* * *
"Perfect health, Mark. You have two perfect children."
Dr. Highwater slipped his stethoscope back into his lab coat pocket, where Robby fished it out, plugging it into his own ears to listen to Mark's chest. Mark picked him up.
Helen nodded in satisfaction as Mark conferred with Dr. Highwater. Things were set aright again. Robby started flying the stethoscope around, the bell following the earpieces like the pod racers in the Star Wars movie. She picked up Jesse Arnold and carried him to the changing table. He was six months old, just big enough to not cooperate when she tried to get sleeves over his hands. She smiled as he flailed about, looking at everything with big eyes, then grinning with a toothless laugh when he saw her smile. She tickled his feet. He crowed. And then he crowed at something over her shoulder.
She glanced around, expecting to see Mark. Instead, Raven greeted her. He nodded at her. No one saw him but Helen, and now the baby.
So that was why she hadn't seen the old man for a month. She'd have to find his body, be certain it was buried in his people's fashion. And now she had Jesse to teach.
"Mama gave you an extra gift there, little one. We'll have to talk about this when you get older." She fastened the last snap on his onesie shirt and carried him back to his daddy. They made a beautiful family, a perfect snapshot, especially with Elaine's spirit smiling down at Jesse, who gurgled and smiled back.
###
Stilling the Dead
A Helen Highwater Story
"And oxygen starvation would have killed or harmed the baby. You had to do it."
Elayne listened to them both. "Jesse's okay?"
Helen answered. "Jesse will be fine, if you will just leave him be. He is a baby, too close to the edge. Perhaps later you can visit him. But now, you are pulling him back into the place where the not-living dwell."
"I can visit him later?"
"Yes."
She turned back to Mark, who clung to her. "Darling, you have to live without me."
"Yes."
She closed her eyes and shivered. "I must return, I suppose."
Mark was silent a long minute. "Yes."
"I love you, darling."
The wind died. Mark held a silver shimmer. It drifted down, falling on the grave with the gentle touch of new snow, and dissolved. The spirits all around her were quiet.
She smiled. "Dr. McCoy, Raven and I will stay with you tonight. You need time to heal."
He nodded numbly.
