A beating heart

Chapter 36

„What is going on, someone speak to me." Francis commanded as he rushed into the nursery.

„She is gone. Francis, they took her." Mary's face was framed by the tears chasing down her cheeks and the desperation cracked her voice.

When his eyes fell from Mary to the empty crib, she was hovering over, his heart recoiled. The air fled his lungs and he felt as if someone had just knocked their fist through his stomach. It shouldn't be empty. He froze and his mind rebelled against the truth of what he saw before him. His limbs felt heavy as lumps of lead and unstable as friable wood at the same time. He gaped at Mary, unable to find the right words, or any word for that matter, to calm her fears. There was nothing he could do as he himself stood paralyzed at the sight before him.

„They took my baby. Anne, my sweet little Anne." Mary repeated it over and over like a prayer, as if the words could somehow bring her back.

She crumbled to the floors, her fingers still clinging to the wooden frame of the crib. The sobs visibly surged through her body as she shook before his eyes. His eyes flickered between her and the wooden child bed, unable to form a coherent thought. His hair was uncombed as he had scaled straight from under the covers at her screams. Some lonely blond curl fell into his face and when he brought his hands up to push the hair away, he found them trembling. This had been his worst fear and maybe it had been foolish of them not to keep Anne closer. If this was the price he would pay for their victory, Anne's innocent life, he would gladly choose defeat without so much as a second thought.

Slowly he sensed his coherent thoughts returning and his heart pushed past the withering curtain of pain and despair. The window to the side of the crib stood wide open and now that he saw it, he felt the chill ghost over his skin. He shuddered and in the next moment found himself at the perch of the window looking over the sill. His heart threatened to explode in his chest and when he found the hard and frozen ground beneath empty, the relief still felt smothering.

This meant, there was still a chance. The glimmer of hope she was still alive. He held onto that thought with all the strength in his heart. They couldn't allow the pain to win over, not now. This was not the time for tears and no amount of heavy drops from his eyes would bring her back. Anne needed her parents to be brave, to fight for her. That same hope of his child's life finally brought him to speak.

„Lock the gate, all the exits from the castle and search ever room. I don't care who you wake, you will find her!" the anger and despair soured his tone and the guards flinched at his dead eyes.

Moments later he could make out the men hurrying through the corridors and in minutes the whole castle was filled with confused voices. Mary still sat crumbled against the wall and had her face buried in her hands. He swallowed, well aware that there was nothing he could say to calm her own panic but he also knew that he would have to at least try. So he sank to his knees beside her, prying her hands from the wooden frame of the crib and closely enveloped them in his own.

„It will be okay. I won't allow them to take her from us. Mary, we will find her!" his words didn't sound half as confident as he had hoped and she slowly rose her head at the sound of his voice.

When normally, her eyes resembled the colour of dark warm chocolate, they looked grey and frighteningly hollow when they met his. The skin around them gleamed red from the tears, her eyes had rained upon her face, and her lips weakly parted without a single sound escaping.

He stared at her with a mixture of desperation and ignorance at what to do. She faltered and her eyes broke from his glance as she wrapped her shaking arms around her body in hopes of shielding it from the icy air escaping the still open window. He quickly moved to close it, before carefully picking Mary up from the hard stone tiles. She felt awfully light in his arms and her head fell heavy against his chest. The shudders still raced through her body but the sobs had slowly turned into less violent hiccups. He pressed his lips against the top of her head and with the weight of her body in his arms the tears finally manifested before his eyes.