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It’s one of those nights.
The kind that unspools slowly, endlessly, in the dark. The kind where no position is comfortable, no breath feels deep enough, and the silence is thick with memories. The kind that settles heavy behind Sciel’s ribs and doesn’t leave, even when she lies down. Even when the camp is quiet, even when Lune’s breathing is steady and Verso’s whittling has finally stopped for the night, even when the fire’s nothing but a warm red glow in the center of their little temporary home.
The others are asleep—Verso sprawled with one arm over his eyes, Lune curled around her satchel of notes like it might vanish if she let go. Maelle, thin and curled tight in a nest of blankets, is tucked close to the fire, her breath soft and shallow. Monoco has made himself into a living nest with Noco tucked in the middle.
But she’s still awake.
She lies there, on her back, staring at nothing, and just thinks. That’s always the problem. Thinking.
Her father would have told her to talk to the stars. That’s what he always said—“When your thoughts get too loud, tell the stars until they hush.”
But it’s a cloudy night. There are no stars. Just shadows and the sound of the wind shifting through the grass outside their canvas shelter.
She closes her eyes. She tries not to think of Pierre—his crooked smile, the way he always kissed her on the forehead with salt-tanged lips after coming in from the docks, the callouses on his hands, the smell of the sea that never seemed to leave his hair, no matter how many times he washed it. She tries not to think of the boat that never came back. The skin torn off from her knees when she collapsed on the wharf, screaming in a way she had never screamed before. The empty grave.
But it’s not Pierre she keeps seeing tonight.
It’s her.
The baby they’d never gotten to meet.
She doesn’t cry. Not tonight. She just breathes through it, like she has been for years.
The ache never goes away, not really. It just settles deeper into the bones.
And it’s not just the grief. It’s the emptiness, too. The space in her arms where someone should’ve been. The gentle words she never got to say. The lullabies left humming in her chest.
Her hand drifts down to her belly, brushing the flat skin beneath her shirt. Like the memory might still live there, like she might still feel some tiny heartbeat or even a kick echoing through time.
She would’ve been six.
Sciel wonders what kind of child she would’ve been. Loud, like Sciel? Shy, like Pierre had been as a boy? Would she have laughed like bells? Would she have thrown tantrums at bedtime and climbed trees she wasn’t supposed to? Sciel would have taught her all about flowers, while Pierre told her how sea turtles whisper secrets to each other, and on the quiet, foggy mornings, you might hear some of them. Her name would have been—
“—urrghk—”
A noise.
Wet. Sharp. Wrong.
Maelle is halfway out of her bedroll, doubled over, one arm wrapped around her middle. She makes a sharp, guttural noise—and then vomits violently onto the moss.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Sciel breathes, already moving.
Lune jolts awake behind her. “What—?”
“Shh, she’s sick,” Sciel murmurs. “Go back to sleep. I’ve got her.”
Maelle heaves again. Her whole body shakes with it. Her face is pale and blotchy and wet, and her hair is matted to her cheeks. She coughs, then gasps, then sobs, the kind of crying that comes from confusion and fear.
Sciel is there in an instant. She kneels beside her, cupping her back with one hand and brushing hair out of her face with the other.
Maelle shakes with every retch, her ribs flexing like broken wings. It’s all stomach acid and bile—she clearly hadn’t eaten enough at dinner. Or maybe too much. Or maybe— gods, maybe it’s the stress again. Her body’s been delicate since Gustave died.
“Breathe, Maelle, breathe. Don’t fight it. I’ve got you. I’m right here.”
“I—I don’t— I didn’t mean to—” Maelle hiccups. “It just— I woke up, and I couldn’t— breathe—”
“Shhh. Shhh, love, I know. It’s okay.”
Another gag, another cough. Nothing left to bring up now. Just saliva and tears and mucus.
Sciel shifts her closer, guiding her to lean fully against her chest. “There you go. That’s it. Deep breaths.” She reaches over and grabs the water flask nearby, gently guiding it to Maelle’s trembling lips. “Rinse, don’t swallow. That’s it. Again. Good girl.”
Maelle sips, then spits weakly to the side and leans into her without meaning to. Her skin is clammy. Her hair’s stuck to her temple with sweat.
Sciel lays a palm on her forehead. Too hot. Damn it.
“I think I— I don’t know, I feel weird—my stomach’s—my head’s—everything’s—” Maelle tries to say, but it’s all garbled and strung together improperly.
“You’re sick,” Sciel says softly. “It’s okay. It happens.”
Maelle lets out a little whimper, and Sciel feels her heart break. She starts to brush away tears, sweat, damp strands of red hair, all while murmuring soft things. Maelle leans into it, and her body gradually relaxes.
“M’sorry I woke you,” Maelle mumbles. “I-I’m fine now. I’m fine…”
“You’re not. And you didn’t.” Sciel says it too fast. Too honest. “I—I was already up.”
Maelle blinks blearily. “Nightmare?”
Sciel hesitates. Then nods. “Something like that.”
“Oh,” Maelle says. “Me too.”
“I know, honey.”
She scrunches her nose. “Mean. You’re supposed to not draw attention to it.”
“Ah, my mistake,” Sciel amends. “Now I know for next time.”
Maelle begins to doze in starts, little flickers of half-rest where her body drops into stillness, but her breath never evens, and her fingers never unclench from Sciel’s sleeve. Every time she slips under, she jerks awake again minutes later, brow furrowed, throat tight with unspoken panic.
Sciel notices. Of course she does.
So, she doesn’t sleep either.
Instead, she sits upright, cradling Maelle against her side, smoothing damp hair from her forehead with one hand and holding the other steady on her back, just between her shoulder blades. The sick girl shivers occasionally, too feverish for comfort, too tired for rest.
“Want some water?” Sciel whispers when the silence stretches thin.
Maelle nods, barely.
Sciel helps her sip, then leans her head gently down into her lap. Maelle stays quiet for a while, but her eyes are open again, glassy in the firelight, staring at a tree.
Then, quietly: “It’s worse at night.”
Sciel doesn’t ask what. She already knows.
She hums softly, brushing her thumb along Maelle’s temple. “Yeah. It always is.”
“I think it’s when I start thinking about him. About what happened. About how fast it was.” Her voice catches, raspy and low. “One second we were joking about rocks, and the next—he was just—gone.”
Sciel says nothing. Just lets her speak.
“I should’ve done something,” Maelle murmurs. “I should’ve— I don’t know. Distracted him. Fought harder to get out of that stupid bubble thing. Saw that bastard standing there sooner. Anything. But I froze. I just stood there like an idiot. And then he was— he was on the ground, and I—”
She cuts herself off with a sob. Her knuckles go white around Sciel’s sleeve.
“I didn’t save him.”
Sciel’s heart splits wide open. She holds Maelle tighter, her own throat aching with memory.
“I used to say the same thing,” she says, voice quiet. “After Pierre drowned.”
Maelle blinks. She turns her face, pale and sweat-damp, up toward Sciel.
“Pierre was a sailor. He did a lot of deliveries. He would go away from time to time, but we always made it work. We were happy.”
She pauses. The air in the clearing is thick. The only sound is the occasional sputter of the fire.
“When the boat went down, I wasn’t even with him. I was on land. Doing laundry.” She laughs once, bitterly. “And I blamed myself anyway. I told myself if I’d insisted he stay. If I’d packed his bag differently. If I’d just known.”
Sciel shifts, swallowing thickly.
“And the baby—” Her voice wobbles. “I didn’t even know I was pregnant. After the news came, I…” She trails off, gaze far away. “I went down to the shore. I thought— I thought if I just walked in far enough, maybe I could find him. Maybe I could feel him.”
Maelle doesn’t move. Just listens. Breath tight.
“I drowned. Or, I tried to, at least. I should have died, but I woke up on the dock with no memory of how I got there. That’s how I lost her.”
There’s a long pause.
“She would’ve been six,” Sciel says softly. “About the age where she would be starting her apprenticeship. I still wonder what she would have been.”
Maelle’s breath hitches. “I didn’t— I didn’t know you had a baby.”
“I don’t tell many people. But I’m telling you because I remember what it’s like. When people tell you, ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ and you can’t believe them. When they look at you like you’re broken, and all you can think is, Of course I am. I was the one holding the pieces.”
Maelle’s jaw trembles.
“Gustave didn’t die because of you, sweet girl,” Sciel whispers. “He died for you. That’s different.”
“But he shouldn’t have had to,” Maelle says, and now the tears are really coming, thick and hot. “He was good, Sciel. He was better than me. He— he held this team together, and I just— I make everything worse. I mess up and I run and I cry and I can’t even keep it together for one day—”
Sciel places a hand under her chin, gently turning her face toward her.
“You are grieving,” she says. “You are not broken. You are not bad. You are sixteen. You are someone who lost the most important person in her life in front of her eyes. And you are still here.”
Maelle sobs again, collapsing against her.
Sciel cradles her like something precious. And in her mind, she sees Gustave again—six years younger, arms crossed over her hospital bed, Sophie beside him, both of them refusing to let her fall apart alone.
“You’re not allowed to disappear,” Gustave had told her back then. “Even if you think you deserve it. We’re not letting you.”
She runs her hand down Maelle’s spine, soothing.
“Gustave didn’t die because you were weak. He died because he loved you. And I think…if he were here, he’d say the same thing he told me: You’re still here. So we’re going to keep moving. Together.”
Maelle hiccups. Her voice is small and hoarse. “I miss him.”
“I know,” Sciel whispers. “I do, too.”
They stay like that for a long time, curled together on the floor of a clearing in the middle of nowhere. Just a grieving girl and the woman who loves her like she’s her own.
Nearby, what still burns in the fire crackles. The shadows shift. The night passes slowly.
“Thank you,” Maelle mumbles as she drifts off.
Sciel smiles softly. Presses kiss to her hair. “Of course, sweet girl.”
In the quiet of the clearing, between firelight and memory, she holds both her daughters close.