"Move," Flanders grumbled.
They passed each entrance with care, alert for any sign of danger. A child cried from within one, and from another came the sound of a man's snores. A fast-moving cloud dowsed them in shadow, but the reprieve would be brief.
At last, they reached the final dugout. Flanders paused, his heart a war drum in his chest. What if the children lied? What if she’d gone? What if the men came back because they’d caught her? Had they killed her as well? There was no hue and cry, so…
He shook the worries away and knocked softly on the wooden frame of the entrance. "We come to help," he whispered through the opening. "Friends from Todlaw."
Silence answered him.
He exchanged a glance with Robert, then ducked his head and stepped inside. The interior was much like the other—two raised beds, a table, a small chimney. But this one caught a shaft of sunlight through a small window that was possible only because it was the last in the row. Warm light illuminated dust motes that danced in the air.
"Bella?" he whispered.
Nothing.
He moved further in, eyes adjusting to the dim light. An empty cup on the table, a small pile of kindling by the hearth, a child's wooden toy on one of the beds.
Then, like a breath of wind, he heard his name, and he caught his breath.
Flanders?
Not aloud. In his mind. Just as Brigid had once spoken to him.
He scanned the small space again. "Where are ye?" he whispered.
Robert gave him a strange look. Mael pulled the blanket over the doorway and peeked out the thin gap beside it.
The voice came again, stronger this time.Under the bed. I…dare not move.
He dropped to his knees and lifted the rough blanket that hung to the floor. In the darkness beneath, he saw her—curled tight against the wall, her copper-gold hair a tangled mess, her face smudged with dirt and tears.
She looked so much like Brigid, the sight of her drove a fist into his gullet. Then again, could Bella speak into his mind as well? Certainly, the sister could share the same powers, but…dared he hope?
"Brigid?" The name escaped him in a choked whisper.
She blinked up at him, her eyes wide with fear and disbelief. "Flanders," she said aloud.
Robert lifted the end of the bedframe. Flanders reached for her and firmly but gently helped her out. When she stood before him, alive and whole, he pulled her into his arms and held her as if she might dissolve into smoke. Tears spilled down his cheeks.
"I thought ye dead," he said against her hair. "When they said they burned a witch, I remembered yer vision. I’ve seen it myself in my dreams. I assumed it was ye. I reckon my dreams were wrong."
She trembled against him but didn’t push him away. "It was Bella. She couldn’t get free—” Her voice broke. "Oh, my poor Bella!”
He pulled back enough to see her face, to read the heartbreak in her eyes. "I am sorry," he said, knowing the words were hollow compared to such loss. He wished he could take her pain, absorb it into himself, but all he could do was hold her.
Robert cleared his throat from the entrance. "Time to talk later. Mael will give ye his clothes, then he’ll take yer hiding place until after dark.”
Mael held out a hand to silence them but kept his eyes on the other side of the wool drape. "Six or seven,” he hissed, “headed this way."
Flanders turned back to Brigid. "Don’t worry. I will not leave ye.”
“Maybe they’ll pass,” Robert whispered.
“I don’t think so.” Mael released the curtain and turned away. “They have Wolfy with them.”
Robert rolled his eyes. “We should have known—children tell the truth.”
* * *
