Page 78 of Flanders' Folly
"Well met, Bella," he said.
She straightened. "Leesborn."
"How is she?"
"Sleeping." She gestured to a small device on a table between the two chairs. "Wickham says this will tell us when she wakes. I cannot fathom how."
Flanders sat in the empty chair and studied the device, resisting the urge to pick it up. There was a tail attached, but without a face, it couldn't be a living thing. "What is it?"
"He called it a 'baby monitor.' It lets us hear her if she stirs, even with the door closed." She looked him over in turn. "Ye look...different. Clean."
"As do ye." He studied her, noting the differences. Bella's hair was shorter, her face a touch thinner than her sister’s. Her eyes held the same intelligence, but with a sharper edge. "How long does it seem ye have been here? Wickham said time passes differently…I didn't understand it, but…" He shrugged.
"Three days. The second day, he brought Brigid, and the third, you." She ran a hand over the chair's arm. "The beds are as soft as these chairs. In fact, I've seen nothing the same as…back home. No more board and trestle. The table we eat at gleams like the floors. Time has changed everything but for some of the plants I found in the garden. We're like babes here."
"But we're alive. And we're…the two of ye are back together."
She nodded. "I ken ye think ye love her?—"
"I only think it?"
She sighed. "Ye've known her days. I've known her since before my first breath."
"And ye worry I'll come between ye."
"Ye already have." Her eyes grew wet. "In her pain, it wasn't my name she called out."
"Auch, Bella. One day, ye'll call out yerself. And ye won't be callin' for yer sister."
She looked doubtful.
He tried again to make peace. "How ye feel about me matters not at all. What matters is that we both love her. And we both want her well. Let us cry pax until then."
Bella looked away, but nodded.
"We must be friends," he said. "How else will we survive these next days? We're the only ones who speak our language!"
She laughed, then they let silence settle around them, both staring from the door to the white box, listening for Brigid's breathing, begging for any noise at all.
39
SUCH SORCERY
* * *
An elderly servant woman in loose blue hose and a tunic not long enough for a child, brought a tray of food—strange meats and cheeses, bread softer than anything Flanders had ever put between his lips, and bright fruits he couldn’t name but happily devoured. He and Bella shared the meal in silence, both too exhausted for conversation.
When they finished, Bella rose from her chair and stretched. "I should rest," she said. "I have a bedchamber just down the hall and around the corner."
"Go," Flanders told her. "I'll keep watch."
"Ye'll wake me if she needs me?" Bella's eyes were red-rimmed, her face drawn from worry.
"Aye. Ye have my word."
She hesitated, then nodded. "Thank ye, Leesborn."
Flanders settled deeper into his chair. A small red eye on the corner of the white box continued to watch him, unblinking. It unnerved him, but he wouldn't abandon his post. Not for all the gold in Christendom.
