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Caleb shook his head.
“Didn’t think so. I’ll be ready in ten minutes.” He glanced at the window, shook his head. “Nope, you’d have never made it out there on a snowmobile. Never.”
* * *
“I wanted to do this in the hospital! I wanted a freaking epidural!” Maya’s voice carried all through the house. But as the contraction eased and she relaxed back on the pillows, her focus changed again. “How long has it been?”
“Only an hour,” Vidalia said.
“Mom, you gotta go after Mel. Dammit, if I could, I’d go myself.”
“Mel’s the toughest of any of us,” Vidalia said. She couldn’t hide her fear from Maya, though, or from anyone else. It showed on her face. She was terrified for Melusine.
“Let me go. Mom, she’s right. We have to get to Mel,” Kara said.
“I can do it,” Selene put in. “You have to let one of us try, Mom.”
Vidalia looked again at the window. “Just give her a few more minutes. I don’t want to risk either of you getting lost out there.” She wiped the sweat from Maya’s brow with a soft cloth.
Kara had brought up the small portable kerosene burning heater from the basement, and it was almost too warm in the small bedroom now. Or maybe it only seemed that way to Maya.
She clasped her mother’s hand. “You have to let one of them go, Mom. Mel might be in trouble.”
“Maya—”
“Listen…oh, hell….” The pain was coming again, she clenched her jaw and her fists, and spoke through the pain. “Tie a rope…to the porch rail. Tie…the other end…around her waist.”
Vidalia nodded hard. “Do your breathing, Maya. Come on, breathe through it.”
She panted out the breaths as she’d been taught, while her mother joined her. When it passed, Vidalia stroked her hair. “Good girl, you’re doing fine, honey.” Then she turned. “Your sister’s right. Kara, I want you to get the rope from the hall closet. Tie one end around your waist and the other to the porch rail. Go out as far as you can reach and see if there’s any sign of Mel. Bundle yourself, girl. Cover every bit of skin, take the flashlight and don’t linger. You get out there, and if you don’t see her, you get right back in.”
“Why not me?” Selene demanded.
“Because you’re younger and you’re smaller. The wind would whip you around like a dandelion seed. I want you to stay on this end, every bit as bundled as Kara. You keep watch that the rope doesn’t come loose. And don’t you even think of leaving that porch, you understand me?”
Selene scowled, but nodded. She moved to the head of the bed and leaned over to kiss Maya’s cheek. “Be okay, hon. I won’t be long.”
“Hey, I’ve got your childbirth herbs in my pillowcase, your protection incense burning and your power stone being crushed to dust in my fist, sis. What could go wrong?”
Kara came to the other side. “Will you two be okay without us?” she asked.
“Mom’s done this a few times, don’t forget,” Maya said breathlessly. “Go on, bring Mel back.”
Kara nodded, and she and Selene hurried out of the room.
Another pain hit, and Maya’s head came off the pillow at the intensity of it “Is it supposed to hurt this much?” she growled.
“Breathe, baby. That’s it. You trust me, when we ask you about this later, you’re gonna tell us it was nothing at all. This part leaves your mind like it never happened.”
Panting through clenched teeth, Maya said, “That’s bull.”
“If it were bull, darlin’, you’d be an only child.” Vidalia smiled gently at her. “In fact, I think everyone would be. Well, everyone except for twins and triplets and such special little angels as those.”
The pain ebbed. Maya stopped panting, blew a sigh, dropped her head to the pillows once more. “Can you see out the window, Mom?”
“It’s damn near black as pitch,” Vidalia said, but she went to the window all the same and stood looking out “Well now, wait a minute…what in the world?”
“What is it?” Maya twisted her head to try to see, but couldn’t.
