Read Online Burnt Sea: A Seabound Prequel (Seabound Chronicles Book 0) by Jordan Rivet - Free Book Online Page B

we going to do without Mommy?”
    “I don’t know.”
    The tears came then. Simon hugged Esther closer and wept into her tiny
shoulder. Her Thomas T-shirt grew damp from his tears. Esther didn’t cry, but
she gripped him tightly with her small, warm hands. The engine vibrated
solemnly at his back.

 
    Judith

 
    The
women in the reception lobby were crying when Judith arrived with her pile of
sweatshirts. The older one with lavender hair and the long peasant skirt sat on
the floor, rocking back and forth. Judith hadn’t realized before how tiny she
was. She was holding the hand of the woman lying on the couch, whose eyes were
closed.
    Blood and fluid matted the cushions. It made Judith’s stomach turn, and
she looked away. The woman with the cross necklace was on her feet. Her cheeks
were wet and her shirt was covered in blood.
    In her arms was a tiny baby. Bright-red hair dusted its head, still
glistening with fluid. The woman hummed a hymn over the baby as her tears continued
to fall.
    “Is she . . . ? ” Judith cleared her throat.
“Is she okay?”
    “They both are, honey. They both are.”
    Wordlessly, Judith handed over the pile of sweatshirts. She helped the
lavender-haired woman, who introduced herself as Bernadette, wrap the exhausted new mother in soft cotton. The other woman cleaned the baby
with fragments of her own soiled clothes and then wrapped herself and the newborn in clean sweatshirts.
    “There was supposed to be a nurse. Did she help you?” Judith whispered
to Bernadette.
    “Yes, dear. She was here for the worst of it. She just went down to the
clinic to get some supplies. Our girl Constance is going to need stitches. She
wouldn’t trust anyone else to get the right stuff, and Penelope here knows
plenty about looking after babies.”
    Penelope smiled over the newly swaddled form. “This is an angel. The
Lord will look after us. Don’t ya’ll worry about a thing. ”
    “Stitches?” Judith felt ill. “Should we move her down to the clinic?”
    “Best to keep her still. We’ll move her somewhere safe and clean as
soon as she’s patched up.”
    Judith fought down the bile in her throat. She couldn’t stand blood,
and even talking about stitches made her feel nauseated.
    “Umm, I don’t think I can help with that.”
    “Of course not, dear,” Penelope said. “We have things under control
here. Would you like to hold our little Catalina?”
    “Catalina?”
    “She’ll go by Cally for short,” the woman on
the couch said, lifting her head slightly. “Like my mother, Calypso.”
    “Oh, um, no. I don’t like ba — ”
    But Penelope was already thrusting the tiny cotton-wrapped bundle into
Judith’s arms. The baby barely weighed a thing, but Judith held her out in
front of her like a twenty-pound sack of rice, both arms stiff. Catalina had a
snub nose and ears like mother-of-pearl shells. Her hair looked even redder now
that it had started to dry. It was soft like down. Her skin was nearly
translucent. Judith could see the veins pulsing on her tiny temples. She swallowed
a gag and quickly handed the baby back to Penelope.
    “I’d better go see if everything’s okay back in the plaza,” Judith
said. She wanted to get out of there before the nurse returned.
    “Wait!” A face popped up from behind the computer on the reception
desk. “Did the captain make an appearance? What’d he say?”
    “Who are you?”
    “Nora. I’ve been trying to access the net. Had to break into the ship’s
system.”
    Nora had spiky pink hair and at least a dozen earrings in each ear and
two in her eyebrow. She appeared to be in her late twenties. Judith introduced
herself and joined her at the reception desk, turning her back on the three
women with the baby. She didn’t understand how they could sit there and coo
over a wrinkly baby with all that blood around.
    “Do you have an Internet connection?” she asked. For one wild moment
she thought about emailing Donald Herz to tell him
she