In the Angel's Keeping

A Killian Kendall Expanded Universe Short Story

By Josh Aterovis
Copyright 2026

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Chapter 5

“Should I call an ambulance?” I heard Adam ask in a strained voice.

“I don’t know,” Judy said. “Wait...I think he’s coming around.”

I opened my eyes to find myself lying at the bottom of the stairs on the hall floor. Judy, Adam, Steve, and Kane were standing around me in a football huddle. Everyone looked a little fuzzy.

“Killian, are you okay?” Adam asked anxiously.

“I was pushed,” I mumbled.

“What?” Steve, Judy, and Adam demanded in chorus. Steve and Adam turned disbelieving stares on Judy, who looked stunned and a little afraid. I’d never seen that expression on her face before, and I found it rather disconcerting.

“There was no one up there except me and Killian,” she said quickly.

“The ghost pushed him?” Kane asked.

“No,” I said as things began to come into focus and my thoughts cleared along with my vision. “Amalie was pushed. Not me. I think I fell. I got really dizzy.”

Everyone stared at me as if I’d lost my mind, but I didn't care. I was too excited by the scenario forming in my head to worry about my sanity.

When I struggled to get off the floor, Steve quickly pushed me back down. “Lie still, Killian. You might have a concussion.”

“I’m fine,” I insisted, nudging him aside and sitting up. Although my head spun for a moment, it quickly settled into its proper place. “Don’t you see? Amalie didn’t fall with the baby. She was pushed.”

“Are you sure?” Judy asked.

“Yes. It was like a memory. No, that’s not quite right. It was like it was happening to me, but I knew it wasn’t me.”

I saw realization light up Judy’s eyes. “You experienced it through Amalie.”

“Like an out-of-body experience?” Steve asked.

“Kind of...?”

Judy stepped in. “It seems another one of Killian’s gifts is to relive certain emotions and events from someone else’s life, as if they’re happening to him in real time.”

Adam frowned. “I don’t get it.”

“In addition to being a sensitive, it appears Killian is also an empath,” Judy explained. “An empath can absorb and experience another person’s emotions as if they were their own. But Killian goes a step further — he can actually tap into past events, especially those tied to death or powerful emotions. Those kinds of moments leave the strongest imprints, which he's able to sense and, sometimes, relive.”

“Wait,” Steve said. “So you’re saying he felt Amalie being pushed down the stairs?”

“No, I felt like I was Amalie being pushed down the stairs,” I broke in. “I knew I was holding the baby, even though I couldn’t see it. It was like I was there, inside her body. I couldn’t move, I was frozen, but I was aware of someone else in the cupola with me, someone I was afraid of. And then I felt someone shove me from behind and I was falling. The next thing I knew, I was down here with all of you standing over me.”

Adam turned his attention to Judy. “You never said these gifts could be dangerous!”

“As far as I know, they aren’t. If Killian had been on solid ground he probably wouldn’t have fallen.”

“Well, he wasn’t on solid ground. He was standing at the top of a very steep staircase. He could’ve been killed. And what do you mean, as far as you know? Are you saying you don’t really know how dangerous this stuff is? And you’ve been encouraging Killian to pursue it?”

“Adam, calm down,” Steve said, laying his hand on his arm. Adam shook it off angrily.

Judy was all business again. “Nobody knows everything about the gifts, and anyone who tells you otherwise is either a liar or a fool — and probably both. Every person’s experience is unique to them. The gifts come in different strengths and combinations, and who knows how many variations. I’m not an expert, and I’ve never claimed to be.”

“She’s right, Adam,” I said as I stood up shakily. I felt like a newborn giraffe, wobbly and unsteady, not quite sure where to put my feet. Steve moved quickly to support me, and I leaned against him gratefully. “She never promised me anything, and it’s not like she gave me the gifts. I already had them. All she’s ever done is try to help me understand them and encourage me to learn more about them. If I have them and don’t learn about them, that would be dangerous. People have gone insane because they didn’t understand what was happening to them. I’ve even wondered more than once if I was losing my mind, and I knew what was happening — well, for the most part.”

Adam sighed as his rush of adrenaline slowly drained away, leaving him looking even more tired than he had before. “It’s just that I’ve never thought about all this as really being risky.”

“We still don’t know if it is,” Judy said. “It might have been a coincidence this particular time because of where Killian was standing when it happened. We don’t know that his...experience was the cause of his fall.”

“I was disoriented. I probably just lost my balance,” I said, but I don’t even think I convinced myself. Still, the white lie was preferable to believing something pushed me.

“It definitely looked like you were pushed to me,” Kane added unhelpfully.

I turned a glare in his direction, and he had the grace to look sheepish.

Adam clearly wasn’t satisfied with my explanation, but before he could argue further, Judy began to question me about the experience. “What exactly did you see?”

“Not much of anything, really. I thought I heard a noise behind me on the stairs, so I looked, but there was nothing there. Then, just as I was about to turn back around, it was like time stopped. I couldn’t move or speak. The stairs got darker and darker until the only light came from behind me and seemed to be cast by a candle. I just...knew somehow that I was Amalie and I was holding a baby. And I knew I was in danger, that there was someone behind me I was trying to get away from...but I didn’t know who it was.”

“You didn’t know, or Amalie didn’t know?” Judy said.

I shrugged. “I seemed to be thinking separately from Amalie. The thoughts were my own, but I understood certain things, like in a dream. You know how you don’t always need to have things explained, you just...know somehow?” Everyone nodded. “All I can tell you for sure is that I wanted to get away, but I couldn’t move. Then I was shoved roughly. That seemed to break the spell, because the next thing I knew I was falling.”

“So you were pushed!” Adam said.

“I didn't say that. I might have just been dizzy,” I insisted again.

“Maybe we should finish this conversation downstairs,” Judy suggested, as much to distract Adam as anything. “I think we’re done here.”

We trooped back down the stairs and, once I was settled on the couch in the parlor, Steve decided to make everyone a cup of tea to “calm our nerves.” Judy offered to help, and Kane followed them to the kitchen, leaving Adam and I alone.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked.

“Physically, yeah. A little sore maybe. I might have a few bruises in the morning, but I’m fine. I’m more concerned about how to get rid of Amalie, once and for all.”

“How are you supposed to do that? We don’t even know why she's still hanging around. We found the baby and moved it out next to her grave, and she’s still here. Now it seems as if someone pushed her down the stairs. What does she want, justice for the person who killed her baby?”

“I don’t know what she wants. But I intend to find out.”

“I think Judy is putting too much pressure on you.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Who else is going to do it? You? Steve? Kane?”

The last one made him snort. “Kane almost peed his pants when you fell down the stairs. What about Judy?”

“She’s doing what she can. It’s not her fault that her gifts lie elsewhere.”

“I know. I just can’t help but worry. Promise me you won’t do anything stupid?”

“I'll do my best.”

Steve, Judy, and Kane returned carrying steaming mugs, each with a tea bag steeping inside. Judy handed me mine.

I stared into my cup. “No tea leaves to read,” I said jokingly.

“No, you need loose tea for that,” she replied.

I glanced up, surprised. “Do you really read tea leaves?”

She just winked at me and sipped her tea serenely.

After a few moments, I asked. “Who do you think pushed her?”

“Amalie? I’ve been wondering about that. The captain is the most obvious suspect.”

“Wasn’t he away at sea when Amalie died? I thought he came back and found her dead of a broken heart because she thought he was lost at sea.”

Judy rolled her eyes. “Whether he came home and found her dead or not, I don’t buy the whole death from a broken heart bullshit, especially after everything we’ve learned so far.”

“Maybe she died from the fall.”

“No, we know she lived long enough to bury the baby in the basement.”

“Oh yeah, right.”

“Do we even have any proof that the story you got from the real estate agent is accurate? What if she didn’t have all the facts straight? Even if she simply was recounting it as she’d heard it, stories have a way of changing over time. I think some research is in order.”

“Research?” I asked. “How would you do that now? It all happened so long ago.”

“The library has an extensive genealogy and local history research room. They have tax records, vital statistics, censuses, collections of old letters, and so on. Hopefully, we’ll be able to find something about the Marniens. The captain must have been a prominent citizen of the area, so the old newspapers may have published something, too. A lot of that stuff has been digitized now so it’s searchable.”

“Now that you mention it, I vaguely remember the agent saying something about a book that included some of Amalie’s letters to her sister or something like that.”

“Sounds like a good place to start. Nothing better than going right to the source.”

“Have you done this sort of thing before?”

“A friend of mine back in California was a genealogist, and sometimes she’d get me to help with research. It’s not all that hard. It just takes a lot of patience.”

“Sounds like detective work.”

Judy laughed. “It’s the same thing, really. Anyway, it doesn’t seem likely that Amalie is going to make another appearance tonight. Are you guys staying here or going home?”

“Staying here,” I said, at the same time Kane blurted out, “Going home!”

“I think we were planning on going home tonight,” Adam said, giving me a funny look.

Kane breathed a sigh of relief.

“If it’s okay, I think I’d like to stay here, at least tonight. That way I’ll be on hand in case she does decide to show up again. Besides, I’m closer to work and school here.”

“What about clothes?” Adam asked.

I shrugged. “I’ll just wear these again tomorrow. I’m not that dirty, just maybe a little dusty from rolling down the stairs.”

Judy gave me a thoughtful look. “You’re really serious about getting to the bottom of this now, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Well, you’re not staying here alone,” Adam said emphatically.

“I can stay,” Steve said. “All the rooms are made up.”

“Well, let’s clean up a little before we head home,” Adam said.

We put the leftover food away, collected stray cups, and turned off all the lights in rooms that were no longer in use. Once that was finished, we all said our goodnights and Adam, Kane, and Judy left. Steve locked up after them, then turned to me.

“I’ll show you to your room now, sir. Right this way.”

I laughed. “Practicing for the paying customers?”

“Assuming there will be any.”

“There will be. We’ll figure this out.”

The room Steve assigned me was beautiful, just like every other one in the house. Adam and Steve had furnished the entire place with 19th century antiques. My room was decorated in shades of blue with white accents. Very soothing. Rich, heavy, blue velvet curtains hung at the window over sheer white drapes. A large, comfy-looking chair with carved wooden arms and legs had been upholstered in the same blue velvet. A tall mahogany dresser stood against one wall with an oil lamp and a silver-framed mirror on its top. Framed watercolors hung on the wall, and a beautiful hand-painted glass shade covered the overhead light bulb.

Despite the beautiful decor, there was only one piece of furniture I was interested in at that moment: the bed. It had a mahogany frame with carved spindle-posts and a mattress that came up almost as high as my waist. I barely registered any of those details, however, as exhaustion suddenly overtook me. It had been a stressful night. I turned off the light, pulled off my clothes, and tumbled into bed.

I drifted off fairly quickly, but awoke suddenly a few hours later with the tingly awareness that there was another presence in the room. I sat up with a start and froze. Amalie was standing in the center of the room looking ghostlier than ever, illuminated only by the moonlight coming through the window. As she stared at me with an anguished expression, I felt terror wash over me like ice water.

“What?” I couldn’t help responding to her expression. “What do you want?”

For a moment, she seemed almost surprised I’d spoken to her. Then she turned and took a few quick steps toward the door. She paused at the door, turned back to give me a pleading look, then walked through the door...without opening it.

I didn't even hesitate, I just slid from the bed and followed — although, being solid and all, I had to open the door to exit the room. I found Amalie waiting in the hall.

As soon as she saw me, she moved silently through the hallway to the stairs. I hurried to keep up. I followed her down the stairs to the first floor, where she went directly to the cellar door.

“We’ve been down there before,” I said, coming to a stop. I wasn’t keen on entering the cellar alone. It was dark, dirty, and spooky — not to mention cold — and I was only wearing a pair of boxer-briefs.

When Amalie realized I was no longer trailing her, she stopped and stared at me, her eyes pleading.

I sighed. I’d made a promise to find out what was happening, and if that meant risking my life entering the cellar in the middle of the night alone in my underwear with a ghost, then so be it. I’d have to take the risk. I started forward and Amalie melted through the door.

I unlatched the safety catch and opened the door to reveal the pitch-black stairwell stretching out before me like the throat of some giant monster, waiting to swallow me whole. I was reluctant to plunge into the inky darkness. At least so far, I’d had enough moonlight and a few nightlights to illuminate the way. Beyond where I stood there was no light apart from a bulb that turned on with a pull chain at the bottom of the stairs. Steve had intended to have an actual switch installed at the top since before the place opened, but it just wasn’t high on his list of priorities. Hardly anyone ever went down there.

Wishing I’d grabbed my phone, I gritted my teeth and started down the wooden steps, carefully feeling my way along, and hoping with all my heart that Amalie stayed well ahead of me. I’d never touched her and didn’t want to start in the middle of the night on a rickety set of stairs.

My progress could best be described as a snail’s pace, but, at last, my bare feet felt cold, slightly slimy dirt under them instead of the rough planks of the stairs. I began waving my hands about in the dark, searching for the chain that turned the light on. I must have looked quite a sight, flailing my arms around like a blind man in a cave full of bats. I was glad it was dark, so Amalie couldn’t see me — although why I thought she couldn’t see perfectly well in the dark or, more importantly, why I cared if a dead woman saw me was beyond me.

I found the chain and gave it a tug. Dim light flooded the space, barely illuminating the small room. It was enough light to make out Amalie waiting for me by the far wall. As soon as she was certain she had my attention, Amalie turned and walked directly through the wall.

“Now what am I supposed to do?” I asked aloud. Somehow, I knew Amalie was gone. The feeling of her presence vanished as soon as she went through the wall. “You know,” I said to her anyway, “there’s no door in that wall. I can’t follow you. I’m not a ghost.”

I waited a few minutes, but it soon became obvious she wasn’t returning. Whatever she’d led me there to see, she’d shown me. I decided it was time to wake Steve up — after I put on some more clothes. I realized I was freezing in just my underwear.

I turned off the light and padded back up the stairs. I returned to my room where I pulled on my clothes, then I tapped softly on Steve’s door. He must have been sleeping lightly, because he answered almost immediately.

“What’s wrong?” he asked in a tight voice.

“Amalie came back.”

Steve rubbed his face. “Already? What happened?”

“She led me back to the basement...then walked through the wall.”

“What do you think it means?”

“I have no idea. It was clear she wanted me to follow her, but I'm a little more solid than her.”

“Should we call Judy?”

“It’s after three o’clock in the morning,” I said. “It’ll wait until morning. Let her sleep. We should get some rest, too.”

Steve nodded wearily. “Assuming I can sleep.”

“Yeah. I wasn’t exactly having a restful night even before an insistent dead woman appeared in my room.” I turned and started back to my room. “Goodnight,” I called over my shoulder.

I laid awake for quite a while before I was able to fall back to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, it was almost ten. I got dressed and went downstairs to find Adam and Judy were already there.

“It’s about time,” Adam said when I appeared. “I brought doughnuts and coffee.”

I gratefully grabbed a glazed doughnut and dug in.

Judy let me swallow my first bite before she started in. “Steve said Amalie visited you during the night. What happened?”

“At least let me get some coffee first,” I said. I made myself a cup and then quickly filled her and Adam in on Amalie’s appearance and my subsequent adventure in the cellar.

“You went down there alone?” Adam asked in horror.

“I didn’t see where I had much choice. Besides, she was pretty insistent.”

“I’m really proud of you, Killian,” Judy said.

“Proud of him for risking his life?”

“How did he risk his life?” Steve asked. “Amalie’s never had a history of hurting anyone.”

“Have you all forgotten how he fell down the stairs?”

“Why don’t I show you the wall she went through,” I said, to head off any hysterics. We went down to the cellar, where I pointed to the place Amalie had made her dramatic exit.

“Why would she walk through the wall?” Steve asked. “What could she be trying to tell us?”

“Maybe it wasn’t a wall when she was alive,” Judy said.

We all turned to stare at her in surprise.

She walked over and scraped at the moss growing on the bricks.

“What do you mean?” Steve asked.

“Just what I said. If she walked through this wall, she did it for a reason. There’s something on the other side she wants us to know about. Maybe the baby was never the reason for leading us down here in the first place — or at least not the only reason. Aha! See?”

“See what?” Steve and Adam said in unison.

“The outline of a door,” I answered for her.

“You see it too?” Judy asked.

“Yeah, if you look closely, you can see how the pattern of the bricks inside the outline is different from that outside.”

“Oh, I see it now,” Adam said. “It must have been bricked up sometime after the wall was built.”

“Maybe there’s a secret room,” I said. “Or like a tunnel.”

“Do you think it was part of the underground railroad?” Steve asked almost reverently.

“Or it could be a smuggling tunnel,” Adam said. "He was a sea captain, after all."

“Which, I guess that would be cool too,” Steve conceded.

“Either way, we don't know why it was bricked up,” I said. “Or why Amalie wanted us to know it was there.”

Steve walked over and ran his hand over the bricks. “We’ll have to open it.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Adam asked.

“It’s a historic landmark,” Steve said firmly.

Adam frowned. “Who knows what we’ll find in there.”

“Amalie knows,” Judy pointed out. “And she wants us to know too.”

A few weeks later, we were all once again gathered in the cellar, waiting for the contractor Steve had hired to start work on reopening the bricked-up doorway. He was busy tightening a masonry blade into his saw.

Kane and Micah had joined Adam, Steve, Judy, and I — Kane mostly against his will, and Micah because he was considering writing an article about the house and Amalie. Steve was hopeful that the article could stir interest in the B&B, especially if the ghost story had a nice, neat ending.

There was an air of apprehension in the small room. What would we find? What did Amalie want us to see?

The contractor looked up. “Okay, folks, we’re about ready to get down to business here. You might want to step back and watch your eyes. All of you really should be wearing safety goggles, but I didn’t know I was gonna have an audience.”

“Just tell us if we’re in the way, Bob,” Steve said as we obediently moved to the farthest wall away from where he was going to be working.

Bob shrugged. “Hey, it’s your house. You’re not in my way.” He started the saw and slowly eased it into the wall. The abrasive disk cut through the old mortar with surprisingly little difficulty. We watched in silence while he sliced around the outline of the old doorway. Although the loud roar would have drowned out any attempt at conversation, those of us gathered in the basement suddenly found ourselves so tense that no one would have spoken even if we could have.

When he finished cutting and the cloud of brick dust began to settle, he grabbed a sledgehammer and hoisted it over his shoulder in one smooth motion.

“Wait!” I blurted out suddenly, panic squeezing my lungs as the heavy hammer started its downswing.

The sledgehammer shuddered to a halt in midair. Everyone spun around to look at me.

“What?” Bob asked.

“You...you can’t do it like that.”

Odd, disjointed images were shifting across my vision, confusing me. At first, I thought the lights were flickering, until I realized it was the cellar that was wavering — between the current scene and a much darker version lit only by a single candle in a sconce on the wall. The darker room was empty except for a few wooden barrels against one wall. Floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with glass jars of canned fruits and vegetables stood where the bricked-up doorway was in the present room.

Just as suddenly as the strange flickering sensation began, it stopped, leaving me blinking owlishly at the concerned faces staring back at me.

Micah grabbed my arm. “Killian, are you okay?”

“Did you see something?” Judy asked.

I nodded.

“What did you see?”

“What’s going on?” Bob asked nervously. “Is he okay?”

“The room was changing. I think I saw how it used to be. And...I don’t know. I just had this feeling...” I turned to look at Bob, who was staring at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Is there some other way to open the wall?”

“Not really. If I had someone on the other side they could push it out, but since I don’t, it’s gotta go that way.”

“Can you be gentle?”

“Gentle? It’s a sledgehammer and bricks. How gentle can you be?”

“Can you just try?” Steve asked politely.

Bob shook his head as he turned back to the wall. He changed his grip on the hammer and began to use it like a battering ram. The first few bricks tumbled down on the other side with a dull thud as if hitting bare earth. I’m sure it took longer to do it that way, but the panicky feeling didn’t return.

Soon he had an opening big enough to see through. He shifted one of the lights he’d brought along so that it shined through the hole. He leaned in and peered intently into whatever lay beyond the opening, then jerked back suddenly, his face going alarmingly pale.

“Do you see something?” Steve asked excitedly.

“Amalie,” I muttered with inexplicable certainty.

Bob pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face. “There’s a...a skeleton in there,” he said shakily. He looked over at me. “How did you know?”

“Just a feeling,” I said, sounding a lot calmer than I felt.

Steve turned to me. “You think it’s Amalie?”

Judy had taken Bob’s place in front of the hole. “Who else would it be?” Her voice sounded eerily hollow as she spoke into the aperture.

“What happened? How did she end up there?” Adam asked in confusion.

“I think it’s safe to say it wasn’t an accident.” Judy turned to me. “Killian?”

I shook my head.

“If we want to know what happened, only you can tell us,” she insisted.

“I...I can’t.”

“Will somebody just tell me what the hell is going on?” Bob asked, sounding more angry than anything. “Who is Amalie? If you knew there was a body behind this wall, you should have told me upfront. I would’ve never agreed to do this. I have half a mind to call the police.”

“Bob,” Steve said, “if we’re right then that skeleton has been here for about a hundred and seventy-five years. There’s nothing the police can do. We’ll handle things from here. Why don’t you go ahead and leave? I’ll pay you for the time we agreed on.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice. This is all too weird for me.” He grabbed up his saw and a few odd pieces of equipment, then paused. “I’ll get the rest of my stuff later,” he said and made his exit.

“Can we widen the hole enough to get through?” Judy asked.

“I’ll do it,” Micah offered quickly.

He picked up the sledge hammer and began to carefully knock away more bricks.

“Can I go upstairs?” Kane asked. “Two dead bodies in this basement? This is too much for me.”

“If I’m not needed here, I’ll go with him,” Adam said.

No one protested, and they climbed the stairs, leaving just four of us in the cellar — five, if you counted Amalie. A shiver went up my spine at that thought. All this time she’d been entombed behind the wall instead of in the marked grave in the backyard. How did that happen? Someone had to have known. Was it intentional?

“You have to go in there,” Judy said.

“I’m scared,” I said hoarsely.

“I think that’s why Amalie brought you down here. I think she wants to show you what happened.”

“Why me?”

“Your gifts are strong, stronger than anyone I’ve ever known. She communicates with you in a way she hasn’t been able to with anyone else before now. She’s waited so long to tell someone what happened to her. We thought it was just the baby, but there was more to the story. That’s why she didn’t go away after we buried the baby next to her grave. She wasn’t even there. She was here the whole time. But how? What happened?”

Micah stepped back and dropped the hammer, wiping sweat from his brow. “I think the hole is big enough now.”

Judy took my hand. “It’s time for Amalie to tell us her story.”

I took a deep breath. In my heart, I knew all my arguing was in vain. If I was honest, I wanted to find out what happened all those years ago as much as anyone. Maybe I even needed to know. I took a tentative step toward the enlarged opening.

Micah stepped forward to help me. “I’ll be right here, Kill.”

I approached the hole and took my first look at what lay beyond. The light from the lamp showed what appeared to be the beginning of a low, narrow tunnel that extended perhaps ten feet from the doorway before it ended in a pile of rubble where the roof had apparently collapsed. The walls looked to be blackened, slime-covered bricks, shored up with rough-hewn timbers. About halfway to the rubble lay a pathetic heap of bones, all that was left of Amalie. I took another deep breath and climbed over the broken bricks.

The world shifted as my feet touched the ground. Immediately, I knew on some deep level that I was no longer in my own body. Unlike last time, I remained aware of myself while at the same time being fully integrated with my new body — Amalie’s body. But just like the time in the cupola, I wasn’t just feeling Amalie’s emotions — on some level I was Amalie.

Terror surged through me as she — I — stumbled forward. I sensed movement behind me and instinctively twisted around, crouching low. A sharp pain flared in my side, confirming I’d been struck there. In the now-clear doorway stood a man, his features obscured by the darkness. Still, I knew with chilling certainty that he was Amalie’s husband, Captain Marnien.

“You are nothing but a common whore,” he snarled.

He moved again, and candlelight turned his face into a horrifying mask of rage and hatred. Even distorted by the dim lighting, the part of me that remained Killian recognized him as the man from my vision, the one hurrying into the house from the boat.

A rush of foreign memories flooded into my consciousness.

I was standing in the cupola. It was night outside the windows. I was cradling a crying infant in my arms. I’d gone up there because, for some reason, it usually calmed the baby. But not that night. I was so distracted with my son that I didn’t hear the footsteps until they were upon me. I spun around, my heart in my throat.

“Captain!”

He wasn’t supposed to be there. I’d been told he was lost at sea. He couldn’t be...but there he stood, water dripping from his graying hair.

Astonishment spread across his face as he stared at the baby in my arms. Dread swept over me — I knew it wouldn’t take him long to calculate the months in his head and realize the child I held couldn’t possibly be his.

Seeing his expression start to shut down, I began speaking quickly. “I thought you were dead. I thought you were lost at sea. Your ship... I was told it went down in a storm. I mourned you. Look, I’m still wearing black.”

“You must not have mourned me for long,” he said, the first words he’d spoken since he appeared.

“I... It’s not...”

“Turn to another man for comfort, did you? Even if I had drowned, I would hardly have gone under before you took another man to bed.”

“Where... Where were you? If you were alive, why didn’t you send word to me?”

“Does it matter now?” He moved menacingly forward. “Let me see the little bastard. Does it take after its daddy?”

I pulled the blankets protectively over the baby’s face, and his cries settled into a mere whimper. “Please no,” I begged. “The child bears no fault. He is innocent.”

“No, the fault is all yours. You, my faithless wife.” He spat the last two words, but then his voice chilled. “The child will go.”

“No! Please! We can raise him as your own.”

“You think I would have another man’s child raised under my roof?” he bellowed. “You would have me thought a fool?”

“No one else knows, except the servants.”

“Servants talk. The child goes.”

“Then I’ll go as well,” I shouted defiantly.

His hand shot out so quickly I had no time to get out of his way. His fist drove into my side, throwing me back against the windows behind me. My head hit one of the panes of glass, shattering it outward. Cold wind whipped into the room as I struggled to maintain my grip on the baby, now crying again.

“You’re not going anywhere.” His voice was frighteningly calm.

A sudden terror gripped my heart, and instinct took over. I had to protect my baby. I had to get away. I dove past him toward the narrow stairs, a move so unexpected he barely had time to react.

He lunged after me, his large hand striking between my shoulder blades as I took the first step. I stumbled down several more before catching my balance, but he was still right behind me, and suddenly gave me a violent shove.

For a few seconds, I felt as if I was suspended in midair. Then I was falling into the inky blackness of the stairwell.

For the briefest moment, I was myself again. I was crouching in the dirt of the dank passage, staring blankly at the partially opened doorway. Micah peered anxiously in at me, Judy visible just over his shoulder. “Killian, are you okay?” he asked.

Then they were gone.

I sat up with a start and looked wildly about. I was in the cellar, lying on the dirt floor. The room was lit only by a single candle. I hurt in so many places, but especially my side.

The scene in the cupola came back to me in a flash.

My baby! Where was my baby?

I spotted the little body lying a few feet away in an undignified heap, silent and still — much too still. I crawled frantically toward him, ignoring my pain, already sobbing, knowing the worst.

He was dead, his tiny body growing cold.

How long had I been unconscious? Could I have saved him if I’d been awake? Did he die in the fall or had the captain killed him in cold blood?

A grief such as I’d never felt before overtook me, and for some unknown amount of time, I simply held him to my chest and rocked back and forth, weeping so deeply I didn’t make a sound.

Eventually, I stopped crying. I knew I had to bury him. My husband wouldn’t afford him that much dignity. I removed my mourning shawl and wrapped my son carefully in it, laying him tenderly aside. I quickly began to dig into the hard-packed earth floor. I didn’t know how long I had, how long the captain would leave me alone. I dug and dug with only my bare hands until my nails bled and my fingers ached with the cold, and still I dug. Finally, I had a hole large enough to hold the little body. He was so small.

I once again began to cry silent tears as I lifted the tiny bundle and laid him in the hole as gently as possible. I stared down for a moment at his beautiful face. I could almost imagine that he was only asleep. He looked so peaceful I could hardly bear to cover him with the dirt, but I knew I must.

First, though, I fumbled with the brooch at my neck, a wedding present from my parents. Finally, the clasp gave way to my numb fingers, and the brooch dropped into my palm. Placing it lovingly on my son’s chest, I leaned forward and kissed his forehead, then quickly swept the small pile of dirt over him before I could change my mind, before it was too late.

I cried while I smoothed the dirt over his grave, my tears mixing with the earth. When I had hidden the evidence of my digging to my satisfaction, I curled up in a ball over the spot and wept bitterly.

I was still crying when I heard the captain speaking at the top of the stairs.

I suddenly hated him with a depth of emotion I hadn’t known I was capable of. I wanted him to suffer the way he’d caused me to suffer. I lurched to my feet and began to look madly around the room for something to use as a weapon, but the cellar was empty except for a few wooden barrels against one wall, and a set of shelves well-stocked with the canned food the women had put up in the fall. A ham hung from the rafters in one corner.

The door at the top of the stairs opened, and the captain descended with ominous purpose. I pressed myself against the far wall. He stood staring at me, his eyes filled with hate and disgust. Neither of us spoke for what felt like an eternity. Then he unexpectedly swung around and grasped the edge of the shelves. Even in my grief-stricken state, I was shocked to see the shelves slowly swing away from the brick wall to reveal a dark doorway.

The captain turned back to me, an unpleasant grin on his face. “It is a tunnel I commissioned for...certain business dealings. It emerges near the docks. If you’re so intent on leaving, best you go now.”

I stared at him in disbelief. Did he really intend to let me go? It seemed too good to be true.

“Go!” he shouted. “Leave and never return!”

I threw myself away from the wall and dashed toward the door. He pushed me as I passed him, making me stumble into the darkness. I stopped dead when I saw that the passage only went a few feet before ending in a heap of rubble.

A cold laugh came from behind me. “A pity the flood brought down the tunnel more than a year past.”

I spun around, crouching down into a feral position of defense as I did.

“You are naught but a common whore,” he said. His face was lost in darkness, but his voice was filled with cold hatred. “Did you truly believe I would allow you to escape? You will never leave this house. Never! You shall die within these walls like the wretched dog you are, you miserable bitch!”

He started to close the camouflaged door. Belatedly, I realized he meant to lock me in the collapsed tunnel, leaving me to die. I threw myself at the door, but the captain was quicker. It closed with a sickening thud, shutting out all light.

I began to scream and claw at it, pushing against it with all my weight, but to no avail. I pounded the wood with my fists, begging for mercy, but my only answer was utter silence. The darkness pressed in around me until I couldn’t breathe. I dragged myself away from the door, crumpling to the ground where I began to will myself to die.

“Killian!” a voice shouted.

I opened my eyes and saw light. I wasn’t locked in the tunnel, left to die. I moved my hand and realized that I was once again back in my own body. I was curled into the fetal position on the dirt floor of the tunnel.

“Killian, are you okay?” Micah asked.

When I didn’t answer, he began to scramble through the opening, which, while plenty large enough for me, was almost too small for him.

I turned my head slowly to one side and found myself staring into the empty eye sockets of Amalie’s skull. One bony arm was stretched out in my direction, almost as if she was reaching for me. I slid my hand over and rested it gingerly on hers.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

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