Page 62

“Twas Young Magnus’s voice? How dost ye do that?”

“It was, it’s called a two-way radio. I can hear him, and he can hear me though we are very far apart. It’s kind of like how when you cup your hands around your mouth to yell louder? Like that.”

“And twas tae say ye love each other?”

I nodded. Then I added, “So he would know.”

“I think he kens, ye are his wife.”

I smiled. “In the New World, where I’m from, we like to remind each other.”

Lizbeth shook her head. “Sounds like a terrible idea tae me, just when ye have some peace and quiet the thing reminds ye tae think on your husband again.”

I laughed. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. I suppose we’re used to it so we don’t mind.”

“How would ye be used tae it, a voice with nae body ringing around the room? Tellin’ ye he loves ye, of course he loves ye, he is your husband!” She huffed and put her hands in her lap, on her rounded tummy. Then the corner of her mouth turned up a bit. “Twas verra sweet though, Young Magnus often speaks tae ye like this?”

I said, “Yes. Always. Whenever he can.”

“He is a good boy. I am verra pleased with how he turned out. Sean though...” She sighed and another contraction came on right then.

It had been three hours. The night was fully black. We hadn’t heard from the men except for the occasional chirp that meant Magnus was okay but not able to talk right now. I didn’t answer it because I didn’t want to blow his cover, but I really wished I could just push the button and say hi.

And tell him that I might be in over my head.

To tell him that the midwife hadn’t come because the drones scared her away.

That Lizbeth was groaning and the drones were buzzing outside, hovering over our house, and now they had lights shining outside, and scaring the ‘ever loving shit,’ as my grandma liked to say, out of me.

Madame Greer buzzed in and out of the room. She hadn’t had children of her own, choosing instead to overly mother the entire village, and seemed at a loss what to do, possibly for the first time in her life.

My hands shook with fear.

I used a flashlight and reread the passages on first stages of labor. I set up a camping lantern by the bed. Madame Greer wasn’t surprised by anything I might have in my possession, there were drones outside after all, so she took it all in stride. Especially when she saw me pray again.

I literally couldn’t think of what else to do.

I asked Lizbeth, “Is this how it usually goes?”

She moaned through a contraction. “Aye, Kaitlyn, tis the way of it.”

“Okay, I’ll keep asking this. I just — I don’t know, so I’ll keep checking in on it. But don’t worry. I know what to do. If it comes to it.”

My hands shook. I begged God, the universe, and anyone else who might be listening for help. I really really thought there should be someone else here.

I spread out the first aid kit on a clean towel.

I put my wedding ring in a box for safe keeping and washed my hands in boiled water for the fifteenth time.

35 - MAGNUS

We rushed out into the open courtyard of the dark castle and my eyes adjusted tae see Sean, crouched on top of a pile of rubble, sword in hand, near the broken-down front wall of the castle. He glowed in the headlight of one of the vehicles sitting in the middle of the rubble. I made a quick count, five. Lined up against the wall.

Quentin said, “Before I left I dismantled the ignitions. I guess they haven’t figured out how to fix them yet.”

I had tae project my voice across the way. “Brother, how have ye been?”

Sean glared. “I have been better, Young Magnus. Before ye came and destroyed our home, our family.”