Ripple Effect

Chapter Sixty: ...Gunsmoke.

"Hey, Noodle." His voice held a quiver of surprise. "What are you doing up?"

"I couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd work on some designs, but then I heard you getting up." She sank down onto the opposite end of the couch, and then drew her knees up until she was tucked into the corner. In the darkness, the glimmer of fear that lit her eyes seemed all the much brighter, like the white cast out by the television screen. "Someone didn't call, did they...? About Mom?"

Henry paused. For a moment, it felt as though she'd been privy to his dream, as though all their concerns and fears about Elizabeth had somehow become communal, threads that drifted through the house and wove through their minds, carrying with them all the same thoughts.

He shook the feeling away, and offered her a taut smile, and was about to tell her that he hadn't heard anything, that he just couldn't sleep either, when—

"What's happened to Mom?" Jason's voice came from the stairwell.

Both Henry and Alison twisted around.

Jason strode down the last step, and as he walked over, his footsteps thumped off the floorboards. With his arms folded loosely across his chest, he leant back against the edge of the kitchen table and met them both with an expectant look, though his eyes held fear too, like deep water currents swarming beneath a seemingly tranquil surface. His shoulders flinched forward. "So?"

Henry took a breath and rubbed his brow, whilst once again that feeling took hold. He opened his mouth, ready to say, Nothing's happened to Mom.

But at the dab of footfall coming down the stairs, he paused.

Stevie stopped on the second from bottom step, her hand rested against the newel cap. Her gaze jumped from Jason to Alison and then to Henry, and her eyes widened, until the reflection of the light from the television screen shimmered off their whites. "Did you guys get that feeling too?"

"What feeling?" Henry said.

Stevie gave a stilted shrug, but the way her fingers flexed against the newel cap belied that nonchalance. "I don't know... I just had this bad feeling, like something was wrong."

Jason's and Alison's gazes drifted back to Henry, and without a word, they said that they felt that way too.

That communal thread now wrapped around the pit of Henry's stomach, but he met them with what he hoped would be a reassuring smile. "Nothing's happened to Mom."

Their expressions said that his attempt at reassurance had failed.

He tried again. "Look, I just couldn't sleep, that's all."

Jason jutted his chin. "Because you're worried about her too?"

Henry massaged the creases that had sunk into his brow, his other arm resting along the grey blanket that was draped over the back of the couch, the wool rough to the touch. "There's no need to worry about Mom. It's the middle of the night." He gestured to the darkness around them. "She'll be fast asleep—as should the rest of you."

"You're not."

Henry shot Jason a look. "I don't have school, college and..." His frown deepened as he fumbled for the right term. "...White House-ing in the morning." He beckoned Stevie and Jason over. "Look, come here. Sit down."

He shifted to sit at the edge of the footstool. Jason trudged over and slouched down onto the cushions, whilst Stevie perched against the arm of the couch. Henry stooped forward, his arms rested to his thighs, his hands clasped loosely in front of him. His gaze swept to each of them in turn. "Mom's safe, okay? The staff at the clinic know what they're doing, and she's got her DS guys protecting her. They're not going to let anything happen to her."