I’m terrified of blood. I know it’s not logical, but I can’t help it. It’s like this deep, ancient fear within me, and no amount of rational thinking can stop my heart from pounding in my chest as I look at my father.

Suddenly, I’m a child again. I’ve just climbed one of the oaks just outside the kitchen door. I love this tree because of the low split and strong, closely spaced branches. It’s my favorite climbing tree. I’ve scaled it hundreds of times, but this time a wren lifts off from the branch next to me and—startled—I miss a foothold. I’m not holding tightly to the branch above me, and suddenly I’m falling. I’m plummeting toward the ground, and when I land my body explodes with pain. I look around and see that my hands are scratched and bleeding. I must have broken a branch on my way down because a branch has pierced my calf and lodged itself. Blood is streaming from the injury, running in a dark river, soaking my sock, and I can feel my head start to spin. There’s so much blood. I open my mouth to scream, but darkness enfolds me before I can make a sound.

And here I am again—in that dark, sweaty place—the place I always find myself when I see blood. I’m panicking. Even as a scientist—a doctor—I’ve never really gotten over that fear. I found ways to work through it, but the fear has never really disappeared. The fear that was first born here, in my childhood home.

I don’t even realize that I’m gasping—barely able to take a breath—until I feel that cool hand on my arm again.

I look up into Malcolm’s face. I didn’t even know he followed me in here, but now he’s tightening his grip, pulling me from the room.

“You must not disturb your father while he sleeps,” he’s saying as he pulls me into the corridor.

Wrenching my arm from his grasp, I glare up at him. “What the hell did you do to my father?”

His lips press together. “I did try to warn you, Ms. Cunningham. Your father is not well. You must see that. He hasn’t been well for days.”

My gaze darkens again. “Then why the hell is he here? In the house? Why isn’t he in a freaking hospital where he can be looked after by a team of trained professionals?” I demand.

“He was,” Malcolm says testily. “Of course he was, but the doctors in the hospital don’t know what ails him.”

“What?” I snap.

“But with all this blood he’s losing,” Malcolm goes on without acknowledging my interruption, “no one believed he had much time left. When they explained that to him, your father stated very plainly that he did not want to die within the hospital. William was very specific—he wanted to return to his home. That is why he called you. He wanted to say goodbye to you.”

I stare at Malcolm, my head spinning. “No,” I breathe. It’s all I can think to say. “No. You’re wrong. No. God no. This can’t be it. There has to be a solution. There’s always a solution in science, it’s just a matter of looking hard enough.”

Malcolm shook his head sternly. “No. I won’t allow you to entertain any false hopes where Mr. Cunningham is concerned. You must listen to me, Skye,” he says, his use of my first name surprising me into paying attention. “Your father does not have much time left.”

I stare at the pale man in front of me, not sure what I’m supposed to say next. “I don’t understand,” I mumble.

“Then you need to listen to me,” Malcolm says with increasing urgency.

“No, there’s got to be something we can do—”

“Believe me when I tell you that your father doesn’t have much time left,” Malcolm goes on, “and you’ll only waste the precious time you have left with him if you spend it trying to cure him. There is no cure. None at all.”

I stare at him, trying to wrap my mind around what he’s saying. “No cure? What are you talking about? What’s wrong with him?”

“The doctors informed him that he was experiencing organ failure.” Malcolm’s pale face looks even paler. “He’s literally bleeding from the inside out. Every system in his body has begun to fail. There’s nothing that can be done.”

I shake my head. “No. I’m a scientist. That doesn’t just happen. There has to be a reason. When did his symptoms start?” I demand. “How long has he been like this?”

There’s another scream of pain from inside my father’s room, and I feel myself tense again.

Malcolm’s face is set. “I know you hate the sight of blood, Ms. Cunningham—”

“Wait, what?” I ask, recoiling with shock. “How do you know that about me?”

“My father told me.”

“Your father?” I ask, confused.

Malcolm nods. “Alistair.”

“Alistair is your father?” I gasp. Everything about this conversation is coming as a surprise, and I’m finding it hard to keep up.

He nods again. “My father told me he discovered it many years ago. You had fallen from a great tree on the manor.”

He looks at me for confirmation, and I nod hesitantly, feeling extremely strange that this mysterious man—a total stranger—knows something so personal about me. But Malcolm presses on.

“I understand that this must be hard for you, but you must master yourself, or I am very afraid you’ll regret not saying a proper goodbye.”

I blink, shocked. He’s right. He’s completely right, and I take a shallow, shuddering breath. I need to get it together.

My hands are shaking, but I clutch them together as I prepare to walk back into the room, trying to fortify myself for what I’m about to see. I can feel what very well might be a panic attack rising up in my chest. My lungs feel over-full, and I’m quivering all over as I step into the room and look at my father again. He’s lying still, and I realize he’s not even awake. His face is smeared, but as I look at him, I realize the streaming blood isn’t coming from a wound. It’s coming from his closed eyes, like bloody tears tracing down his thin, but still-handsome face.

Feeling suddenly breathless, I suck in a gasp of air. Because it’s happening again—I feel like that little girl again, lying on the ground beneath the tree, screaming for help. I can see my father bursting out of the kitchen door and jumping down the steps. He’s running toward me.

I don’t even see him approach, but suddenly Alistair is there, too, holding my hand as my father looks at the branch that’s still jutting out of my leg.

The fear is apparent in his eyes for only a moment, then he leans toward me and whispers, “Courage, child.” Then, without another word, he pulls the branch from my leg.

“Courage, child,” I whisper to myself as I look upon his face now in the bed with the blood-smeared sheets. This is a mantra I’ve carried with me throughout my life, repeating it to myself when I need the strength my father instilled in me. I used it often when I arrived at boarding school for the first time, and when I was completing my graduate studies. I’ve used it most in moments when I felt almost completely alone. It always helped me think of my father, and his certainty in me.

I take a step toward the bed. “Daddy?” I whisper, hearing the hesitant child I’d left in his house a decade before in my voice. “Can you hear me?”

My father’s eyes flutter, then blink open. They are astonishingly bloodshot, and there seems to be small clumps of dried blood gathered in the corner of his eyes.

He holds his hand out to me. “Child,” he whispers, his voice barely a rasp. “You’ve come.”

“Of course,” I say.

He closes his eyes for a moment, then looks up at me again. “I know that you are afraid. This isn’t how I wanted you to see me, but I needed to see you, Skye. One last time.”

I nod.

“Come close, child,” he whispers. “The light is so dim, I can barely see you.”

I take a step closer, but glance quickly around the room. The lights are on, and it’s bright as day.

He must see me noticing and nods jerkily. “It is the disease. It makes it hard for the light to reach me. I know everything will be darkness soon enough, but I would know your voice anywhere.”

My heart gives a painful pulse, and I cross the distance between us, taking my father’s hand—ignoring the blood and my fear. “I’m here, Daddy. I’m with you. Please—please tell me how to help you.”

He shakes his head. “No, Skye, there is no time for that. That is not why I called for you. I want to tell you how much I love you. How much I want you to live your life. Leave all this to Malcolm. Leave again—leave now—and never come back.”

“Daddy, what are you—” I start, baffled, but his grip on my hand tightens for just an instant, then goes completely slack. And before I can ask him what he means, his eyes close again.

There’s a sinking feeling within me, and I know he has not fallen asleep again. I reach for his neck, feeling desperately for a pulse, but I can’t find one. I try on his wrist, then hold my hand over his mouth, feeling for breath.

There’s nothing. Nothing at all.

Pain and sadness take my breath away. The sudden, immense grief makes my head spin as I clutch onto his hand, sobbing into the suddenly very still room.