84
Sitting in an uncomfortable chair, looking at Lauren and the scan, Ross obsessed about the opportunities he had had to save them. He remembered when he had held Lauren's cure. He recalled the Source bringing him back from the dead when he could have escaped with an abundance of healing crystals. But he had stayed to help the others and stop Torino controlling the Source because he had thought it was what Lauren would want him to do.
Gradually, as Ross listened to the lulling rhythm of the apparatus, his exhausted body overruled his racing mind. He slumped in the chair, exposing the heavy crucifix, and fell into a fitful sleep.
Hours later, he woke with a start, clutching the cross and sweating. In his dreams he'd relived his near- death epiphany and his vow to Lauren. Back then, in his heightened state, he had known Lauren was making him vow to protect the Source and sacrifice her. And in the surreal context of the garden it had seemed the painful but right thing to do. Even at the end, surveying the scorched Eden, ashamed of what man had done, he'd focused on a plan to protect the Source. In many ways he had done more to protect it and its creatures than he had to protect his own family.
At that time, and in that place, it had felt right. Now, in the sober gloom of a sterile hospital room, inches from his comatose wife, his vow to Lauren felt very different. Especially when he considered his daughter, growing in Lauren's belly. What difference would it have made if he'd taken some of the crystals for Lauren? How much damage would he have done to the Source or its ecosystem? He touched the crucifix and could almost hear Sister Chantal's voice: 'A vow is black and white. There's never a plausible excuse or justifiable reason to break it. You either keep a vow or break it. There's no middle ground. A vow is for ever.'
But what about your vow, Sister Chantal?
Sister Chantal had taken him to the garden for the express purpose of saving his wife. The Source was meant to save Lauren so she could become its protector, the Keeper, but instead Sister Chantal had placed that burden on his shoulders. He had become the Keeper. He studied the crude, ugly crucifix she had passed on to him, which Father Orlando had given her four and a half centuries ago, and rage built within him.
He considered all the pain it symbolized. Not just Christ's suffering but all the evil done in the name of religion. He thought of what Torino had done in the name of his church: harming Lauren, destroying the garden, abusing the Source. He thought of how Torino had used Bazin, offering redemption, but merely making him kill for a different master. Ross didn't see the cross bringing salvation to anyone – only suffering and damnation.
In his anger and despair he ripped it from his neck and threw it, with all his strength, across the room. The instant it hit the wall, narrowly missing the clock, he felt foolish and contrite.
The instruments by the bed began to beep.
Shit.
But the cross hadn't hit anything important. Had it?
Within seconds a nurse was rushing into the room.
Panicked but unable to help, Ross went to where the crucifix had fallen. The impact had dented it badly. He picked it up and, as he turned it in his hand, he noticed two things that dried his mouth: the welted seam at the back of the crucifix had buckled, revealing a hollow interior; and the second hand on the wall clock had stopped. Ross recalled Hackett dropping his watch into the pewter goblet, and how the shielding properties of its lead and tin had helped restart the mechanism. Then he remembered the reverence with which the nymphs had treated the cross. Had they sensed something?
With trembling fingers, Ross pulled back the malleable metal seam to reveal a crystalline sliver in the hollow. No larger than a toothpick, it glowed and pulsed with a life of its own. His heart raced. Father Orlando must have concealed it there when he had discovered the Source. He must have learnt somehow that certain metals could contain its magnetic and radioactive properties. The sliver of crystal would also explain how Father Orlando had healed his burnt feet after his first session of torture all those centuries ago, only forgoing its benefits when he realized that the Inquisition didn't regard his cure as proof of the existence of the garden, but as proof of possession by the Devil.
When Father Orlando had given the cross to Sister Chantal and told her to seek salvation within it in times of crisis, she hadn't understood he'd meant it literally. She had remained ignorant of the cross's secret for four and a half centuries. She can't have known about it, Ross thought, or she would have used it on Lauren when she first visited her in hospital.
Unless…
The thought sliced through his excitement like an icy draught. Sister Chantal had told him that the crystals in the tunnel only worked if they were of a certain size. This sliver was undoubtedly from the Source, but it was very small. Was it large enough to cure Lauren?
Ross re-formed the crucifix, sealing the seam. The instruments immediately stopped beeping, and the clock resumed ticking.
'That's strange,' said the nurse behind him. He turned and she smiled apologetically. 'Sorry about that. I'm not sure what happened but everything's fine and your wife's in no danger. I'll alert the technical team.' When she'd left the room, he clutched the crucifix to his breast and shifted his focus to Lauren's feeding tube.
85
The next morning Ross awoke in panic. It was six eighteen and something had happened.
Something that wasn't good.
The alarms on Lauren's life support were bleeping more insistently than they had last night, and her vital signs oscillated erratically.
Dr Gunderson tried to appear calm, but her voice was shrill. 'Ross, we must prepare Lauren for surgery now. We can't wait another minute. We must get the child out immediately. It may already be too late.'
He wiped sleep from his eyes. 'What's happening? What's wrong?'
Gunderson and other doctors were wheeling Lauren out of the room and heading for the lift. 'OR nine,' shouted Gunderson. 'Hurry. Hurry.'
Ross followed. 'I want to come.'
'That's not a good idea. Wait here. We'll update you as soon as we know more.'
He stepped into the lift. 'I want to be there. It's a birth. I'm the father. I should be there.'
Gunderson's eyes were cold. 'It's not a birth. It's an operation.
Chances are it'll be the opposite of a birth.'
Ross didn't flinch. 'If this is the last I'm going to see of my wife and child I want to be there.'
'I really don't think it's a good idea,' she sighed, 'but if you insist.'
'I do.' Ross couldn't understand what was happening. After finding the fragment in the crucifix he had taken it to the main washroom and steeped it in a beaker of water, then poured the solution into Lauren's feeding tube. He'd done it three times. The water should have catalysed the Source. It should have worked. But it hadn't. Not only had the Source not helped Lauren but it had exacerbated her condition.
What had Dr Gunderson said? Every day inside the womb would increase the baby's – his daughter's – chance of survival. So being delivered now, today, was the worst possible outcome.
In the operating room, Ross was given surgical greens and a face mask and told to stand away from the table. He watched them roll Lauren from her bed on to it. Suddenly, a nurse looked up. 'We might not need to do a Caesarean.'
Gunderson called from the scrubbing suite. 'Why?'
'Her waters have broken.'
A midwife, present more out of hope than necessity, stepped forward. She was an older woman and something about her eyes, visible above her mask, reminded Ross of Sister Chantal. Compassionate and wise, they seemed to have seen everything there was to see. She examined Lauren and smiled. Ross loved that smile. It spoke of confidence and possibility. 'Her waters have broken. She's going into labour.'
'You sure?' Gunderson said, approaching the table where her instruments had been laid out. She reached
