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“How are you here?” I wondered.
I—the other me—smiled with amusement, affection, and mischief lingering in my—her—eyes. “You didn’t bring me?” my copy countered.
“No.” Then I frowned. Had I brought her here? “I don’t think so. Maybe, but I’ve only ever been alone when I’ve come here in my dreams. To seek peace,” I explained.
The woman in white brightened. “I must bring you peace, then?”
I snorted, though I completely agreed. “You also bring me plenty of aggravation and headaches, my lady. I’ll probably go silver-headed before my thirtieth year because of you.”
She laughed and cupped my face. “And you’ll love every minute of it.”
“Aye,” I murmured, soaking closer. “I will.”
Before I could press my mouth to hers, however, she paused and looked up at me. “Farrow?” she said.
Realizing I was Farrow, I inclined my head. “Princess?”
Her eyes swirled with softness. “I wish to know you.”
“What do you want to know?” I asked, willing to give her anything.
“Everything,” she said. “Show me everything.”
For some reason, I wanted her to see just that. I wanted her to know.
Taking her hand, I nodded. “Come.”
When I turned to lead her into my—er, Farrow’s—story, we were no longer in the meadow. The me in white was gone. But I was still there, inside Farrow, seeing through his eyes and hearing through his ears.
Now, we stood in a bedroom. Red and gold velvet sheets draped the walls. Candles burned, displaying a woman on the bed, screaming out her agony. Two others assisted her, crouched around her bent knees, one holding her hand, their fingers slippery with blood, while the other knelt between her legs.
“Not much longer now,” the midwife delivering the baby crooned. “Almost there, dear. One more push.”
The panting woman thrashed her head. “No. I—I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. You will. Now, bear down. It’s almost over.”
The young mother eyed the midwife as if she’d lost her mind, even as she gritted her teeth and strained.
I could tell the moment she gave birth. Her relief in evacuating the child was so massive that she collapsed onto the bed, panting and sobbing prayers of thanksgiving.
When no cry of new life followed, I winced. That made the fourth lost during childbirth this year. Last time, it’d been the mother—not the infant—who’d died, but no one had been able to nourish the babe, so it had perished as well within a week.
“My baby?” the woman finally lifted her face to hoarsely rasp.
“Dead,” came the pitiless answer.
The mother began to weep, quiet heartfelt sobs.
One midwife wrapped the still, bloody child in a cloth and called, “Boy!”
I scrambled forward, ready to assist. “Ma’am?”
She shoved the bundle into my surprised arms. “Get rid of this,” she instructed. “The chit can’t take the distress of seeing it any longer.”
I gulped uneasily, blinking down at the lump. Blood seeped throug
h the cloth. But I said, “Y-yes, ma’am,” and hurried from the room. I darted down the hall toward the stairs, but another voice stalled me.
