Page 22 of Tempest at Annabel's Lighthouse
Niina shook her head. “You need to eat something.”
“I just had bread.”
“You need meat. You need sustenance.” Niina hustled past Rebecca, who took the liberty to lie against the arm of the sofa. The idea of food made her stomach roil both in hunger and disgust. It was a strange feeling, and Rebecca swallowed against the bile that rose in her throat.
Niina hurried back into the room, a piece of jerky wrapped in a cloth napkin. “Chew on this while I heat up some stew.”
“No.” Rebecca pushed Niina’s hand away, then realized how rude she’d sounded. “Please. I-I don’t think I can eat right now.”
“You won’t think you can eat for a long time, but you must.”
Rebecca furrowed her brow. Sleep. Yes. Sleep would be good, and then when she woke, hunger could be satiated and her recollections explored. She ignored the jerky that Niina held and managed to sit up. “I believe I will go lie down.”
Niina set the jerky on an end table and reached to assist Rebecca as she pushed off the sofa. “I will help you.”
Rebecca hated to be such a bother. “I’ll be fine. Is it all right if I used Kjersti’s room?”
“Of course it is.” Niina ignored Rebecca’s protestations and gripped her elbow gently. “I will tuck you in.”
Rebecca experienced a familiar and yet strange pang of longing. Something stung her heart with Niina’s actions. Her mother would have done as Niina did. Had she a mother? The ache in her chest told her she either had one whom she was desperately homesick for and did not remember, or she had no mother, and the ache came from the empty chasm created when there was no one left to fill it.
She stumbled as another wave of dizziness washed over her.
“You are not fine,raksu, my dear. Come.”
This time, Rebecca leaned more heavily on Niina, and it wasn’t until she felt the soft mattress beneath her exhausted body that she noticed the room slow its spinning.
Niina pulled the sheet and quilt up, tucking it gently around Rebecca. “You sleep for as long as you need to. If you awaken and it’s dark and I’m no longer here, you go right back to sleep. I will leave instructions for Abel to feed you in the morning. I will leave plenty of food. You need nourishment as soon as you’re able to hold it down.”
“I’ll be fine,” Rebecca mumbled again as she turned her face into the pillow, wondering why she had fought against giving in to resting when Niina had suggested it earlier.
Niina’s next words washed over her as sleep claimed Rebecca. Enough to jolt her eyes wide open before sheer exhaustion forced them closed again, trouble to be faced only when she awakened.
“Sleep now,raksu. For you and for the babe within you.”
Her hair was brushed away from her face, tenderly, with the cool touch of a feminine hand. Rebecca breathed deeply, embracing the overwhelming peace of being watched over. Being nurtured and cared for.
“Be still.” The words passed over her skin on breath that brushed like a feather. “Shhh...”
Rebecca drank in the solace, and then she allowed her eyes to open, slowly at first, to take in the room. She was in the attic. The ceiling was directly over her, within arm’s reach as it angled over her head. She was curled beneath a quilt, her head resting on a pillow, the scent of lavender mingling in the sheets and on the air.
At the end of the bed, Rebecca saw her. The woman. She sat with her back to Rebecca, and her hair, long and white-blond, hung down her back unbound. Her form was thin, her shoulders clothed in a simple white blouse.
Rebecca could see the woman’s profile, but nothing more. Just a small, straight nose, long eyelashes against the of ivory skin of a high cheekbone. The woman spoke, her words breathy and almost difficult for Rebecca to hear.
“It is all a mystery,” she said, and echoed the words in Rebecca’s soul. “Who are you, you ask? Who and why and where does the heartbeat merge with the mind and make sense? What are memories if they are only to be lost, and what is the lost unless it has potential to once again be found?”
Rebecca frowned, curling her fingers into the bedcovers and pulling them tighter around her. An uneasy feeling needled at her. At the same time, she wanted to sit up and address the woman.
The woman sat as if frozen there, as if waiting for Rebecca to respond. Rebecca swallowed, wishing in a way that she hadn’t opened her eyes. So she closed them. She hoped that she would feel the comforting hand once again, its cool touch against her skin. The tender ministrations of someone who cared only that Rebecca find peace.
Then it returned as the hand adjusted the bedcovers, tucking them in gently around Rebecca’s neck.
“Shhh,” she said.
Rebecca opened her eyes, forming a grateful smile. This time, dark hair framed the woman’s face. A young face, not mucholder than Rebecca’s twenty years. A curl teased at her temple. Blue eyes, so blue they were almost white, smiled back at her. Rosy lips curved upward in a relieved and playful smile.
“You’re all right. You’re safe.”
