Carrying On -- bonus snippet

Gerald James sat rigid in his chair, jaw aching from clenching it too hard and too long. His wife, Alice sat beside him, equally tense. Only Kelsie, strapped to Alice’s chest in a sling, was relaxed, snoring gently away while across the table, the doctor regarded them solemnly.

“Well?” Gerald asked when he couldn’t stand the silence any longer.

Dr Rodriguez pushed his glasses up his nose. “I’m sorry,” he said. “The results of the scans are in. Kelsie has a curse in her heart.”

Alice’s breath caught. She hugged the baby tightly, who stirred, but didn’t wake. “There must be a mistake,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” Dr Rodriguez said. “We do have a mage GP who services this area and specialises in cases like these. Doctor Jason Marley. I’ll put you in touch with – ”

“Can we get it out?” Gerald asked. “Is there some kind of, of charm or treatment? We can pay; we can mortgage the house again, or… or something.”

“Doctor Marley will be able to go through your options with you. But, with a curse in the heart… it’s a complicated case.”

Alice gripped Gerald’s hand tightly enough that the bones inside squeaked together. Gerald stood up. “Can we just… we, we need a moment. Excuse me.” He dashed from the docto’re office, practically dragging his wife with him.

The crowded waiting room was nearby, but the tiny hall just outside the office offered the illusion of solitude. The pair stood in silence for a moment, just them and their sleeping child between them – their child, the one person in the world more precious to both of them than each other. They’d tried so long, so hard, for a baby. The pregnancy had been so wearing on Alice, so stressful for both of them. Then she’d come into the world, perfect, beautiful, everything.

Cursed.

This must have been how Sleeping Beauty’s parents felt at their baby’s christening, Gerald thought, as he and Alice stared at each other with equal helplessness.

“What do we do?” Gerald asked.

“Whatever we can,” Alice replied fiercely. “People have raised kids with worse disabilities before.”

“You’ve heard the stories,” Gerald said. “About what some of these curses can do.”

“It’s dangerous. Parenting is dangerous. Life is dangerous. Are you suggesting we, what, abandon her? Throw her into a foster system that’s going to – ”

“No! No, I’m just making completely sure that we’re on the same page. I’m with you here. I’m with both of you.”

Alice nodded. “Good. Then we talk to this, this doctor marley, and we see what he has to say about getting rid of this thing. Or binding it. Or whatever. And if he can’t, we just… we just deal with whatever the consequences are.”

“We can’t tell people about this,” Gerald pointed out. “It’d ruin her life. It has to stay between us, and the people we trust completely.”

Alice nodded. “Agreed. We do what we can to treat it, and we do what we can to keep it a secret, and we do what we can to help her live with it, if it comes to that. She’s going to have the best childhood we can give her, and whatever that thing inside her does, she’s going to live her life knowing that we’ll always do what’s best for her, that she’s always going to be protected, and she’s never, ever going to have any doubt that she’s loved.”

Gerald nodded. One of his hands was still locked in his wife’s vicelike grip, but he ran his free hand over the soft down on Kelsie’s head. She mumbled in her sleep.

“You hear that, Angel? Everything’s going to be fine. You’re going to be fine. And if the world decides otherwise, well.” He squeezed his wife’s hand. She squeezed back. “We just won’t let it.”