Deborah considered Theuli as the Elf woman fed the girl some bread soaked in hot broth. ‘I dreamt you were my mother.’
Theuli smiled with pleasure. ‘So now I have three daughters.’
‘Three?’
‘Rani, Deborah and Malina.’
‘What does that make me?’ chuckled Ralph.
Deborah smiled. ‘Then Malina is my sister, which makes you my brother-in-law,’ she said to Ralph.
‘You’re supposed to be asleep,’ said Theuli to Ralph.
‘Yes, Mom.’
‘How do you feel,’ Theuli asked Deborah, seriously.
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I feel sort of . . . empty . . . different somehow...
‘I keep having these dreams, but every time I wake up, they’re gone. The only thing I remember is this . . . sort of sense that . . . well, it’s like I told you before; you remember? that day when Malina and I went with you-’ She stopped, seeing Theuli’s pained remembrance of that day. ‘I’m sorry . . . I shouldn’t have brought that up-’
‘You were saying,’ Theuli said, in a tone both firm and understanding, ‘that . . . I believe the words you used were, that “it was supposed to happen.”’