"Does it hurt?" she asks, gently dabbing antibiotic ointment onto the skin around his wound with her fingertip.
Thankfully, the arrow only grazed him, but it was still deep enough to leave the skin raw and bruised around the stitches.
"A bit," he says.
She looks up, only to find him already watching her.
As she reaches for a fresh piece of sterile gauze, a small smile curls her lips.
She carefully wraps the gauze around his arm, her voice threaded with awe and a hint of melancholy as she says,
"Remember back then... how you'd always come to me sick or injured?"
"That's just me," he murmurs. "Waiting for you to love me back."
"I loved you then." She places the ointment and the pack of gauze into the first aid kit.
"I love you now," she says, folding the used gauze inward before slipping it into a paper medical waste bag. "So try not to get hurt."
He gently takes her chin, his warm breath brushing her lips. "Can't promise you that."
"Then get away." She playfully shoves him off by the chest.
A low laugh escapes him when she feels a faint ripple deep in her abdomen, like a little fish gliding through water.
"What is it?" he asks as she rests a hand over her abdomen, hoping to feel the ripple once more. But it never comes.
"I felt the baby," she murmurs.
"You did?" He places his hand over hers, as though he might feel the movement as well.
She chuckles. "You'll have to wait a few more weeks though."
He nods. "I know. I only felt Rhean when you were five—no, four months along."
Then he places his other hand over her abdomen as well. "I think you've grown."
"Maybe it's only my breakfast belly," she says.
"No," he says. "It's our baby."
"So you don't like me fat?" she teases.
"Who said you're fat?" He frowns.
"And even if you were,
I still couldn't take my eyes off you."
She scrunches her nose lightly. "But I don't want to be fat."
He chuckles and leans in to kiss her. "Then you won't be," he says,
when the patter of small running footsteps echoes near their room.
She pulls back just as Isaiah bursts into the room.
His lips quiver as his teary gaze immediately finds hers.
"Isaiah, what—"
She never finishes her words as he runs into her arms and collapses against her.
"What's wrong, baby?" She caresses his hair as he sobs hard against her chest.
She glances at her husband with a frown.
He raises his brows in confusion when Rhean appears in the doorway, his cheeks puffed with anger.
"What happened?" he asks.
"He broke my iron man," Rhean replies coldly.
"And what did you do?'' he asks, his voice devoid of its usual warmth.
Rhean clenches his tiny fists. "I told him to play carefully. But he wouldn't listen!"
"What did you do?" Rhett repeats himself.
Rhean's lower lip juts out in ill temper.
"I hit him."
Neva gently takes Isaiah's face in her hands and examines his flushed cheeks.
Sure enough, a faint purple bruise is already forming along his jaw.
"Does it hurt, baby?" She brushes a finger over the bruise.
Her heart tightens as Isaiah's chin trembles, fresh tears streaming down his cheeks.
"I—I didn't mean to, Mumma—" A sharp sob cuts Isaiah off.
"I know, baby," she whispers, gathering him back into her embrace.
"I'm very disappointed in you." He picks up the medical waste bag as he stands.
Without another word, he steps past Rhean, who stands stiffly in the doorway.
Rhean's face falls at his father's reaction, tears brimming in his eyes as he watches Neva console Isaiah.
A sigh escapes her, but she manages a faint smile. "Come here, baby."
Her son doesn't hesitate and runs into her arms.
"You shouldn't have done that, Rhean," she says, pulling him close.
"Isaiah just wanted to play with his big brother. But you've hurt him."
Rhean buries his face against her chest and cries out, perhaps from guilt and sorrow.
"There, there." She gently rubs his back. "You're my good babies. It upsets me so much when you fight with each other."
"But I didn't hit him back," Isaiah sniffles, his own cries now soothed.
"You did very well then," she says, taking in the warmth of her children against her.
So little and innocent, and very stubborn, but they still make her heart full with love.
"It was my favourite," Rhean cries, his tears soaking through her dress.
"Dada can always buy you more," she says gently. "You should apologise to Isaiah."
Rhean pulls back and exclaims, "But I want that one!"
"We can always fix that." She wipes his tears away. "Dada fixed it before, didn't he?"
Rhean goes quiet, sniffling as he glances at Isaiah, still tucked against her. Then he leans back into her as well, and she presses a kiss to his hair, then another to Isaiah's.
"Will you both be good and watch over your sister?" she asks.
"Where are you going?" Isaiah asks.
"I'll be just nearby." She glances up at her husband, who is leaning a shoulder against the doorjamb, arms crossed over his chest.
"They've gathered," he says, straightening.
She nods and strokes Isaiah's hair. "I need to treat your bruise."
Isaiah nods solemnly as she pulls away from them.
She takes the ointment from the first aid kit, squeezes a little onto her fingertip, and gently applies it to the bruise along his jaw.
"Does it hurt a lot?" she asks, returning the tube to the first aid kit.
"No." Isaiah shakes his head.
She smiles and turns toward Inaya, bundled up inside the duvets.
To her surprise, she's wide awake.
She reaches over and gently taps her on the nose. "How long have you been awake?"
Inaya just blinks back at her.
Neva instinctively places her palm against Inaya's warm forehead. She had made sure Inaya ate breakfast before taking her medicine, then tucked her back into bed.
"Adam and his grandma will be here soon."
She rises with the first aid kit and walks toward the wardrobe. After setting it on the desk, she opens the wooden
doors and pulls out a thin black shawl.
Rhean comes up behind her and tugs at her dress. "I want to go with you."
"We won't be gone for long." Rhett crosses toward them. "It'll be less than an hour."
Holding the door open, she asks, "Do you need a jacket?"
"I'll be alright." Then, resting a hand on Rhean's head, he adds, "Look after your sister with Isaiah. And don't cause trouble."
Rhean looks as though he might protest, but nods anyway.
Neva smiles. "It's just a meeting. We'll be back before you know it."
A knock draws her gaze to Ace standing in the open doorway. "They're waiting for you."
"We were just about to leave," she says, pulling the shawl over her head.
Then she glances at the twins, Isaiah now seated beside Inaya on the mattress, brushing her hair in an attempt to soothe her back to sleep.
Apphia should have been here by now. It doesn't feel right leaving them all alone here.
Then, as if on cue, Adam silently slips into view behind Ace's towering frame.
Rhean waves at him. "Adam!"
Before Adam can step inside, Rhean runs over to him and pulls him away.
"I have something to show you."
"Isaiah, Inaya, if you need anything, ask Nana, alright?" Neva says softly.
Isaiah nods. "Come back soon, Mumma."
"I will," she says, and follows Ace outside.
Sky and Apphia linger near the entrance, their quiet conversation falling silent as Neva and Ace approach, Rhett a step behind her.
"About your parents," Rhett says. "Do we keep it between us, or...?"
Neva gives it a moment's thought.
"If they ask about the antidote, I don't see any reason to keep it hidden."
"You don't actually know what happened to them?" Sky directs the question to Ace.
"I swear I don't." Ace sighs. "I barely even remember carrying the kids to the car while the world was bloody burning."
"They fulfilled their purpose," Neva says.
"It simply returned to the way it was meant to be."
Apphia steps toward her and takes her hands. "The grave cannot claim those who belong to the Most High, my child.
Evara and Neil knew and loved you even before their arms held you."
Her pale grey eyes soften. "Anguish has passed from them. Until that blessed day when the Lord shall gather His children home, I believe they await you in hope."
She looks down as tears burn in her eyes.
There's a pulsing agony in her chest, like a sheltering tree being ripped by its roots from deep within her heart.
Her parents returned to Ephrath when the mounting persecution finally threatened their home hidden within the Cypress Grove.
But death claimed them in its brutal stillness after only a few months with the child they had so longed for.
Yet, even after God granted her such a beautiful miracle,
she's left with emptiness, for the time with them could never have been enough.
Just one last embrace from her mother would have been enough, enough to preserve her warmth until that day. Still, she had been loved more than most. And for that, she would be forever grateful to Him.
Apphia gently squeezes her hands, a calm smile resting upon her lips.
"I shall stay with the children until you return." With that, Apphia walks past them.
Her husband wipes the tears trickling down her cheeks, despite her attempts to hold them back.
She can't go before those village elders and priests with her swollen eyes, given some of them are still deeply prejudiced against her.
"Do you need a moment?" he asks.
She shakes her head. "I'm alright."
He brushes a kiss across her knuckles. "Are you sure?"
"Mm-hmm," she replies.
He smiles faintly. "Come on, then."
He opens the front door to find Ace and Sky waiting for them on the porch, having stepped outside to give them privacy.
Yet her gaze drifts to the girl, who turns at the same moment,
her cold, dark eyes meeting Neva's.
"Oh, good," Sky says. "The girl here's looking for you."
"For me?" Neva murmurs as Rhett rests a steady hand against her lower back.
"What was your name again?" Sky asks.
The girl only stares at her and her husband, something unfathomable behind her eyes. Then, without warning, tears gather in them.
It's the susurrus of the breeze through the camp that finally breaks the frozen silence between them, and the girl looks away.
"Never mind," she whispers, before stepping away.
"What's up with her?" Ace's frown follows the girl's retreating figure as it disappears into the bustle of the clearing, where people go about their day between the cramped camps and weathered cottages.
"She was the one with Ferguson, wasn't she?" Ace asks, turning to Rhett.
Rhett simply nods, while Neva catches a glimpse of the Lord's heart; a new sapling of hope, beautiful beyond her wildest dreams,
slowly taking root in the core of her soul.
A small smile curls her lips as she meets her husband's eyes, a quiet yielding to the strangest grace of the fervor stirring in them.
"I'll have to visit the children later." Neva hasn't been able to visit them or comfort them with a prayer, having arrived at the camp late yesterday afternoon.
"Hell would be too cute a punishment for those monsters," Sky murmurs, her voice a chipped blade laced with poison.
"We should go." Ace slips his hands into his trouser pockets and heads down the creaking porch steps. "Those old folks are probably smoking with anger by now."
As they follow behind Ace and Sky toward the meeting tent, worry, threaded with confusion, alters the fabric of her thoughts.
So when Rhett asks, "Are we being short-sighted?"
she replies, "She must be lost." And lonely.
She glances at him. "Do you think she'll sing during the worship service tonight?"
He smiles at her. "We'll find out later."