Winter Rose Read Online Free PDF Page B

She pulled me to her bedside and made me take the herbs from the shelf. Made me find the blue glass in the rows of bottles.
    In case.
    I resent her a little for making me be the one to keep the knowledge. I can see by Becca’s face Mamma never told her the way to be sure.
    I shouldn’t always have to be the strong one.
    “No, Rose. I won’t ever—how can you even think…?” She stands, the chair legs scraping at the floor. “I’m going—I’m gonna have this child. A baby. You won’t kill it. You won’t come near it.”
    She’s shaking but I see the determination in her eyes, I see the decision is already made. She means every word.
    She’s going to let them haunt me. Always chasing after me. And what about the baby? Will it be a boy, too? Will it grow into his father and tear at the purity of this world like a demon that clawed its way out of Hell?
    Or will it be a girl?
    A girl, like Becca.
    Like me.
    My throat goes tight with the thought. “Rebecca, this baby’s born from sin! It carries the blood of those beasts that tormented us! How can you curse it to live? How?” I get louder in volume and pitch ‘til I’m almost screaming. “You’re being selfish. You’re only thinking about yourself, you’re not thinking of the baby at all. Of how this life will make her feel, how it’ll hurt her. You can’t let it happen again. If you really cared about her, you’d let her leave this world before she feels the eternal death of it!”
    The blackness comes closer and closer. Smothering me. Hunt’s shadow, a curse over me, over my life, making me want to stop breathing just to keep from feeling it. And now it’ll start all over again, another girl born to be corrupted and hardened by this horror.
    The thought of her, this tiny babe, all sweet cream and innocence, sends me over the edge of a cliff.
    I release a sob and break into a thousand pieces, crumbling into a heap on the floor, trying to find air past the knife in my chest. I shake and gasp and crack and lose myself in all the black, until I feel like my body might fade to dust from all the torment inside me.
    I pray that it does.
    Becca kneels beside me and takes me in her arms, comforting me, soothing me with her words, something I never do for her. “It’s all right,” she says. She kisses my forehead and brushes back my hair from my face with her bone fingers. “You have to let it go, Rose. Just let go.”
    I’m not sure how long we sit there. My face, my neck, my hair, everything is damp with my tears. But I can’t move. I can’t seem to see past the fracture in my heart.
    I don’t hear Luke come in, but I feel his arms around me as he helps Becca lift me off the floor. I don’t fight him as he gathers me onto my pallet and nestles beside me—I can’t. I let him hold me like a child, hold me like Mamma used to when I had a nightmare. And I watch as Hunt’s ghost fades into mist and sinks away, as the darkness slips back into the shadows.
    I cling to Luke’s chest like it’s all that’s keeping me held to earth. He’s warmth and strength. He’s the rock in my storm. He pushes back the shadows and for the first time since I can remember I feel safe.

PART FOUR
     
     
     
     
     
     
    I awake, emerging from sleep slowly. I didn’t have a nightmare. There was no blood in the night. Is this what peace is like?
    And then I feel him, arms surrounding me, strong and unyielding. His breath fans my cheek. His steady pulse moves against my palm.
    I stiffen and look up at his sleeping face, my own heartbeat quickening at his closeness. 
    He smells like pines and earth, and some distant scent all his own.
    My fear turns me to stone.
    Fear he might touch me. Fear that he won’t.
    His eyes open and he greets me with a smile. “You’re awake,” he whispers. “You okay?” He rubs my shoulder gently, one human comforting another, but to me his hands are made of fire.
    He must notice I’m trembling. His smile fades, and he says, “I’d