Chapter Twenty-three
Fire.
Flames leapt so close. Emma flinched but didn’t dare move. Didn’t dare run. She was entirely surrounded. The inferno was closing in from all directions. Shadows moved just beyond reach. Just beyond sight.
“Emma!” Marianne sounded terrified. “Emma!” She’d been calling to her without stopping.
Emma couldn’t reach her. She couldn’t help her.
And Ivy hadn’t said anything. Not a word. Not a whimper. Not a cry.
Emma tried shouting for her sister, but she had no voice.
The flames were getting closer. No escape. No way out.
Closer. Hotter.
Terror gripped her, tearing at her mercilessly.
“Emma!” Marianne’s voice rang with fear. “Emma!”
She spun. Looking. Searching. More shadows. More flames.
“Emma.” The voice was soft, gentle. And not Marianne. “Emma.”
She opened her eyes. The wall of flame was gone. And Finbarr was there.
“You were having one of your nightmares.”
Emma blinked a few times. She was lying on the bench in Finbarr’s parlor. He was kneeling on the floor, facing her.
She rubbed at her face and forced herself to breathe. Her heart wouldn’t calm down for a few minutes; she knew that from experience. She sat up, the blanket on her shoulders slipping. Finbarr pulled it up over her shoulders again as he stood and crossed to his chair.
“I hadn’t meant to fall asleep,” she said. “I ought to be helping Papa.”
“He is sleeping on the bed next to Eimear, who’s sleeping as well.” Finbarr took up a piece of wood and a small whittling knife, then leaned forward onto the side table he had placed in front of him.
“You don’t think I woke them, do you?”
He shook his head. “You weren’t loud.”
“How did you know I was having a nightmare?”
“You said they happen every night, so I stayed nearby.”
He ran his thumb over the edge of his carving, then flicked his knife over the spot he’d just felt.
His fingers quickly explored a large section of the piece of wood, then he slid his knife over it once more.
Again and again, he repeated the pattern, slightly adjusting his knife with each flick.
The wood shavings dropped onto the table.
There was light enough from the fire for her to see him, but she was certain it wasn’t enough for Finbarr to see anything at all. He was whittling by feel alone.
Remarkable.
“Papa said that Eimear might lose her sight,” Emma said.
His whittling paused. “I hadn’t heard that. Has Eimear been told?”
“I don’t know.” She slipped off the bench and sat on the floor by Madra. The sweet dog laid her head on Emma’s lap, offering comfort and calm. “What helped you most?”
“When I lost my sight?”
“Yes. What was—or what would have been helpful?”
“Cecily,” he said firmly. “She was exactly the miracle I needed.”
“Eimear would have her.” There was reassurance in that. “And she would have you.” That set Emma’s heart more at ease than anything else. “Eimear loves and trusts you so much. That would help her be a little less frightened.”
Finbarr grew very still. “If I go to St Louis, I won’t be here.”
With that, she froze as well. He’d talked about St. Louis, but she hadn’t realized he was so firmly decided. “Have you decided to accept the job?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I’m considering it.”
“The school would be fortunate to have you.” Emma wanted to be supportive, but the thought of him not being here, of likely not ever seeing him again was breaking her heart further.
“And it would be good to be somewhere I belong,” he said.
“You don’t think you belong here?”
“Of all people, I think you know how different Hope Springs has felt since the fire.”
“I also know that running from those changes didn’t heal the wounds they caused.”
He set his whittling down. “I wouldn’t be running from anything. I’d be moving forward.”
“By moving away?”
“Moving away brought you some peace,” he said. “You had a refuge from it all.”
“A refuge isn’t the same as a home.”
He started whittling again, but his expression remained pensive.
Emma returned to the bench. She wasn’t ready to sleep again and face the nightmares that would return.
But she sat, blanket pulled around herself again, and watched him.
If he was going to run—and she understood that urge and that need—she wanted him to understand what he was doing.
“This town and all that it asks of us here is overwhelming; I know that. But Hope Springs offers things we can’t find anywhere else. Connection. And family. I’ve lived without that for five years, Finbarr. And, returning after being gone so long, it feels entirely out of reach for me now.”
“Even knowing that, you are going back to Baltimore. You can’t argue that the exchange isn’t worth making when you are knowingly choosing it again.”
“Staying would mean nightmares for the rest of my life. It would mean painfully panicking at the sight of my papa’s barn.
It would mean passing the graveyard and all the pain that causes.
Memories and agony and more misery than I know how to endure.
But leaving would mean losing my family.
My connection to them is so fragile; I think it will break entirely when I leave again. But I think I might break if I stay.”
“That sounds like an impossible choice, Emma.”
“So does yours,” she said. “I’m only asking that you not make it lightly.”
“If I will consider staying,” he asked, “will you do the same? At least a little longer?”
“Two days of heavy snowfall means it will likely be a couple of weeks before leaving is even possible,” she said. “For those two weeks, let’s you and I move forward as if we’re both staying in Hope Springs. We can see if it’s endurable. We can see if it makes sense.”
Telling herself she was staying would likely make the anxiety and moments of panic more intense.
Her nightmares would, she didn’t doubt, be harsher and harder to endure.
But if it meant Finbarr would consider staying here where he was so loved, where he was surrounded by family, then it would be a trade-off worth making.