Fate Forgotten (40 page)

“Abby.” He caught her by the hand, pulling her back to face him. “I’m not the only one worrying about you.
Maman
and
Papa
are too.”

She stroked his cheek. “You can reassure them that I’m fine. This happens sometimes, that’s all. So many things floating around in my head. It makes it hard to sleep.”

“Are you certain that’s all?” He was looking at her with worry and love, and it made her feel worse for the things that kept her up at night. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Not unless you can keep me from dreaming.” Explaining what bothered her was hardly going to be helpful to anyone. And talking about it was only going to make her more aware. The last thing she needed was help thinking of Thorgrim.

Horus joined them for breakfast then, taking one of the croissants and sitting down. “My compliments to the chef. These breads you make are amazing, Abby. Fit for the gods.”

She smiled, grateful for the interruption. “
Merci.
”

It had been a week since Lars had gone, but Horus seemed in no hurry to follow. Nor did Garrit seem anxious to see him go. Her husband had relaxed significantly after Lars’s departure, and his manners had improved with every day the man stayed gone. Even more reason not to talk about it.

“Perhaps if you went running?” Garrit suggested.

She sighed and went back to the kitchen to pull the popovers from the oven. The cook Garrit had hired watched her with a mix of respect and irritation. Eve couldn’t blame him. She hated having him in her kitchen as much as he disliked her presence there. Perhaps more. She’d never been comfortable with having a staff or servants.

She left him some of the popovers. “They’re only good when they’re warm.”

He grunted, mumbling a grudging thanks. She saw him pick one up just as she left, and the door swung shut behind her.

“For what ails her there is no simple fix, Garrit.” Horus was saying. “With so much on her mind, and the recent trauma, it’s only natural she would have a difficult time sleeping. If she says it’s normal, I think we must trust that she knows better than anyone else.”

“Talking about me?” She smiled and offered Horus a popover. She still couldn’t find it in her to be at all offended by him. Though she did feel a certain amount of irritation toward Garrit for bringing it up with the man. It wasn’t anyone’s business but her own how much she slept or didn’t sleep. “I’m fine, really. I’ve never needed much sleep unless I was pregnant. And even then, sleep is less important than food.”

“I do not doubt you,
madame.
” Horus picked one of the popovers and inserted a pad of butter inside to melt. “These smell incredible. Should I ask where you learned to bake like this? No, I can see by your face I shouldn’t. Let me just say that I know of people who would give their left arm to be able to make a pastry like yours. Why weren’t you exercising this considerable talent before now?”

She laughed. “When I was pregnant with Alex, Garrit wouldn’t hear of my lifting a finger to cook or clean. I’m afraid the effects are still lingering.”

Garrit snorted. “You had more important things to focus on, like gestating and worrying about your brother. Why should you bother yourself with chores if you don’t have to?”

“Because it’s fun, that’s why. Relaxing even.” Maybe she would ask him for a loom someday. Weaving had always done a good job of keeping her mind off things. The simple, repetitive motions of twisting threads over, under, and through, could be mesmerizing. On second thought, maybe weaving wasn’t the answer for what ailed her either. It would make her drowsy.

She made herself a cup of coffee quietly, and sat down at the table. Even thinking the word drowsy made her tired. Horus noticed the way she wilted, even if Garrit didn’t, and he raised one eyebrow but said nothing. Why did he always look as though he knew what she was thinking? Surely she’d found her center by now and wasn’t leaking her thoughts anymore. She had felt much more in control, even exhausted as she was, and the echoes of pain she’d been experiencing from Adam were gone, her bruises healed.

“Cook and bake as much as you like, Abby, but as long as my parents are staying with us, and the family visits so frequently, the cook isn’t going anywhere.”

She couldn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes, and Horus laughed. Then Juliette arrived with Alex and René.

“You must have been up before dawn to do all this, Abby.”

Eve sighed internally, resigning herself to a difficult day of being encouraged to nap. She took Alex from Juliette’s arms and settled him into his seat. This was probably going to be the most time she’d have to spend with her son today. Garrit and Juliette were exchanging looks that were far too familiar. Conspiratorial. No doubt there would be some fieldtrip for Alex at Juliette’s insistence, so that she could stay home and rest without the distraction of checking on her child. She counted the seconds in her head, and tried to find it amusing that the two of them could exchange so much information without the benefit of telepathy.

“I was thinking it would be fun to take Alex to the zoo,” Juliette said, before Eve had made it to fifteen.

“Isn’t it a bit cold for the zoo?” Eve glanced at Garrit who had invested himself in his newspaper again. As if he weren’t listening. “I’d hate for him to catch a chill.”

“
Certainement pas.
It’s supposed to be quite sunny today. And Alex has all these winter clothes he never uses. I won’t let anything happen to him, Abby, you know that.”

Alex played with his cereal, and Eve sighed again, watching him, and deftly inserting a spoonful of applesauce into his mouth between bites. “I don’t think you’ll see much of the animals.”

“Not as many as we would with you,
peut-être
, but he is so young it would be a lot to take in. This might be a good introduction.” Juliette had an answer for everything. Eve wondered if she even cared that Garrit didn’t participate in the persuasion. Maybe she saw it as some kind of challenge. “The two of you hardly get any time alone together these days when you aren’t sick in bed, Abby. Go out together. See a film.”

Ah. That was new. “Don’t you have to work, Garrit?”

He looked up from the paper, searching her face, his expression odd. “It’s Saturday, Abby.”

“Oh.” She should have known that. Losing track of the day of the week wasn’t going to help her argument for not needing sleep. “Of course.”

They were all looking at her with pity now. And growing concern. Even Horus. She fed Alex mechanically and tried to pretend she didn’t notice. Maybe she should have ensured they didn’t realize she wasn’t sleeping, but she hated using her power that way. Hated it even more with Adam present in her life. He would notice she’d done it, and the last thing she wanted was to give him ideas or make him think she thought it was acceptable. Make him think he could do it to her family.

“I promise you, I’m fine,” she said, meeting Garrit’s eyes. “I don’t see why you worry so much. It isn’t as though I’m going to fall sick.”

Horus was staring at her. His eyes narrowed slightly. As though he were trying to see more than what was on the surface. She ignored it. Her stomach cramped. Probably from the stress of all of this interrogation.

“
Maman,
I think a trip to the zoo for Alex would be an excellent idea,” he said. “He’s about finished with his breakfast.”

Juliette didn’t wait for Eve to agree. She smiled and scooped Alex back up, kissing the baby’s cheek and murmuring to him about the animals he would see as she left the room. With a nod from Garrit, René left as well. And then it was only Horus who remained. He hesitated for the briefest of moments, as though there was something he wanted to say, but then he looked at Garrit, shook his head, and excused himself as well.

Garrit waited until the room had emptied, and Eve found herself feeling like a child about to be chastised. It was entirely unacceptable. Didn’t he understand that she was doing this for him? For their marriage? For Alex? For her family?

No. Of course not. Because she hadn’t told him. But how was she going to explain without making him think she wasn’t happy? Lars’s words came to her again. Garrit worried he wasn’t the better man. That Lars had been who she was meant for. But she hadn’t even known him, and it didn’t matter, either way. She had married Garrit. Nothing could change that.

“I wish you would tell me what’s bothering you,” Garrit began softly. “You lie awake for hours at night, staring at the ceiling, trying not to sleep. You’ve never been this way before, and I’m not sure how to reach you, how to get you to talk to me.”

She looked away, brushing the crumbs from the tablecloth into a neat pile. “It’s what I have to do.”

“Why?”

She shook her head. “The past sneaks up on me, sometimes. Overwhelms me. When things happen the same way, or something reminds me forcefully of another life. And then I dream. Of Creation, of Adam, of my lives as a Greek. Of my life with Ryam. The bad and the good.” As much as she hated the secrets he kept from her. The secrets she knew he was keeping, she hated her own secrets more. It was good that Lars had left. That she didn’t stare at him and think of Thorgrim.

“Was it Lars?” His voice was flat. As though he were trying to keep it level. Trying not to show how much he cared. But it just seemed strained, somehow. Or maybe that was how he felt. “He reminded you of that other life. Of your other husband.”

She closed her eyes. She wasn’t sure if it was the memories of Thorgrim from their life together that disturbed her anymore, as much as it was the memories of her hallucinations of him. And the way his presence had brought that whole experience back to mind. An experience she had tried diligently to suppress. To bury. She had no wish to dream of the ward, or the years that had followed.

“He kissed me,” she said, finally. Because she didn’t want to explain about that life or how difficult it had been. She didn’t want to see the horror in his eyes when she recounted it. “I didn’t want you to be upset by it. But it resurrected all these things I didn’t want to remember, and not sleeping seems to be the only way to avoid thinking of it.”

Garrit’s face darkened. Blackened. “When?”

There was so much anger, she flinched away. “After that first dinner. When I was well enough to eat. Before my brother chose to give me a second dose of his pain.”

His hand had balled into a fist around his napkin. His knuckles white. “Do you love him?”

She stared at him. The question was ludicrous. Even hurtful. But hadn’t Adam suggested the same thing? What was it about Lars that scared them so much? “I don’t even know him, Garrit. How could I love him?”

“Because he’s a weaseling, deceitful,
conspirateur
!” he growled. “As bad as your brother. Perhaps even worse!”

“Garrit. Don’t be ridiculous.” But she wasn’t sure what was ridiculous about the statement. At least Adam hadn’t kissed her or touched her when he knew she was engaged, and then married. She was tired. She didn’t want to have this fight. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over. He’s gone.”

“He’s never gone,” Garrit said. He shook his head, and threw his napkin from him, standing up. “And I never should have let him come back here. Never should have let him near you.”

She rubbed her face. Her eyes itched. The coffee hadn’t been strong enough. Or maybe she hadn’t had enough to eat. Or too much to eat, when she had been half starved? She felt sick. Her stomach was cramping. Not her stomach. Her abdomen.

“No,” she said softly, recognizing the pain. She counted the days in her head. With all the stress she had assumed—but then the stress could have done it on its own, coupled with her complete lack of sleep. And the fact that she’d been hardly eating. With the trauma of Adam’s pain, and her own. “Not again.”

Garrit looked at her, then looked again, and swore. “Horus!”

Another cramp made her double over in pain, and she groaned. “I’m sorry, Garrit. I didn’t know. I didn’t realize.”

He was crouched beside her, his hands on her face, on her arm. “What’s wrong?
Qu’est-ce qui ne va pas?
”

She felt the tears burning behind her eyes, and couldn’t stop them. “I was pregnant.”

Chapter Thirty-nine: Future

When Adam woke, the bed was empty. The pillow beside him no longer held even the impression of her head, and the linens had lost every last molecule of her warmth. “Evey?” There was an emptiness about the flat, and he knew even before he called for her that she wasn’t there. Still, he felt compelled to speak, to fill the quiet with something. “Hello?”

He wandered into the kitchen. Coffee would help clear his head. Was it possible that it wasn’t a dream? Eve would never have forced him, never have orchestrated something like that. Would she? But his body knew, even while his mind tried to deny it, and he wouldn’t have been parading naked around his home if she hadn’t stripped him of his clothes earlier that morning.

There was a note under a wine bottle. A scrap of paper, really. He wondered where she had found it, because he didn’t think he had any paper anything anymore. Everything was digital, intangible and without substance. He hated it.