,’ Kimberly hissed to Jason. She waded closer to Robert and then said to her little boy in a softer tone, ‘It’s okay, little lamb. Daddy didn’t mean to shout.’

Robert looked at his stepfather from under his dark eyelashes, his bottom lip trembling. ‘It was a abbident.’

Kimberly sighed as she pulled him in for a reassuring hug. ‘Of course it was. You didn’t do anything wrong.’

‘I don’t think I shouted,’ Jason said, looking from his wife to his stepson, confusion clouding his eyes.

‘People are watching; must you make a scene?’ Kimberly hissed, feeling the stare of an older couple seated close by, taking it all in. Her breath quickened, and despite the vast ocean around them she felt claustrophobic. ‘I’m going back to the cabin with the children.’

Kimberly scooped up both kids with ease, wrapping them in fluffy blue-and-white towels. Jason joined them, pulling a towel round his waist. He lifted Lily into his arms to dry her off.

Why couldn’t he have picked up Robert to let the boy know that he wasn’t cross with him, that the moment was already forgotten?