Sigurd stirred restlessly, sleep eluding him once again. It was hot and stuffy in the room and the weight of the bedspread pressed down on him, claustrophobic as a shroud.

He shrugged it off, feeling the muggy air hot on his bare chest. He swallowed with difficulty. His throat was bone-dry and he was dreadfully thirsty. Perhaps he would sneak out and get some water. Varda was breathing heavily beside him and he did not think she would wake easily. She had been so tired these last weeks.

He sat up, blinking blearily, his eyes stuck together with a dried crust of sleep.

His intake of breath was sudden, a dry, hollow sound like the moan of a dust storm creeping its way into the cracks between the wooden palings.

At the foot of his bed stood two small figures.

In the darkness he could just make out their pallid faces, bleached white like the skeletons of cattle that had littered his father’s land in the Year of the Great Drought. Their dull, empty eyes peered curiously at him. Their clothes were ragged and torn, scarcely concealing the scrawny limbs they hung from. Their dusty hair lay limply over their shoulders, tangled into impossible knots, framing faces caked with grime. Their lips were slightly parted, dry and cracked like an old riverbed baked in the scorching sun.

He closed his eyes again, waiting for the apparition to disappear, willing himself to wake up. His hand found his chest, pressing against it hard trying to stop the desperate pounding of his heart, the dry gritty thud of the spade as it dug ever deeper in search of the retreating water.

“Oh Papa”, the boy wheezed, a hollow rattle from between his parched lips, “Don’t be frightened. We only wanted to see you”.

He held the wasted arm of the little girl beside him, carefully, almost tenderly as she nodded in agreement, her head creaking on her neck.

Sigurd gazed at them in horror as understanding dawned on him like the scorching red sun bursting from the guts of the horizon. A groan hissed from his mouth, the dying gasp of one more animal as it thrashed its wasted body, claimed by the vicious barbs of the sun.

His children. His babies.

They were staring at the bed beside him. They were staring at Varda.

She was still asleep but in the darkness her face look angular and weary, her mouth drooping slackly open as her breath rattled from her lungs. He was reminded of his beloved little mare, lying heavily on her side, rows of ribs protruding from her heaving flank. Her eyes had been half closed like Varda’s, unseeing and blank as the flies settled on her thick grimy lashes.

“Oh my brother”, the girl murmured in despair, “There will be another soon. Oh what are we to do”.

“Shhh now sister. It will be alright”, his son’s dead eyes shone with determination as he stood tall at the foot of the bed.

Sigurd heard a pitiful sniffle from just beside the bed. He turned to see a tiny girl, her nose crusted, her feet bare and covered in dirt and dried blood.

“Why are there three of you”, Sigurd murmured in horror.

“Oh papa”, the little girl spoke, her voice a tiny whisper of dry air stirring the dust among the rows of wilted up crops, “We are so very tired. My feet are so sore. I don’t think I can walk any further”.

She began to sob, a rattling sound, covering her dirty face with pale hands.

“Papa”, she keened and his heart ripped apart, “Oh Papa we are lost”.

He pushed himself from the bed, suddenly unafraid, unable to bear the racking sobs, the tears that dried as soon as they touched her face.

“Oh my poor children”, he whispered, reaching out his hands to comfort the little girl.

“No Papa!!”, the small boy cried, yanking his sister away from Sigurd shaking hands, “Don’t touch her!”.

“You can’t Papa”, the other girl cried, “She will make you sick!”.

“We have to go”, the boy said softly, “We shouldn’t have come here. It’s not allowed”.

He wrapped his arm around the trembling girl and with a great sighing sound they were gone.

Sigurd awoke, the sheets damp with sweat and tangled around his thrashing legs, his heart thudding wetly in chest. He swallowed, the sucking wet noise of mud at the bottom of a stagnant pond. It had only been a dream.

Varda was still asleep beside him, her supple lips parted the moist air of her breath sighing between them. Her thick lashes fluttered slightly and she moaned in her sleep, her face twisting into a grimace. He gently stroked her damp, full cheek and her face went soft again.

He sat up carefully so as not to wake her. She murmured and rolled on her side, her body curving protectively around her belly.

He collapsed heavily into the chair, his body shaking with the effort of masking his sobs as they came, rolling over his body one after another like lashings of rain.

As he silently wept he almost thought he heard a voice like the dry rattle of a hot summer wind between the withered trees.

“Don’t worry Papa… I’ll take care of them. We’ll find the way”.