Cauchemar (9 page)

Hannah turned resolutely away. “No,” she said to it. A low scraping, like mussel shells against hardwood, answered her. She knew, without looking, that it was dragging toward her.

A warm, wet claw closed on her thigh and she looked down to see the back of a bald head, sun-bleached and ridged down the middle like a walnut. It was facing the floor, its claw roving blindly toward her stomach. Small, sniffing sounds filled the room.

“Wake up,” Mae intoned in Christobelle's voice, the handkerchief seizing on her face. Her fingers flailed over the eighth knot. “Wake up now.”

The claw closed, its thick fingernails sliding through the white skin of her stomach as if it were cream. Hannah heard a pop and felt something burst inside her, like a grape between teeth. Blood rushed out.

Below her, the thing turned its head and the blood struck it squarely between its white eyes, flat and polished as marble. The blood dripped down its tapered nose. A tongue, coated in white fur, slid out to taste it. It hummed between her legs.

Behind her, Mae screamed.

Hannah opened her eyes to blinding light and Callum kneeling beside her, shaking her furiously. “Christ, it's everywhere,” he cried out.

The sheets were dark with clotted blood, slick as an oil spill. “I'm sorry,” Hannah whispered. “Your poor sheets.”

“It's too much,” Callum groaned, gathering her. “Hold on to my neck. I want to get you into the bathroom.”

Callum set her down in the bathtub, stuffing towels between her legs. “Hold this,” he urged, guiding her hand. He disappeared and Hannah watched the white towels fill with poppy blooms.

“I have an emergency. My girlfriend is bleeding.” She heard him on the phone outside the room. Hannah stretched out a red hand past the filmy shower curtain, toward his voice. “No, it's like a period, but it's very heavy. No, it started out of nowhere. It was hard waking her up and she seems confused. I don't think she can stand on her own.” There was a long pause. “Thank you.”

Callum sat on the edge of the bathtub and stuffed two pillows under her waist. He stroked her hair roughly. “They're coming, and they said to elevate you a bit. Are you okay? Can you talk?”

Hannah looked up into his face. His teeth seemed askew between ill-fitting lips and his eyes were wet. “Don't worry. It's just a dream.”

“Oh, honey.”

Mildew veined between his shower tiles, and she pointed weakly. “Bleach,” she tried to say, but the room was slipping, siphoning into a single point of light. The pressure in her belly stopped.

Hannah came to in a bright room painted in khaki tones. A blue plastic curtain was pulled to one side. Soft beeps, slight as insects, surrounded her.

“Hey there,” Callum said, scooting his chair closer to the bed.

“Where am I? What happened?” A dull ache shot over her pelvis. All she could remember was a handkerchief, and the suffocating smell of wet pennies. She leaned over the metal edge of the bed, gagging slightly. The linoleum floor shone like water, undisturbed.

“Let me call the doctor,” Callum said. “He should be the one to explain everything to you.”

Hannah grabbed his hand. “No. Please tell me.” She noticed her wrist was bare of Mae's copper bracelet. “Where's my bracelet?”

“The doctors couldn't find a clasp so they cut it off when they needed to put your IV in.” Callum winced. “There was a complication with … Well. You're pregnant. They said it's just over a month old.”

Hannah shrank down into her pillow. Blind panic surged through her. “They must be wrong.” Even as she said the words, she questioned them. She thought back over the last few months and was met by memories of carefree passion. Any of them could have been the moment of conception. Her fingers moved under the sheet to feel her stomach. The terrain was suddenly unknown.

“Is it—” He coughed and turned away. “Is it mine?”

“Either that, or an immaculate conception,” Hannah said. “But I seem to remember us getting busy once or twice.” Warm relief spread through her chest when he smiled.

“I thought we were being careful.”

“I took my birth control,” she said, defensively. “But, I guess, it's a truth from elementary school. Nothing's safe except—”

“Abstinence,” he finished. “But where's the fun in that?” Callum's smile slipped as his eyes traced the white sheets. “I was scared.”

“I'm sorry.” Hannah ran her thumb along his lip. He looked tired under the hospital fluorescence.

“They said you almost lost the baby.”

Hannah's attention snapped back like a rubber band. “I didn't? I'm still pregnant?” Hannah could feel Callum tearing loose threads from the sheets.

“Yes. And I know it's too soon to talk about this, but I was wondering if we could keep it.” The words raced out of him. Then, he reached forward and covered her mouth gently. “Don't answer right away. Please, think about it.”

She did. Over the rough skin of his fingers, she studied him. What should've taken months, or years, she compressed into seconds. But the question that rose above all others was whether she could envision a life for her child without Callum. Could she even imagine her own life without him?

“How can we know we'll last? I don't know anything about being a mother.”

“Look,” he said, sitting up. “It feels right with you. I'm not saying we get married tomorrow—” His mouth tightened. “Although if you wanted to …” He trailed off as she shook her head, smiling. “But we could give it a try. Hell, I care about you. A lot.”

Hannah licked her lips. Did he love her, though? She wondered whether it was a prerequisite, whether she'd be satisfied without it. He began to stroke her hair, and she felt his hand shaking through the gentle, rhythmic movement. Maybe love was just a word, standing in for a sentiment as irrepressible as the ocean.

“Okay. We can talk about it,” she said, then the panic returned. “Oh, God,” she whispered, and began to cry. “I'm not ready to be a mother.”

Callum stood and leaned over her. He squeezed her shoulders and his face centered in her vision. “Well, we've got eight months to get ready.” The blue eyes that had eased the ache of her past few months now showed his fear.

“What will we do?”

Callum laughed suddenly, despite the tears shining in his eyes. “Fuck if I know,” he said, then switched gears when she sobbed harder. “We'll figure it out together. I don't think anyone really knows what they're doing when it comes to raising another person. It's instinctive, Cro-Magnon stuff. I'll fetch the meat and pelts, and you'll tend the hearth.” She almost smiled.

“Where, in your apartment?” she asked, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

“Sure. Or we'll get a new place. We'll pick a spot of our own.”

Hannah fell silent. Some part of her had always wanted to leave the silence and the water that frightened her with its ever-shifting surface. Hadn't she always envisioned a city somewhere, where she might open a café and spend weekend afternoons potting geraniums over a rickety fire escape? But in that moment, she realized that the land she'd been raised on pulled her still, drew her with its hazy mystery, its loon calls seeping into her morning dreams like a half-heard conversation.

And how long before the townspeople noticed the bloat of her belly? Who would be the first to push her to the ground?

“What if we went back to my house?” Hannah paused and considered her words. “It has more than enough room for three.”

Callum frowned. “Is that really what you want?”

It was. “I'm not sure.” Or she thought it was. The two were interchangeable for the moment. “Maybe?” She wanted her child to be born knowing the scent of oregano and patchouli that had seeped into the very wood of the place. She wanted to create the same sense of safety that Mae had forged for her.

Callum cupped her face and freckled her with wet kisses. “Maybe,” he agreed.

CHAPTER

FOUR

At ten years old, while they made cookies one afternoon, Hannah had asked Mae about babies.

“What fool question is that? You're a child still.”

Hannah shrugged. “I don't want one now. I just want to know what it's like.”

Mae glared at her. “I suppose you already know where they come from. No good telling you tall tales about storks?”

Hannah dipped her finger in the sweet cookie batter and sucked. “I know a bit about it.”

“Well, then, you know as much as me,” Mae said, and slapped Hannah's hand away. “Have you washed those busy fingers lately?”

“Why did Christobelle give me to you? Was it because she didn't want me?”

Mae's jaw clenched, a hinge rocking back and forth. “Why, you don't like me anymore?” She let out a strained laugh.

Hannah ran her nail through the maze of wrinkles on a walnut shell, then stuck her hands in the pockets of her denim overalls. She waited.

“That woman experienced whole lifetimes worth of hurt. It's not that she didn't want you, but she knew well enough to know that she wasn't fit to raise you. She thought she was doing right by you, and frankly, I think we've done alright here, you and me.” Mae fiddled with the metal clasp of Hannah's overalls. “Her actions aren't for us to understand, or to judge. The day will come when she'll answer for all she's done.”

Hannah chewed her bottom lip, considering. “What about my father? Did she love him?”

“More than you can imagine, and losing him was more than she could bear.” Mae ran the spoon, speckled with batter, under the faucet and scrubbed hard. Hannah had to step forward to hear her over the water. “Truth is, when the spirit world decides that things have run their course, you can't cite fair or unfair by our human standards. It doesn't work that way.”

“So how did you get stuck with me?”

“Lord, child, you've got questions today. That's enough, unless you don't want dinner.” Mae gestured to the fragrant pot of crawfish and pork-liver sausage, hot sauce belching out between pockets of rice.

“Please?” Hannah asked, knotting her fingers under her chin.

Mae rolled her eyes. “When I met you, you were still in the womb. Your mother came to me because I had a reputation for midwifery.” Hannah frowned and Mae waved her hand. “I helped women birth naturally at home. You were a real kicker, feisty even then. After you came, well, Christobelle trusted me by that point. She realized she couldn't take care of you properly, and didn't give much consideration to how much experience I had. Figured since I'd gotten the babies into this world, I could probably raise them, too. Come here.” She jostled Hannah's collar into submission.

Mae's eyes were a deep earnest brown. New lines, thin as cat hairs, appeared each day, whiskering out from her mouth and eyes. “I know it's not a perfect life, but no life is.” Hannah looked at Mae with her chin raised haughtily, knowing even then she was being told only a fraction of the story.

Mae stepped back and studied her. “And at least there are cookies. Get busy with those nuts.”

Now, something stirred inside Hannah. Some
thing
because of how it writhed, clapping against the walls. It felt like a gator, rousing in the marsh of her belly. Callum rested his ear on her belly for a full hour, listening patiently, but there were only the stomach gurgles that preceded another bout of morning sickness.

Dr. Merrick, who'd given Callum his card at the hospital, had called to remind her of a scheduled check-up but Hannah refused.

“They said it looked like a healthy fetus,” Callum assured her, but they wouldn't have known what to look for. The shadow of her mother's hand hidden in the oscillating black of her womb, the toothed mouth of a nightmare creature. “They need to make sure it's growing properly.” Callum pulled her onto his lap. Together, they watched a wasp circle a honey-sweetened cup of tea. “Which I'm sure it is,” he added quickly. “Dr. Merrick said you might be scared. Something about it suddenly being real once you see it.”

“I know it's real. The pissing every hour was a tip-off. I'm so bloated I could take off my shoes and fly away.”

“Do it for me,” Callum cajoled.

“You'll owe me big for this,” Hannah muttered, raising her right cheek for a kiss.

The hospital gown was lime green and left a visible sliver of bare skin in the back. While they waited for the doctor, Callum fiddled with the ultrasound machine. He lifted the probe from its holder and used it to nudge her thighs apart. “How much time do you think we have?” he asked, and slipped her feet into the stirrups as if she were Cinderella.

“Not much.”

His face disappeared below the table.

There was a deep throat-clearing from the door. Dr. Merrick, clumps of white hair rising from his bald pate, closed the door behind him. “Condoms are in the drawer.”

Callum smiled sheepishly. “I bet this happens all the time.”

The jelly was cold as the doctor smeared it over her belly. “Let's have a look-see. Now, don't expect too much. This will be one of the less exciting ultrasounds. You'll hear a heartbeat and see something that looks a little bit like a crawfish curled up.”

Callum settled beside the bed and braided his fingers with Hannah's against the cold metal. The room filled with the sound of a heartbeat, steady but submerged. “Is that it?”

“No. That's the mother's. Are you nervous, Hannah?” Hannah shrugged, and the doctor put a gentle hand on her shoulder. She felt safe then, a circuit closed by these two men touching her. “Don't be. There it is.”

Hannah shut her eyes. Against the dark theater of her eyelids, she saw a hiccup of static on the screen, a moment of shadowed confusion. While the doctor fumbled with his machinery, Hannah would glimpse webbed feet and a long, tapered tail. Beady eyes affixed to hers through the thin skin of her belly, through the wavering screen of the monitor.

As soon as she'd begin to make sense of it, it'd be gone.

To her right, Callum let out a single burst of laughter. “That's wild,” he said. She rolled her head to the side and looked at him. His eyes were wide. This was what a waking dreamer looked like.

The doctor squeezed her arm. “There,” he said, and with a rough draw of breath, Hannah followed his finger. There, a little seed. Dr. Merrick punched her arm lightly in congratulations. “Healthy as can be.”

It was real. Relief and fear rushed into her. Her speeding heartbeat echoed through the room. Her every experience of love had ended in pain, but now she let herself consider the possibility that she might be safe.

Callum ran the back of a finger under her eyes. She hadn't felt the first tear, but he was ready and waiting to catch the second.

That night, Callum sat in bed and studied the sonogram they'd received.

“What are you doing?” Hannah asked, lying beside him.

“Imagining what it'll be.” He illustrated how the shape might grow graceful dancer's legs or the hands of a pianist. With a dreamy swirling of his finger, he described the brain of a doctor who'd spend his or her nights poring over the intricate mutations that flowered into cancer and would awake one morning with the cure plain to see in the scribbles. Hannah could only look up into Callum's joyous face.
Our child
, she thought, still not quite believing.

Eventually, Callum's eyes closed. Hannah took the photo from his limp hands and studied the cloudy black and white. It was like a Rorschach. Blink, and it was a snail arching under layers of silt. Blink, and it was a seed uncoiling.

Something fell in the kitchen.

“Graydon, knock it off,” she called out. A sleepy meow sounded from the corner of the bedroom.

She got out of bed, squinting into the darkness beyond the bedroom's open door. Callum snored below the covers as she inched into the hallway.

In her mind's eye, she could almost see the creature ahead of her, snouting the floor. Her hands closed into fists, although she wasn't sure how much good they'd do against its ribbed back. She'd seen it in bright sunlight and in the vague dark, but its reptilian muscles had rippled like a promise since she'd first glimpsed it as a child.

But what she heard was the fast patter of bare feet hurrying through the kitchen. “Callum,” she cried out, almost exhaling in relief before realizing what the sound meant. “Someone's in the apartment.”

“What?” Callum asked sleepily from behind her.

To her left, she caught a glimpse of a shape ambling awkwardly into the bathroom, white hair trailing like a puff of smoke.

“Someone's here,” she whispered roughly.

Callum creaked on the floorboards behind her just as the woman burst from the bathroom, something glinting in her hand. She moved with shocking speed, and Hannah felt herself being pulled backward. Callum flung her behind him with such force that she fell onto the bedroom floor. As she lifted herself, she saw Callum wrestle the woman to the ground. A pair of scissors dropped from the woman's hand.

Callum turned on the hall light and stood over the woman, his chest heaving. Her dress was pushed up to reveal tangled threads of varicose veins. “Who are you?” he yelled at the woman. “What are you doing here?”

His fist hovered above her head, and Hannah wanted to call out for him to stop, but couldn't find her voice.

The woman's eyes rolled back into her head and she hissed two simple words, “We're coming.” It sounded like wind circling through eaves.

“Who's coming?” Callum asked, punching the wall above her.

The woman slumped and said nothing more.

“Jesus,” Callum breathed. “Hannah, call the police.”

Hannah stood up in a daze. She dialed the number but stuttered over the words. “Someone broke into our apartment,” she finally said. The woman wouldn't look at either of them, but instead stared steadily at the wall in front of her. Dimpled flesh hung in hammocks from her slender arms, and every so often, she parted her lips to show a toothless mouth.

Two cops with holstered guns arrived and hoisted the woman into a car, making note of the dropped scissors. “She's not talking, and I'm not sure I'd hold my breath waiting on her words,” one of the cops said on his way out. “She might not be all there, you know? Do you want to press charges?”

Hannah shook her head and closed the door behind the cop. She was certain that it was the same old woman who she had bumped into in the street that day, who'd then bided her time. Hannah knew that she shouldn't be surprised. Her happiness didn't equate to safety.

Callum's shock, however, was obvious from the way he paced the apartment. “She came in through the fire escape,” Callum repeated to himself, an echo of the cops' earlier verdict. “Why?” He directed the question at the room, rather than at Hannah. He stared at the spot where she'd dropped the scissors, as though that square inch of worn wood held the answer.

Hannah let him stalk the length of the apartment until she felt weariness sag her body, then gently patted the couch. “Come sit,” she said.

He kept walking, still filled with nervous energy. “We're not safe here, obviously.”

“No,” she said simply, and something in her voice made him finally stand still. “I saw that woman in the street a few weeks ago. She must've followed me here.”

Callum scratched his ear impatiently. “I don't understand. Why would an old woman do that? Why would anyone?”

“The town doesn't want me here.” Hannah nudged a glass of wilting purple wildflowers back from the edge of the coffee table in front of her.
We're coming
, the woman had said.

“One crazy old broad bursts in and you think she speaks for the town?” His voice had an edge to it.

“One crazy old broad running at me with scissors, yes.” Hannah shrugged. “Maybe her husband went with Christobelle,” Hannah's voice rose as Callum shook his head, “or maybe it was her son. Maybe nobody she was even particularly close to, but I'd bet anything that it was a hatred of my mother that brought her here tonight.” Hannah put her face in her hands and breathed in the sweet chamomile hand lotion that Callum had bought for her earlier that week. “No, that's not quite right. I won't bet this baby.”