THE CAVERN OF DEEP HARMONY

PART EIGHTY-EIGHT:

Marshall's lawyer came to the house for a meeting and while he was occupied with that,

Connie and Eden drove together to Eden's old apartment to gather up the remainder of

the things Eden wanted to take. "Don't lift anything too heavy!" Marshall called after

his wife as she left the house.

"Protective, isn't he?" Connie remarked.

"I fainted the last time I was at the apartment," Eden shrugged.

"You...? Because of the pregnancy?"

"Seems like it. I've been dizzy a lot since. Haven't always let Marshall know."

"Is that something you should keep from him?"

"He worries."

"And you've never worried about him?"

"I'm an expert. That's how I know what it's like...what little good it does."

"Is that why he wanted to be sure I came along with you today?"

"Probably. He doesn't like me to be alone."

"Maybe you shouldn't be alone? You think of that?"

Charles Gromley, an older man who'd been Marshall's father's attorney ever since Marshall

could remember, walked into the den, opening a leather briefcase he'd set on the desk. "Every-

thing, eh?"

"Absolutely," Marshall nodded. "I want everything I own also in my wife's name."

"Do you have any idea, Marshall, just what it is you own?"

"Some. Probably not entirely."

"Would you like me to explain?"

"Might as well. I've never really needed to know before."

So for the next hour the two men sat in the den while Charles went through Marshall's holdings,

his investments, his accounts. "The will, too," Marshall spoke up. "I need you to draft a new

will. Didn't have anybody to leave all this stuff to before."

Charles studied the younger man. "I heard you almost died last fall."

"You heard right," Marshall affirmed. "Did die once. Really got me in touch with how lax I've

been with my paperwork. I want these drawn up immediately, Charles."

Charles chuckled. "You sounded like your Dad just then."

Marshall smiled.

Connie and Eden carried the rest of her clothes on their hangers, draping them over the back

seat of Connie's car. She didn't take any kitchenware. Her new kitchen had more equipment

than she'd ever seen. Besides, she liked using things she knew Marshall's mother had cooked

for him with. There were two small boxes of books, one of make-up and jewelry, one with CDs

and DVDs a sack with her shoes. Her DVD player, stereo, and TV she was giving to Connie, who

would pick them up another time when she had male help.

Charles had just left when the women got home. They only took the boxes as far as the garage,

unsure just where to put them. The clothes they hung in the large closet in the master bedroom

that was Eden's.

"Gotta go now," Connie said. "Mom's going to meet me for lunch."

"Give her a kiss for me," Eden smiled. "And...thank you! I don't think I could've managed

this without you."

"Marshall was right, eh?" They were in the bedroom and could hear him in the bathroom.

"Hi, Marsh! Bye, Marsh!" Connie called as she left.

"Bye, Connie!" He answered. "Be right out, darling," he added for Eden.

She felt really drained and stared at the bed. Maybe she could sneak a quick nap before

they had lunch? Her nose was a bit drippy from being out in the cold, so she walked around

to the far side of the bed where a box of tissues sat on the end table. She pulled one out, but

dropped it on the carpet.

"Drat!" She bent quickly over to pick it up. Everything went black and she just continued

forward, ending face-down in a little crumpled heap between the end table and the corner of

the bedroom. As she'd fallen, her right arm had gotten hooked through the lamp cord, and the lamp went down with her, hitting the wall and breaking the china base. Her arm was cut, not badly,but blood trickled  from the middle of her lower arm down to her wrist.

"Did you drop something, darling?" Marshall came out of the bathroom, still drying his

hands.

"Eden?"

She didn't answer. "Are you here, darling?" He moved around the room, coming within a foot

of her head. Hmmm? There was no sense of her present in the bedroom. Perhaps she'd gone

to the kitchen. It was lunchtime and Horatio was often hungry.

He walked into the kitchen, calling, "Eden?"  He could hear Wadsworth near the back door,

busily working on his rawhide chew. Other than that, there wasn't a sound from inside the

house.

He went into the den, the living room, the dining room, calling her name. Stopping at the base

of the staircase, he wondered if she might have gone up there. Quickly he went up to the second

level, calling out as he went up and down the hall, poking his head into each room. Back downstairs, he returned to their bedroom. "Darling?"

She wouldn't have gone outside, would she? He went back to the kitchen, called out into the

rear yard, did the same with the laundry room and the garage. Her car was there. She hadn't

driven anywhere and her purse was on the kitchen counter. He stopped in the hallway to the bedroom suite, listening intently. He'd heard some sort of sound while he was still in the bathroom. What could it have been? It had sounded close, like it was in the bedroom. His hands trailed over the dressers. Everything seemed to be in place atop them. He even opened the two closet doors, anxiety growing exponentially in his chest. She had to be somewhere, yet the house had this sense of emptiness about it, the like of which he hadn't felt since that last time he was here before going to the inn. "No," he said to himself, "it can't be empty like that. She's

here. She's got to be here."

He went to the bed, running his hands over it, then touched the things on the bedside table

closest to him. No, everything was all right. Walking around the bed, he felt along the window

seat, then headed toward the other table. His foot came down on something unfamiliar and he

checked his step before his weight went on it. Kneeling, he felt forward. "Oh, God!" It was her

left arm.

"Eden?" He leaned over her, trying to find her face. It was down and turned away from him,

her hair spilling over the bit of cheek that was not in the carpet. Brushing the hair back, he

touched her closed lids, then found the pulse in her neck. His hand slid down her right arm,

encountering wet stickiness. She was bleeding! He scrabbled to his feet, intending to call 911,

but she made a soft moaning sound and he dropped back to his knees.

"Eden? Darling?" His heart was pounding.

"Mar...Marshall?"

"I'm here, oh, darling, I'm here."

"T...tissue," she mumbled. "Dropped...tissue." She tried to turn.

"Don't move," he urged.

"Not broken," she managed. He scooped her up then, laying her on the bed.

"You're sure?"

"Am," she sighed. "Just...," she blew out a long breath, "just blacked out."

"You fainted?"

"Think so. Dropped tissue. That's...."

Speaking was a bit of an effort. Bending over to pick up the tissue was the last thing she

remembered. Her eyes moved slowly to the side, toward the end table. "Lamp's gone."

"Must be what broke. Your arm's cut, darling." He went to the bathroom, returning

with a wet cloth, pressing it over where he felt the stickiness. She'd lifted the arm while

he was gone, noting that the cut didn't seem that big.

"Don't worry," she whispered. "It's just little." He couldn't tell that for himself, though, and

he didn't want to probe at her fresh wound with his fingers. He'd touched half the house in

looking for her.

He leaned over her, wrapping her in his arms. "I couldn't find you," he moaned. "I couldn't...."

A shudder went completely through him. What if she'd been seriously injured, had been

bleeding badly the whole time he vainly went from room to room? For the first time he

completely tuned in to him alone in the house with a crawling baby. "Oh, God, oh, God, oh, my

God," he groaned.

"You did find me, Marshall, you did."

"In the last place I looked, the very last place," he croaked.

"Did you check in Narnia?" He shook his head. "Then it wasn't the last place, was it?"

She was feeling better and wanted to sit up but his arms were tightly around her. She squirmed

and he got the idea, loosening enough to let her prop against the head board, but not really

letting go of her. His face was visible to her now, though, and she read an absolute desolation

there. He kept whispering over and over, "I couldn't find you...."

She closed her eyes, trying to imagine what it would be like to be in utter darkness and trying

to locate something...some one. "It's all right," she tried to soothe. "I'm all right. You did find

me. You did."

He was biting his lower lip so hard she was afraid his teeth were going to sink through the

flesh of it, so she kissed his mouth softly again and again until he stopped. "Right here in the

bedroom. You were here...right here. I didn't know."  This was worse than not being able to

drive her home the other night, much worse. Never had he felt so incomplete, so lacking. The

bile of it rose stingingly up his throat and he stumbled for the bathroom, throwing up over

and over.

Wetting a bath towel, he wiped his face roughly, let it drop to the floor, and clung with both

hands to the side of the sink. He knew there was a mirror there, knew what the function of a

mirror was, though, as with so many things, it was something he couldn't really grasp. He

was supposed to be able to stand where he was, look straight ahead, and see himself. Whatever

seeing was. He was supposed to know what his face looked like without touching his face. He

was supposed to be able to look in a room and know where his wife was. His grip on the sides

of the sink tightened and a sound like some low, primal growl began in his gut and shoved its

way up through him, out of his mouth, and he banged his forehead into the useless mirror,

sending jagged crack lines all through it.

"Marshall!" Eden called, but he didn't come.

She got off the bed, walking to the bathroom, appalled at seeing him there, holding onto the

sink while blood dripped from his forehead into the oval, granite bowl. A little cry escaped

her and she clutched his right arm. He'd broken the mirror. That was what she'd heard, and

he'd obviously broken it with his face. "Oh, my darling!"

The bathroom smelled of his vomit, which though it was in the toilet bowl, was unflushed.

Quickly she flushed it, grabbed another, smaller towel to wet, took his hand and led him to

the bed. Her own cut had pretty much stopped bleeding, but he'd split his skin right at his

hairline and blood dripped down over both his closed lids. She didn't need to ask why he'd

done it. His repeated 'I couldn't find you's' were evidence enough. She also remembered back

to the days right after the sleigh accident when she had been so afraid he would be lost in

that brief, inconclusive experience he'd had that might or might not be sight. He couldn't...

change, couldn't lose that marvelous assurance of who he was, of how he made his way in

the world. Now she feared the same thing again.

As he lay down, he folded his arms over his face and she had to pry them away. He'd gotten

blood on them, too, by doing that. "Do you love me?" she breathed.

He gritted, "I love you so much...but it's not enough."

"Why isn't it enough?"

"I thought it would be. I wanted you, wanted a family so much, I thought it would be enough."

He twisted his head from side to side miserably. "But it's not enough. I'm not enough."

Oh, God. He was slipping away into some trough of despair and she had to prevent his plunge.

She lay down, mostly atop him. holding his face with her hands. She'd been in that trough

herself there a few days before their wedding when the thought of the loss of him almost led

her to run away, not to risk the pain of his death ever again. She had eyes that weren't 'broken'

as Luke called them. She didn't even need glasses. Yet she couldn't keep him from harm. She'd

been right beside him when the sleigh started to flip and he'd still died, right beneath her body

he'd died when she was in full contact with him. The impossibility of always protecting had

been a lesson she wasn't sure she'd yet fully learned. She still worried about him. How

compounded that must be, keeping the beloved from harm, when it must be done totally

without light, without the information that came to one by seeing?

"You shielded me," she said softly near his ear, "in the sleigh accident. You protected me

entirely. And you kept the convicts from taking me into the forest. Then, alone and sick, you

found your way out, found your way home."

His chin quivered and his eyes stayed tightly squeezed shut. "In...in the forest, I was the one...

the one lost. I was...was trying to find...me, get me out."

"Yes, but for me. You did that for me."

He nodded. "But you weren't lost. I...I wasn't trying to find you. Not like now. I tried and

tried and tried," a tear welled despite his tightened lids, "and I couldn't...do...it. I couldn't

find you. I need...," he gasped in a sharp breath, "I need to...to be able to...find you. I...."

He tried to twist his head away, but she held on. "I'm not going to let you go, Marshall

Sinclair. Do you hear me? I am NOT going to let you go!"

"Why?" he groaned, his whole face almost crumpling.

"Don't you know you are the best, the most wonderful, the most unimaginably glorious thing

that's ever happened to me? EVER! Don't you know how much you mean to me, how I can't

possibly live without you, can't even begin to think of living without you? You almost died

three times at the inn, my darling. This was just a little faint. Don't do this to yourself. Don't

do this to me. Please, darling!"

"The baby." His chin was still trembling. "I can't keep our baby safe. I don't know...I...."

"We'll work out ways. Lots of blind people have raised kids. We'll find out stuff, figure it out.

It'll be ok. We can do it. You can do it. I know you can. I do!"

He heaved an enormous sigh. The memory of searching the house, of not finding, was still so

fresh. She still lay atop him and his arms slid around her back. She rested her face against

his, his blood getting on her cheeks and nose. Gradually she felt his tension begin to leave

somewhat. He seemed exhausted and she was still tired from packing up things in her

apartment. They slept as they were, her heart right above his, her heart home.

Sylvie came in the house an hour later, intending to straighten up after lunch and maybe

polish some of the silver in the dining room breakfront. Eden's car and purse were there, so

she knew they must be home. Besides, Wadsworth was in the kitchen, meaning Marshall had

to be about somewhere. She went down the hall just to check and see if their bedroom door

were closed. It was open and she paused outside, half-turning away. They were asleep. She

smiled and decided to close the door, make sure any noise of her cleaning didn't disturb them.

Her hand on the knob, she cast a quick, fond look at them, then froze. Eden lay atop Marshall

and both their faces were turned toward the door, both covered with blood. Her piercing

shriek reverberated through the house, awakening them. They sat up, blinking sleepily

toward the doorway.

More sharp shrieks preceded her as she ran to the bed. She could barely breathe as she

clutched at them here and there. Murderers had been in the house, had stabbed them.

"Where?" she shouted, wanting to know where the knives had found their mark.

"Wh...what?" Marshall stammered, not fully awake. He felt frantic hands moving over his

chest. "Eden?"

"Blood!" Sylvie moaned. "Blood everywhere! Oh, my God...blood everywhere!"

"Sylvie?" he tried.

"My darling Marshall. You're alive! Where have you been stabbed? Where?"

His hand went to his face, feeling the caked, dried blood. "Mirror," he said in feeble

explanation. "No knives."

"Mirror? They attacked you with mirrors?" Sylvie was on the verge of keeling over herself.

"No, no, Sylvie. It's all right."

"And you?" She began feeling Eden.

"Lamp," Eden stated uninformatively, then suddenly remembered when they'd arrived at

Stuart's house for New Year's Day dinner, wounded by curtain rods and kitchen stools, and

how Ryan had reacted to that with laughter. She definitely felt discombobulated at the moment

and began to giggle.

"It's her arm," Marshall explained. "The lamp broke and cut her arm."

"But her face! Blood all over!"

"My blood," he said quietly, and touched his hairline.

Finally deciding that brigands had not almost killed them, Sylvie caught her breath and leaned

to check his forehead and then Eden's arm. "Stitches," she pronounced. "Get coats. I'm driving

you both to St. Clair Hospital."

"But Sylvie...," he protested.

"Now!" she stated even more firmly. She got them up and hustled them out to the kitchen,

glaring at Wadsworth, who was just swallowing his last bit of rawhide chew. "So," she growled,

"if it had been murderers, would you have left the chew and saved your people?"

Wadsworth gave her a sloppy doggy grin and came over to sniff at the scent of blood on said

people. "He would have, Sylvie," Marshall said, remembering the dog's unflagging tracking of

him through the forest, how he'd brought Eden to the gully. "I told him he was off duty and

gave him the chew."  He paused to rub Wadsworth's neck, then grabbed the harness near

the door.

"He's coming, too?" Sylvie frowned.

"Always," Marshall replied.

In the car, with their faces more on his level as the three of them sat in the back seat, Wadsworth

was much more intent on exploring the presence of blood. Marshall buckled on his harness during the five minute drive to St. Clair. Sylvie pulled into the emergency entrance and two

attendants hurried out.

"Looks a heckuva lot worse than it is," Eden said quickly before they could bring gurneys. "We

can walk."

A male nurse tried to put them in separate exam rooms but Marshall was having none of it.

Sylvie sat in the near-by waiting room, holding Wadsworth's harness. "Poor boy has spent way

too much time in hospital waiting rooms of late," Eden sighed as she and Marshall were led

down a corridor.

"This is highly irregular," the nurse said, pulling back a blue curtain. But Marshall had a grip

on Eden's hand and nothing was going to make him let go. He held onto it the entire time a

young female nurse washed their faces and arms to determine just who was bleeding where.

Eden's cut was handled with three small butterfly bandages and Marshall was basically glued.

"No stitches," Marshall announced as they came back out to the waiting room.

Sylvie's eyes narrowed. "In and out this time, is it? Not like your usual."

"Good thing Hersholtz isn't here," Marshall said wryly, remembering his doctor's yoyo string

remark.

"Let's go home," Eden sighed. "Horatio's hungry."

ON TO PART 89

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