The Dark Side of the Moon

Chapter 13-I shall Meet You on the Other Side

I fell to my knees out in a vast snow covered field far into the distance of the De Noir lands. I was surrounded by headstones dating back for hundreds of years. I only knew because I spent a great deal of time dwelling out here. But I was only dwelling over one headstone. My heart was pained, the ache radiated throughout my chest and down into my arms. It weakened me. It hollowed me. Left me empty.

William George De Noir

Stillborn to Robin & Maria De Noir

22nd, March 1844

Trembling from the cold and from my suffering I reached a shaking finger out and traced the black letters embossed into the cold marble. My fingers swirled along with the intricate looping and dips of the script. Tears fell silently, streaming in fast succession down my face. They dripped from my chin and soaked my dress at the tops of my thighs.

I don't know how long I sat there. And I wasn't sure if my legs had grown numb from the frigid temperature, the icy snow beneath me, or because of the way I was sat with my legs folded under myself. Or perhaps I was numbed all over, an attempt to protect myself from the shattering pain that plagued my heart.

I had lost my child. My body had failed me and my baby was never even given a chance. Was never to look upon my face, nor I his. Did he have his father's curls? My pale blue eyes? What would it have been like to hold him in my arms? Nourish him at my breast? Oh, how I longed to hear his cries, his laughter, his tiny, precious voice. Why was that taken from me? Why was my baby taken from me?

In my exhaustion, my head fell defeatedly, forcing me to gaze upon my lap. I stared at my hands rested there. Stared long and hard, seemingly in incomprehension. My breathing was slow and laboured. And every now and then that dreadful ache pained my heart, once again radiating throughout my entire chest and down into my empty arms.

Robin and I had become so damaged by the pain of our loss that it strained our relationship. Although he appeared at my bedside every night. He'd take my hand in his, kneeling on the cold floor. But I'd turn away, onto my side facing the wall opposite him. Seeing him caused a throbbing ache in my chest-the scars invoked upon my heart unhealing.

"Maria...come to bed with me." Robin pleaded at my back. I didn't answer. I knew that if I spoke I would cry. My silence was a dam that held back a river of tears and pain and wails-suffering. I choked back a lump of a sob in my throat at the sound of Robin's fading footfalls as he left my private chambers.

"Maria, please..." Robin breathed once again at my turned back the following night and the nights thereafter. "Please don't do this." I felt his hand hesitate at my shoulder, "Please know that I love you."

I hadn't left my chambers at all during the first week after I had lost out child. But as soon as Mrs. Abbott gained confidence in my healing and I had regained my strength after I had lost so much blood and nearly my life, I immediately escaped to the place of rest far out into the outskirts of the De Noir lands. And I did so every day.

I let out a sob. Slumping forward, my face falling into my icy palms. I cared not that I was nearly blue. I needed to feel something other than the immense suffering of my loss. And I welcomed instead, the pain of the chill, the snow melting against my dress and saturating my skin. The wind howled and kicked up a soft layer of newly fallen snow. Icy bits blasted against the exposed skin of my face and stung as if I had been struck across my cheek. My cloaked billowed out by the force of the wind and sent an icy shiver up my back. My teeth chattered. And I reached out and touched the letters that made up my son's name on the smooth, cold marble once more.