Miracle in the Mist (23 page)

Emanuel cleared his throat. Frank could never recall seeing the Elder uncomfortable about anything. "The village is going into its Transition stage. It's time for you to leave Renaissance."

For a moment what Emanuel said didn't sink in. Leave the village? But Alvin had said they couldn't leave until they were— Then the true meaning of what he'd said hit Frank full force.

"We're healed?" he said, including Carrie in his statement. "Then I'd better get Carrie." He started toward the door.

Alvin intercepted him with a hand on his shoulder. "No, Frank.
You're
healed. Carrie will not be going with you. She's not ready yet."

Frank couldn't believe his ears; there had to be some mistake. He couldn't leave without Carrie. "No. Carrie
has
to go with me." He pulled away from Alvin's hand and shifted his gaze from Emanuel to Alvin.

Emanuel stood and put his arm around Frank's shoulders. "Carrie has not come to terms with things. She can't leave yet."

"Then I'll stay and help her. Everyone says I'm supposed to help her." Even to his own ears, his voice sounded shrill and desperate. And he was. He could
not
leave without Carrie. He
would not
leave without Carrie. It would be like leaving a part of himself behind.

Emanuel squeezed his shoulder, then released him. "You will help her, but not here."

"Where then?" This was rapidly becoming far too confusing for Frank.

Emanuel strolled slowly toward the door, and then paused. "When the time comes, you will know it. Now, I'm afraid you have just enough time to say your good-byes. You have other tasks waiting for you."

***

Carrie watched Frank running down the path toward Clara's cottage. Behind him a thick mist was settling over the village. A sick nausea filled her stomach. Someone was leaving, and she knew it wasn't her. That left one person.
Frank
.

Instantly, the nausea, accompanied now by a deep and swamping sadness, grew worse. How would she get along here without him to lean on? But did that matter? When she left here, she would have only herself to depend on. She might as well get used to it.

But it wasn't entirely the idea of him not being there for support that upset her. She loved Frank more than she ever thought she could love anyone, and deep inside where her courage had been hidden, she knew she was strong enough to stand alone. But she didn't want to. Being separated from him would be the most intense torture she'd ever endured, perhaps even worse than the physical torment she now knew she'd endured under the faceless man's fist.

As he approached, he caught sight of her standing just behind the bushes bordering Clara's cottage. He stopped and stared at her for a long time.

Carrie
, he mouthed.

With an anguished cry, she threw herself into his waiting arms and clung to him. "Please don't go."

"Oh, sweetheart, I wish I could stay, but you know and I know that's not possible." He set her at arm's length from him and then wiped the tears from her cheeks with the pad of his thumb. "I'll wait for you. I'll never let you go. We will be together. I promise."

Something inside Carrie died. "We can never be together, Frank. Have you forgotten that I'm a—" She couldn't say the word
murderer
even though she was sure now that she was. She forced the word through her cold lips. "Murderess? A
married
murderess?"

His face grew grim. His fingers dug into her shoulders, but she was numb to any pain. "You don't know for sure that either of those things is true."

She shook her head, the hopelessness growing inside her. "No, not for sure, but there's little doubt. Until I do know, I'll be here." A sob escaped her. "And you'll be out there."

He pulled her back into his arms.

She glanced beyond his shoulder to the gathering mist. It had thickened until she could no longer see the footbridge over which Frank would cross back into the outside world.

"You have to go," she said.

But she couldn't let him leave without knowing. She had to say what was in her heart while she still had the chance. Cupping his face in her palms, she kissed him softly. "I love you, Frank Donovan."

He kissed her back, hard, hungry, and full of longing. "I love you, too, Carrie Henderson. I will until I die," he said, his eyes glistening with moisture. "Come to me when the time is right. Promise." She nodded, and then he turned and walked away.

Carrie kept watching him until he joined Emanuel and Alvin, and with the two men flanking him, he disappeared into the wall of white.

"Promise," she whispered to the wind, knowing in her heart that she'd never be able to keep her vow. That this would be the last time she'd see him.

Feeling as though her heart had been torn from her chest, she watched Frank until she could no longer see him, and then she went to her favorite place beside the stream and crumpled into a sobbing heap.

***

A long time later Carrie felt a hand on her shoulder. Tears blurred her vision, but she could tell by her warm smile that the woman leaning over her was the village Weaver. "He's gone, Clara."

The older woman squatted next to her and put an arm around her shoulder. "I know, child."

"He's gone," Carrie said again, the words torn from her heart.

Clara slipped her hand under Carrie's arm. "Come inside. It's going to rain, and you don't want to get all wet."

Rain
? The likelihood of such a happening surprised Carrie enough to bring her upright.

Carrie looked toward the heavens, the pain of Frank's departure pushed aside for the moment. Boiling, angry, black thunderheads shrouded the normally unending blue sky.

Carrie dried her tears on the hem of her skirt and allowed Clara to help her to her feet. "Why is it going to rain?" she asked, sounding like a child who didn't understand why the weather could cancel a picnic.

"Don't you know?" Clara smiled knowingly. "Child, at some time or another rain falls into everyone's life. Without it, how would we enjoy the sunshine when it comes? The secret to enduring the rain is to remember that eventually, if we have faith and trust, the sun always comes out, and there's always a rainbow waiting somewhere just for us."

Overhead the heavens rumbled as though mocking Clara. Lightning sliced across the sky, followed by a burst of thunder so loud that Carrie covered her ears. Seconds later a deluge fell from the sky, soaking them to the skin. The two of them ran for the cottage.

Inside, Carrie stood in front of the fire, water dripping from her clothes, her hair plastered against her head. She wiped the rain from her face with her hands and turned to ask Clara for a towel, but the words never passed her lips.

Clara filled the black teakettle with water, hung it from the fireplace crane, and then swung the wrought-iron arm back in place over the flames. That process, however, was not what held Carrie's open-mouthed attention. While Carrie's clothing looked as though she'd been tossed in the stream, Clara's clothing was bone-dry.

"How… "

Clara waved her hand at the girl. "No time for silly questions. You need to get out of those wet clothes before you catch your death." She smiled slyly. "Won't do the babe any good if you get sick now, will it?"

About to climb the loft ladder to get out of her wet clothing, Carrie stopped dead.
Babe
? She shook her head, certain she had heard Clara wrong. "Did you say
babe
?"

"That I did," Clara said, placing two porcelain teacups on the table and measuring out a portion of loose tea in each, then adding a pitcher of cream and a bowl of sugar to the setting.

This was all coming at Carrie much too fast for her to digest. "I don't—"

"Never mind about that now. Get yourself into some dry clothes, and then we'll talk." Clara nudged her toward the ladder leading to the loft. "Go on. Get along with you."

Mindlessly, her thoughts swirling in unruly circles through her brain, none of them making sense, Carrie did as she was told. She hurried through the process as quickly as she could, eager to return to the keeping room to hear Clara's explanation.

A few minutes later she emerged in dry clothes. As she stepped off the last ladder rung and onto the floor of the keeping room, Clara handed her a white towel.

"Now, sit down." She urged Carrie to the table. "The water just came to boil. You dry your hair while I get the kettle, and soon you'll be able to warm your insides with a nice hot cup of tea." When Carrie just stared at her, Clara frowned. "Go on, dry your hair," she scolded gently.

While she bustled off to the hearth, Carrie absently rubbed at her hair with the towel, her mind still a tangle of unsettled thoughts. After filling Carrie's cup and her own, Clara returned the kettle to the fireplace crane and then took her usual seat across from Carrie.

Carrie stopped rubbing at her hair and threw the still-damp strands over her shoulder, and out of her face and her line of vision. She couldn't wait for an explanation any longer. "Clara, what did you mean when you said it wouldn't do the
babe
any good if I got sick?"

With a look of surprise, Clara clicked her tongue. "Well, it won't, will it?"

"I suppose not," Carrie said. "But exactly what babe are you talking about?"

Clara's face melted into a radiant smile. "Why yours and Frank's, of course."

Carrie's jaw dropped, and her hand went automatically to her flat stomach. "Mine and Frank's? But—"

Clara said nothing. She just raised one eyebrow, and Carrie knew it was one of those things that Clara would never supply an answer to, like why her clothes were dry when Carrie had been soaked to the skin.

"This can't be true. Frank and I were only together a few times." She shook her head. "How could it have happened?"

A burst of laughter erupted from Clara. "Think about it, child. Mother Nature doesn't do things like this on her own, you know."

The blush of embarrassment heated Carrie's face. She dropped her gaze and folded her hands over her stomach. Mentally she counted back through the time that had elapsed since she'd come to Renaissance and then the time since she and Frank had made love at the waterfall. She supposed it was possible. But why hadn't
she
known? Probably because she'd had none of the usual signs. Since it wasn't time for her period yet, and she'd had one before she came here— that thought brought her up short. How did she know for sure that she'd had a period before coming here?

Suddenly, a terrifying thought struck her. Lifting her hesitant gaze to Clara, she asked, "This
is
Frank's child, right? You're sure?"

"As sure as I am that the sun will go down tonight and reappear tomorrow."

Relief flooded her. The baby was Frank's and not that faceless monster's. Not that she would have loved the child any less. She just couldn't bear the thought of having one more thing that would tie her to him.

Carrie pushed all thoughts of him from her mind and concentrated on the new life that lay safely against her breast.

Frank's child. Their child. A product of their love
.

An overwhelming surge of elation filled her. Frank's baby. Inside her. A piece of him for her to love and care for. Then a wave of regret cast a dark cloud over her happiness. If only she'd known before Frank left.

"A baby… Mine and Frank's. It's—"

"A miracle? Yes, every baby is that, and," Clara laid her hand on Carrie's, "miracles don't usually come with an explanation."

That may be true, Carrie reasoned, but somehow, when the miracle came about inside Renaissance, she had to wonder how much, if any, could be labeled coincidence.

Then, too, there was the problem of what she'd done before coming to Renaissance. If she'd committed the crime she thought she had, that would mean jail. Her baby would be born behind bars. The thought sickened her. Maybe this wasn't such a miracle after all.

Clara's warm hand covered hers. "Faith and trust, child. Faith and trust."

***

Frank stared into the Gateway Cabin's hearth. Meghan and Steve sat across from him. Neither of them said anything. The crackling fire filled the strained silence. The smells of Christmas: pine, cinnamon, baking cookies, the Christmas he'd left behind mere moments ago when he'd entered the mist with Emanuel, swirled around him mostly unnoticed. That he'd spent over a month inside the mist, and then come out to find mere minutes had passed baffled him. But right now, time being relative, as he had often been reminded, was the least of his worries.

He knew Steve and Meghan were waiting for him to speak, but what was there to say? That he felt as though his insides had been laid raw? That his heart beat solely to keep him alive? That tomorrow would just be the beginning of another day and a life without Carrie?

That without Carrie life seemed senseless, just a long parade of one empty day following another?

"Not all of them will be empty, Frank," Steve said. Frank's gaze flew to Steve. Steve laughed. "I'm sorry. I know that feeling. When Meghan used to read my thoughts, it infuriated me. Now, I've found that it has its benefits." He smiled down at his wife and winked.

Pain and intense jealousy of their happiness shot through Frank. "Maybe for you," he sneered.

Meghan leaned forward and touched his hand lightly. "It will have benefits for you, too. You need to have faith that Emanuel knows what he's doing."

Frank ran his hand through his hair, then leaned his elbows on his knees and gazed into the leaping flames of the fireplace. "But she's in there, and I'm out here. How can I help her? How will she get through this?"

Meghan stood and went to rearrange the logs in the fire. When she'd finished, she turned to Frank. "Every day Carrie is getting stronger. She's learning who she is and what she can do. She has to do that alone, Frank. No one, not even you, can show her the way. She'll come out of the village when it's time."

He could understand that, but there was still the big question he needed answered. "How will I know when it's time? I'll be off in the city. I don't even know where she lives. I'll never be able to find her."