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Whisper soft, Linley brushed a lock of burnt umber hair from Erik's forehead. His little nose twitched, his eyelids fluttered—Linley kissed his brow.
"I heard you jumping," she crooned. "Where will we sleep if you break the bed?"
Erik opened his eyes, rubbed one with a hooked finger. "It won't."
Cupping his cheek, Linley cocked her head. "You're always getting bigger, ursulet. And stronger. Any day you'll be so big and strong, CRACK!" Erik flinched, pulling the threadbare blanket to his nose. Soft again, Linley finished, "We'd have to sleep on the floor, with the mice and ants and centipedes." Her other hand drifted over the blanket, up Erik's arm to his shoulder. He shuddered.
"I won't. I promise."
Linley smiled, tucked him in, untwisted the tiny bulb in their bedside lamp until it went dark.
"Ma?" Erik whispered.
"Yes?"
"I can't sleep."
Linley sighed, soft and slow. "You haven't tried yet, ursulet."
"Yes I did!" he whined, reaching through the dark for her. His little hand found the end of her braid. He did not pull.
"Hush," she breathed, prying his hand free and wrapping it in hers. She lay beside him, holding that hand to her heart. Then she began to sing.
"Hush-a-bye, don't you cry, go to sleepy little baby."
Her chest tightened, and then her throat. Her grandfather had used to sing her the tune.
"When you wake, you shall have cake, and all the pretty little horses."
Somewhere in her memory, her grandmother whispered through the floorboards. I wish you would forget that war, Maggie. Her grandfather scoffed.
"Black and bay, dapple and grey…"
Of all the British songs he knew, and all the Romanian songs she knew, of course he sometimes chose the foreign tune from the half-remembered mate.
"Coach and six white horses."
A tear pricked the corner of Linley's eye. The concrete walls, the electronic lock, the soft beep of the guard's radio just beyond the door—they pressed in, heavy, suffocating. Five years, and she still had no hope of freedom.
Five years. Erik knew nothing of life without guards and guns, needles and metal tables. He had never met another child. Never pet a dog. Never seen the stars.
He curled up closer to Linley.
Five years. She had never been able to take him to a forest, teach him to hold a knife, show him pictures of his family.
She hadn't even been allowed to help teach him his letters. At least there she could break the rules. Despite the consequences. For a moment, a dull ache pounded behind her eyes and below her stomach.
Erik twitched. He was asleep. Linley closed her eyes against another tear.