Page 1 of A Castle in the Sky: Fern & Connor
Chapter 1
The steady beep of the monitor was the only sound in the room.
Fern sat slumped in the stiff plastic chair, her fingers twisted together so tightly her knuckles felt like the bone would push through. Her eyes felt grainy and dry, but no force on earth could drag her eyes off the small form curled up in the hospital bed.
Her daughter's long lashes lay dark and clumped against flushed cheeks still wet with drying tears, her tiny chest rising and falling beneath the scratchy cotton gown. Her clothes had been dirty and wet when she was brought into the emergency department and the medical team had decided to gently cut the long-sleeved t-shirt and sweater off. The bandage wrapped around her right hand looked bulky and stark against pale skin far too delicate for this kind of pain. Coraline, her precious daughter, who barely spoke five words in a day but communicated everything she needed to, was moaning even under sedation when she got to the hospital. Sometimes, a spasm would run through her and her body would go stiff before it relaxed again. It was like she was still trapped in the nightmare from a few hours ago.
Fern crept closer and brushed a stray curl from her forehead, careful not to wake her. She had soothed her to sleep with whispered stories and promises she wasn't sure she could keep. Promises that her da will be here to hold his munchkin soon.
The door creaked as a nurse slipped in to check the IV line wrapped in bandage to keep her from pulling it out. She offered Fern a soft smile, one of those looks that, her traumatized mind whispered to her,carried both sympathy and justified judgment—the kind given to moms who should have been there. Fern forced a nod of thanks, but her stomach twisted like a pretzel all the same. She wasn't wrong; she should have known better. And now, her most precious heart may carry the scars for life.
Because she had always shown up... always. She was the one who worked from home, who juggled freelance deadlines around school runs and meals and pushed for playdates. She was the one who cancelled plans when her daughter was sick, who remembered the inhaler, who never once forgot to lock the back door. She was the one who attended the SALT referrals and was pushing for the neurodevelopmental assessment.
But tonight? Tonight, for once, she had trusted Connor.
Her throat felt raw as if doused in acid. She had asked him to pick Cora up from school—just this once, because she had a client meeting and she couldn't move it again. He had said he would, had promised he would make it on time to pick Cora up from her preschool, only to hand the ‘task’ to his mother because Matilda's son 'needed' him yet again. His mother had then decided her Bridge game was too important to miss and had left Cora with Matilda after picking her up from school. Her grandmother was unreachable when Matilda’s young neighbour, Horace, had found Cora crying outside and had called Fern in a panic. Horace worked at the convenience store right down the road from Fern’s house and sometimes delivered her groceries for a little extra money. She was lucky the teenager recognized Cora and decided to step in.
Fern's nails dug purple crescents into her palm. Matilda, the ex who lived three streets over. The ex who still slipped intoconversations like a spectre at their dinner table. The ex her mother-in-law had called 'the one that got away'.
Not once but repeatedly, and to her face.
And now... now her daughter lay here, bandaged and trembling in her sleep, because while Matilda was passed out on the sofa, Cora had turned on the stove. She had sobbed the words 'hungry' and 'noodles' when she tried to tell Fern what had happened. She always liked to watch Fern cook. She knew she was not supposed to go near the stove. Why would she even... ?
A strange mixture of rage and panic coursed through her veins at the thought of that woman having control of her child—even for a few hours. It swelled into a crescendo as she imagined how much worse it could have been. Fern leaned forward, pressing her forehead to the side of the bed. She breathed in the sterile scent of antiseptic and the faint sweetness of her daughter's hair.
"Never again," she whispered, a vow to herself. Her voice was not quite steady, but her resolve was.
The clock on the wall ticked its way past midnight. And Connor still hadn't arrived.
Chapter 2
Connor rubbed at the back of his neck as he guided the car through the narrow estate roads, the rhythmic soft rumble of tyres on wet tarmac almost hypnotic. Jacob was strapped into the booster seat beside him, mid-grumble about missed goals and unfair referees, but his words were slurring with sleep. The boy's head finally lolled sideways, blond hair flopping into his eyes.
Good,Connor thought tiredly. At least one of them could rest. And he just needed a moment of silence to think.
The floodlights at the rugby pitch had burned longer than they should have. The match had overrun, Jacob's team had lost by two tries, and the lad had taken it hard. A stop for burgers and fries had seemed the only way to fix things, but now the clock on the dash mocked him. Nearly ten.
He exhaled a long and tired sigh.Thank God Mum had ridden to the rescue,he tried to convince himself. She'd quickly agreed to collect Coral in his place. Everything was covered. Everything was fine.
He hadn't wanted to let Matilda down. She'd called in a panic about a last-minute interview. She needed someone to take Jacob to his rugby match.
"Please Connor. I really need this job," she had pleaded over the phone in her signature Matty fashion. When he said no, her tune had changed in the blink of an eye. He just couldn't say no. She had been his love for most of his life and now he was left with no choice… none. There was too much history between them... too much Fern did not know. It was just easier to give in and tell her not to worry.
They'd all grown up together; it was what he had always been expected to do. And Matilda... she was fragile. He owed her, didn’t he?
He tried not to think about why. About the night she was ten—barefoot on the street, ash dusting her scarlet hair as her house burned behind her. He tried not to remember the way her father's body had been carried out later, blackened hands still reaching for her mother, who had burnt it all down with her.
He tried not to think of the ways he had made things worse, tried not to think of the reasons why he couldn't say ‘no’ to Matilda.
Connor swallowed hard and stared at the dark road ahead.
Sometimes he wondered why he'd caved and come back. Whitley Bay had always been a trap beneath all the nostalgia—too small and familiar to hide the ghosts and secrets around every corner. Manchester had been loud and anonymous, and that's where he'd met Fern—his beautiful wife with her sharp-tongue and a smile that made him forget everything that was messed up in his life.
He'd thought he'd outrun the past.
He'd been wrong.
If Fern hadn't fallen pregnant four years ago...He stopped the thought there, ashamed. They'd already been together two years, already serious. She had been everything Matty wasn't. Their relationship wasn't built on eggshells. And he had been the biggest coward keeping his secrets from her before the stakes got higher. But Cora had sealed it all before he'd found the courage to tell her the full story of Matilda and him. And now, for every day he held the truth to himself, he felt like Atlas as the lies he carried grew heavier andheavier. Some truths, once spoken, didn't wash off. And he couldn’t bear to lose Fern or Coral.
