Neva casts one last glance at Inaya, cocooned beneath the duvets where Rhett had laid her after she fell asleep in his arms on the way home.
Then she closes the door, a throw blanket draped over her arm as she crosses into the parlour.
Neriah glances at Neva as she walks in, sighing at the toys strewn across the floor and the noisy boys engrossed in a car race, still with far too much energy to burn.
Isaiah let's out a triumphant squeal and springs to his feet as his car reaches the hearth first, that serves as the finish line.
"Hush," Neva chides gently. "You can't make so much noise at night.
You'll disturb the others."
"We'll be quieter, Mama," Rhean assures before turning to Isaiah. "You're too loud."
"I'm not!" Isaiah's cheeks puff up in indignation as Neva drapes the throw blanket around Neriah's shoulders.
"Is it warm enough?" Neva settles beside her on the threadbare rug before the table.
"I'm alright," Neriah replies, pulling the blanket closer around her shoulders.
Neva smiles gently.
"Rhean's father has gone to the camp kitchen to get you something to eat."
"I'm not really hungry," Neriah's gaze drifts toward the crackling flames dancing over the firewood, their earthy scent filling the air.
"You said you only had breakfast," Neva says.
"It won't do you any good to skip meals."
Neriah doesn't reply, and silence settles between them for a while, broken only by the children's restless chatter and play.
Although Neva senses no unease between them, only a lingering calm as she gives Neriah the space to gather her thoughts, or simply sit in silence.
Yet, after a moment of wondering, she can't help asking. "May I ask how old you are?"
Neriah turns to meet her eyes. "Seventeen."
Neva's eyes soften, and just as another question stirs within her, familiar voices drift through the walls, followed by quiet footsteps drawing closer to the parlour.
Before long, Sky appears in the parlour doorway. Ace, right behind her,
nearly stumbles into Sky when she halts mid-step at the sight of them.
"Jeez, Sky," Ace groans. "You almost knocked my teeth out."
Sky ignores him and walks in anyway, addressing the children.
"You guys are up past your bedtime."
Rhean glances up at her. "Mama said we can play until Adam's grandma comes to take him home."
"Then you must be having a blast!" Ace crouches down behind Rhean and begins tickling him until the child writhes on the floor, breathless laughter spilling from him.
"You're suffocating the poor kid," Sky remarks, propping her chin on her palm as she watches them from the low table.
"Do you want some too?" After finally sparing Rhean, Ace playfully lunges toward a grinning Adam, who slips away from him, then turns his sights on Isaiah.
With a squeal, Isaiah flees toward Neva, giggles trailing after him.
A chuckles escapes Neva as Isaiah plops down onto her lap, her arms instinctively wrapping around him as his giggles bubble up, burying his face against her chest.
Ace finally scoops the two boys up and approaches the low table.
Then his gaze lands on Neriah.
"Did she time travel too?" Ace asks as he drops down beside Sky, the two boys still squirming in the cage of his arms.
A frown crosses Neriah's brow.
Rhett steps inside with a tray in his hands, his brows forrowing at the small mayhem unfolding the parlour.
"What took you so long?" Neva gently helps Isaiah stand before rising to her own feet.
"I had to heat up the food," Rhett says as Neva steps toward him,
carefully taking the heavy wooden tray of soup and bread from his hands.
"Neriah," Neva says, glancing toward her. "Come have your meal at the table."
Neva carries the tray to the smaller table by the side and sets it down.
In the short time she had known Neriah,
she has already learned enough to know that she would be uncomfortable eating by herself at the crowded main table.
"Boss..."
Ace glances towards Neriah, who slips off the blanket and carefully folds it, before looking back at Rhett. "Is she your kid?"
Ace only finds Rhett with a complicated expression.
"Dada, help us!" Rhean wriggles beneath Ace's hold until Ace finally lets the boys go.
"Damn," Ace mutters, his gaze lingering on Neriah as she walks towards Neva,
while Rhean runs straight to his father.
"Come, sit here." Neva pulls out the chair beside the table.
"Thank you," Neriah whispers. "But I think I should leave."
"Why?" Neva asks with a frown. "Have your dinner first.
You can sleep here tonight afterward."
Neriah shakes her head. "You've already done more than enough. I should go."
As Neriah heads toward the doorway, Neva casts a helpless gaze at Rhett, who stands in silence with a sleepy Rhean in his arms.
"Did I say something wrong?" Ace asks, arching a brow at Sky,
who only lets out a deep sigh.
Caught in the depths of her predicament, Neva lingers. Yet she knows her Father has brought Neriah here for a reason beyond what she can yet comprehend.
A dark anxiety coils within her heart,
whispering that if she lets her leave now, she may carry that regret for the rest of her life.
As instinct rises within her, strengthened by the reassuring nod her husband gives her, Neva moves toward the doorway and crosses the empty hallway to the entrance.
Neva opens the door, mid-march's chilly wind brushing against her cheeks as her gaze drifts toward Neriah, her figure awash in the pale moonlight and lantern glow
while she walks toward the cottage where the rescued children are sheltered.
"Neriah, wait!" Neva calls out, gathering the skirt of her dress in her fingers as she hurries down the porch steps after her.
Neriah halts, but she remains facing away from her.
As Neva closes the distance between them, Neriah finally turns to look at her, her beautiful face bathed in the amber glow of the lantern upon the cottage porch.
"If something's troubling you," Neva says gently, "you can tell me.
You can tell me anything."
A faint smile feathers across Neriah's lips. "I'm quite alright."
Neva gently takes Neriah's hands in hers, her heart aching at how cold they are against her own warmth.
"I don't know how you ended up here, and I can't begin to imagine what you're carrying. But I believe with all my heart that God placed me here before you for a reason."
"I don't think I do," Neriah says quietly. "Not anymore.
He gave me everything I ever dreamed of, but it cost me everything else I loved."
"Neriah..." Neva's voice trails away as tears gather in her eyes.
"Even if I'm nothing," Neriah says, "even
if I ruin everything, it still didn't have to be this way... It's always the same. I'm so sick of it and I don't think I'll ever get better."
Neva gently caresses Neriah's cheek, her coldness pressing against her palm.
"You are a miracle, Neriah," she murmurs, searching the deer-like eyes so much like her own. "You are a miracle to me...
and to your father. And you're so... so... so loved. And you don't have to carry it all alone. Give it to Him. Give it all to Him."
"I can't give what the rules of faith ask of me," she whispers.
"I know I make mistakes. I try to be better. It's... it's still never enough. And I don't understand—" Her chin quivers as a single tear slips down her cheek.
"When the time comes," Neva says, gently wiping her cheek, "you will understand why the Father allowed it. Remember that you are His, and that you matter to Him so very much.
"This pain will be nothing compared to the joy that's waiting for you. So stay... stay with Him," she whispers. "Don't give up on Him."
Neriah says nothing, and somehow Neva's rapidly beating heart seems louder than the wind rustling through the trees,
woven into the distant voices of the guards keeping watch around the bonfire.
Footsteps draw nearer, and when Neva looks past Neriah, Jeriah steps out from behind the side of the cottage, dressed in a simple grey tunic and trousers.
Another pair of familiar footsteps sounds behind her, and Neva doesn't have to look to know it's Rhett.
She knows he has remained there all along, unseen, yet never far enough that he could not reach her if she needed him.
As Rhett's sharpened gaze remains fixed on Jeriah,
who smiles warmly at them, Neva realises that her husband has never met him.
Wait... They had crossed paths before. They simply had never been properly acquainted.
Neva rests a reassuring hand on Rhett's arm before looking up at him. "He's Jeriah."
He raises a brow in quiet surprise.
"We've met before." Jeriah offers his hand to Rhett. "On the cruise. Six years ago."
Rhett takes Jeriah's hand. "I remember," he says.
Jeriah nods, his gaze shifting to Neriah. "I'm here to take you home."
A frown knits Neriah's brows before her gaze drifts to Neva,
searching her face for reassurance.
Neva smiles gently. "He'll guide you home and keep you safe."
Neriah glances at Jeriah. "Lead the way, then."
"Indeed," Jeriah replies, stepping forward.
Neva's heart clenches as Neriah turns to leave without so much as a goodbye hug.
Rhett wraps an arm around Neva, yet as she slips farther and farther away into the shadows, no doubt toward a rising dawn, something cracks within her,
an aching emptiness gnawing where a part of her had gone with her.
Just as Neva begins to lose hope, Neriah looks back over her shoulder one last time, lifting her hand in an angelic smile.
Neva smiles back, tears blurring her eyes as she raises a hand in return.
Neriah turns and walks beside Jeriah
until in Neva's reverie, the branches arch overhead in an intricately
woven bridge, entwined with flowering vines and leaves beyond the woods.
Clouds gather around them,
their silhouettes dissolving into the radiant haze, and into that eternal light beyond it... until the day they meet again.
Neva turns, burying her face against Rhett's chest as she breaks down in sobs, his arms closing around her in a warm embrace.
"She'll be alright, Angel."
He presses a kiss to the crown of her head, his embrace tightening ever so slightly as he murmurs, "She'll be alright."
She knows. She believes in her Father.
Yet she cannot escape the suffocating helplessness girding around her when her baby... their baby is hurting so much.