Page 88 of The Condemned (Echoes from the Past #6)
SEVENTY-FIVE
St. Just, Cornwall
Mary came to with a hard jolt and gasped as uncontrollable coughing wracked her body.
Her eyes streamed and she gulped for air, but it didn’t seem to fill her burning lungs.
She was shaking with cold, and her clothes were wet and smelled of seawater.
Pressure was building in her head, which felt like it would split in two if the strain wasn’t immediately relieved.
Mary carefully touched the top of her head and found a circular opening, the slimy surface of what must be her brain pulsating beneath.
She yanked her hand away and tried to see if her head was bleeding, but although her eyes were wide open, she couldn’t see anything, not even a chink of light.
When she tried to move, her knees slammed into something hard and unyielding.
Mary held her hands in front of her and tried to straighten them, but her palms met with solid wood.
Her chest heaved with panic as the reality of her situation began to sink in.
She was trapped. “Help!” Mary screamed. “Please, help me!” Her voice echoed dully, but there were no other human sounds, just an eerie silence broken only by what she thought might be the crashing of waves or the flapping of wings.
She couldn’t be sure what she heard since her head tolled like an iron bell.
Unbearable anxiety built inside her, rushing at her like an incoming tide, each wave coming harder and faster, and reaching further.
Mary couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, and couldn’t make any sense of what was happening.
Her jumbled thoughts scurried like mice, bumping into each other and scrambling in blind panic.
And then the pains came, sharp and visceral, the pains of childbirth .
“No, please, no,” Mary moaned as she wrapped her hands around her stomach and turned on her side, which helped marginally.
The pain abated for a few minutes, but then returned, gripping her womb with cruel fingers and twisting it mercilessly.
She clasped her hands and began to pray, begging God for help, but even as she mouthed the words, she knew there was no stopping what had already begun.
The labor would continue until it culminated in a grim conclusion, for there could be no other outcome given her situation.
Mary tried to hold on to consciousness as contraction after contraction tore through her body, leaving her breathless and shaking.
Her thighs were slick with blood, and her back felt as if it would snap.
She was trapped in her awkward position, unable to open her legs wide enough to allow the child to vacate her body.
As a terrible pressure built in her lower abdomen, she bore down, unable to stop even when stars exploded before her eyes as her brain strained against the opening in her skull.
She pushed again and again, her body following the dictates of nature, indifferent to what she might be feeling.
Mary crossed her arms in front of her belly and rested her forehead against the rough wood of the coffin.
She was so weak, and so tired. She knew, in that instinctive way people feel the approach of death, that she had only a short time left, and she was glad of it.
She was ready. Whoever had interred her had condemned her to certain death, but perhaps the judgement had come down long before that.
She’d tried to grab at happiness, going against the teachings of the Church and the laws of man.
She’d attempted to thwart the natural order of things, and she was about to pay for her sins, not only with her own life, but with the life of her child, who’d spend eternity by her side.
They’d die alone and unloved, with no one to mourn them or even pay for a crude marker to identify their lonely grave.
She’d never lie in consecrated ground, and her child would never know the glory of God, not having been baptized before it died.
Death was frightening enough, but to know that she would forever remain in hell as punishment for her sins was terrifying.
Mary opened her mouth in a silent scream as her body began to shut down.
She felt the approach of death and knew with unwavering certainty that she was damned.
After a time, a wonderful peace stole over her, taking away the pain and the unspeakable terror of those final moments. Mary felt as if she were being cradled in loving arms. They wouldn’t let her fall.
“I’ve got you,” Walker’s voice said softly. “You can let go now. I’ve got you both.” Somewhere, in the deep recesses of her mind, she heard the haunting notes of his death song—but no, this was her own death song, her final act.
Mary was nearly gone by the time the infant slithered from her body, its nose pressing against the back of Mary’s thighs and its hands balled into fists.
Its tiny feet rested against Mary’s bottom, but she couldn’t feel the connection.
The child whimpered once, and again, and then grew silent as the sodden wool of Mary’s skirts smothered it as effectively as a feather pillow.
Waves crashed against the shore, and a hunter’s moon rose slowly and majestically above the dusky expanse of the sea.
A broken mast rose out of the water, its tattered sails hanging on by lengths of torn rigging, and chucks of broken wood floated toward the shore, along with an odd assortment of household items. A man’s body lay face down in the sand, his dark hair plastered to his head.
It had been the first to wash up, but it wouldn’t be the last.