Fragility Unearthed

by Rebecca Royce

  My phone dinged. I wasn’t sure at first what I looked at, although I quickly realized it was a legal document removing the restraining order from me. I was sure this followed no protocol. The shadows had to be in the police department and the courthouse. They’d taken over everything.

  Well? Top Hat texted to go with the photo.

  Malcolm’s been missing days. We can’t find him. If you don’t have him then someone else does. If you can find him, try and take the phoenix.

  I hoped Jenny was right. I hoped I hadn’t made a huge mistake.

  “Block. Someone needs to follow Top Hat. Can that be you?” Seeing Levi like that every day might kill me. But I’d made a decision while I watched Erin and Ross together. My ex deserved the chance to survive. I wasn’t going to kill him. I was going to save him. So help me, I could be the woman everyone needed.

  I could be.

  Chapter Six

  Time moved on, even when I didn’t want it to. I wanted life to slow down so I could figure things out. Six weeks after I sent the text to Top Hat, I wasn’t any further along in knowing how to fix any of my hundreds of problems. Block continued to follow Top Hat, but so far the shadows didn’t seem any closer to finding Malcolm than we were.

  None of Victoria’s scrying had netted us any results. Still the same darkness, still the same weird light. Ross and Erin moved into Victoria’s home while they looked for one themselves. I’d gotten good at managing Malcolm’s business. I even managed to sit at the Vortex on Friday nights and look like I was some sort of paranormal goddess who could run things. I doled out the right jobs to the right practitioners and took care of some of the jobs myself. I was officially on a first-name basis with the broker from San Francisco.

  I ran every morning. Between my complete lack of appetite and my morning runs, I’d slimmed down considerably.

  I leaned against the couch and read an email from a woman who wanted us to investigate her home for a poltergeist. I rolled my eyes. The fact that she even knew that word set me to thinking she’d watched too much television. It wasn’t that poltergeists weren’t real, but it—

  My stomach rolled, and suddenly the eggs I’d eaten for breakfast didn’t want to stay put. I ran to the powder room and barely got to my knees before I lost everything I’d eaten that day. When it was over, I didn’t feel any better. I sat on the floor of the powder room not moving. What the hell was this? I’d not even encountered any kid-germs lately. Sometimes I caught something the children brought home, but it had been six weeks since I’d seen them to catch the stomach bug from.

  I inched out of the bathroom and made my way into the kitchen. I needed some ginger ale. Opening the fridge was a mistake. The chicken from the night before caught my attention, and then I was throwing up in the sink.

  Oh this one was bad. This was …

  I stopped mid-hurl to think. This was just like when I was pregnant with all three children. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t keep anything down for months and months. I’d been in my third trimester before I’d put on any weight because I could barely ingest nutrients.

  No, I couldn’t be pregnant. Except, of course I could be. I’d not given one thought—not one—to birth control. Levi’d had a vasectomy in the year before we’d broken up. I’d officially gone off the pill and never considered it again. Malcolm and I were always so hot, so invested, so not thinking about things like visiting the doctor for medication or even using anything over the counter to prevent conception. When we’d lived in the Others’ place, pregnancy couldn’t happen.

  How had we forgotten? What kind of idiot was I? I didn’t have Victoria to call for help. I did the math in my head. Yes, I was late. Two weeks’ worth. I managed to get to the car and only had to stop twice to throw up on the side of the road on my way to the drugstore. The trip felt like it took twice the time it should. Sweat broke out on my body. I needed to be sure, to take the test and see if …

  I looked down at my stomach. There it was. I could never see my own life force, only that of other people’s. Yet there it was. A life force that wasn’t my own, glowing up at me. I knew what the test would say when I got home.

  There was a baby inside me. Waiting to come out into the world—only, the world was ending.

  ***

  The mothers sitting in the waiting room with me at the OB/GYN’s office all seemed to have a glow. I leaned back against my seat with my eyes closed. I did not feel like I glowed; I felt like I wanted to puke. Again. It had taken five days to get an appointment to see the doctor. I’d been faking my way through life every second of the day leading up to today. Skyping with my kids was painful. I missed their presence in my house; I missed the sound of their feet hitting the floor in the morning. I even craved the sound of their arguments.

  Victoria suspected something was wrong, and I’d promised to start filling her in soon. I wanted to be sure—doctor sure—of the pregnancy before I went public.

  I shook my feet on the floor. It was fifteen minutes past the time for my appointment.

  Why are you at the doctor? Victoria’s text came to my phone.

  How do you know I’m at the doctor? I looked around the room. I didn’t see her anywhere.

  She finally answered. I scryed for you. You’ve been so completely withdrawn. I got worried.

  I shook my head. That’s the witch version of stalking.

  They called my name, and I followed the nurse to the back of the office where they weighed me, had me pee in a cup, and took my blood pressure. It was a little higher than normal for me but not so much that anyone would comment. I wasn’t at all surprised. At some point, even with the exercise, my stress level was going to catch up to me.

  The doctor who’d delivered my first three children had retired years ago. This was Victoria’s OB/GYN I visited. My best friend preferred the mid-wife associated with the practice, but I’d always been more of a traditional medicine kind of a girl.

  Finally, a woman who would look more appropriate on the runway than in the doctor’s office came in to see me. Her long blonde hair flowed down her back, and her fingernails were painted a perfect shade of pink to match her shoes. Under her white coat, she had a black pencil skirt and a white collared shirt that was unbuttoned to just above her extensive cleavage. I was going to get bigger and bigger with this woman looking perfect the entire time.

  Wonderful.

  I wasn’t feeling kind. Sick, tired, and alone. I didn’t even have the children I already had with me. How quickly was I going to have to send this one off?

  “So, congratulations.” She smiled and sat down across from me. Dressed in a white paper gown, my feet dangled off the table. Of course, I preferred it to the stirrups I was about to stick my feet into.

  I tried to smile. “Thanks.”

  “How are we feeling?” She was still smiling.

  “Awful. Sick. Tired. Alone.” I wished I’d kept my mouth shut. Her smile disappeared, and her eyes became sharp. I bet if I’d quit with awful, sick, and tired she’d have kept up the perky routine. The alone probably threw her.

  “I see. Was this pregnancy unplanned?”

  “Ah, yes.” I’d really not thought about how I was going to handle this appointment. I should have come up with my cover story. So many lies to so many people. “I’m recently divorced. An old boyfriend and I got back together. He’s not currently in the picture. So it’s just me. And the baby.”

  She nodded. Her questions became very routine. How had my other pregnancies gone? What was my family history? I couldn’t answer when it came to the paternal history. I doubted Malcolm could, even if he were here with me. His mother had died when he was five years old, and I doubted his father had given him much of a background story in between his beatings.

  Then, finally, it was time. She took out the doppler and found the baby’s heartbeat. It beat fast and strongly. I remembered that it could be hard to locate in the beginning of a pregnancy, but there it was. As strong as I’d ever heard one.

&nb
sp; He or she was okay. Heart beating, body forming, deep inside of me where it had no idea everything on the outside had gone to hell.

  I thanked the doctor, promised to take my vitamins, and scheduled my next appointment for six weeks down the line. I was older now. Apparently at almost thirty-seven, I’d hit “advanced maternal age.” There would be more tests to be done this time around. Fine, I’d do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted it.

  The sound of the heartbeat stayed in my ears, long after I left the appointment. I sat in the car in my driveway for a bit before I went into my empty house. Truth was, even if Malcolm were here, sitting by me in the doctor’s appointments the way Levi had done when I’d had our children inside of me, he wouldn’t have been jollying me up to get through the next thirty-six some-odd weeks of discomfort. He’d be terrified and covering it with anger.

  I texted him because I had become a glutton for punishment. We’re having a baby.

  And because I knew he wouldn’t—couldn’t—answer me wherever he was, I decided to send one out to the people who still could. Victoria. Block. Henry. Ross. Erin. Annika. My father. The people I had in my life who I could trust, who would care that this was happening.

  I’m pregnant.

  Short, sweet, to the point.

  ***

  I was so sick to death of crying. I wiped my eyes and tried to stop. Every morning I had to get through my weeping before I could manage the rest of the day.

  “Don’t cry.”

  I sat straight up, pulling the blanket around me. Thank goodness I knew Victoria’s voice, or I would have been terrified. “What are you doing here?”

  “You send out a message announcing you’re pregnant and then turn off your phone?” She had her hands on her hips. “Not how this works, sister.”

  I pulled the covers over my head. “Go away. I’m not done with my daily wailing yet. Blame the pregnancy hormones.”

  “Come home with me. You’ll feel better when you see your kids for a while.”

  “I can’t leave. I have to go kill Levi. I’ve given it enough time. He hasn’t found Malcolm.”

  She groaned and lay down next to me on the bed. “You’re not going to kill Levi. Top Hat has done this, not you.”

  “Semantics.”

  She elbowed me. “No. It’s not.”

  The temperature in the room dropped, and we both sat straight in the bed. Mary floated above us. She talked, but I couldn’t hear a word she said. Her mouth moved; no sound came out.

  “Can you see her?” I pointed upwards. Victoria couldn’t see ghosts.

  She nodded. “Do all ghosts look like this?”

  “No.” I reached toward Mary. My hand should go straight through her, even if she was such a powerful ghost that those who shouldn’t be able to see her, could.

  My hand stopped, hitting Mary’s arm. She was solid. “Oh, what the hell?”

  With a pop she vanished, and the room was empty of her presence. Victoria and I stared at each other, mouths open. “She was solid.”

  “She was indeed.” I flung off the covers and ran for the door. I didn’t know where I was going, but I needed to be out of my pajamas to do whatever came next. “We need to talk to … the Others. This is the second time you and I are seeing Mary. It happened when we were alone the last time, too.”

  Victoria leaned against my closet. I supposed I should be a little bothered that she watched while I changed my clothes. Only we’d spent so much time in changing rooms together that at this point that she’d seen me naked so many times I’d lost any sense of privacy with her.

  Once again, my yoga pants were perfect for what I needed to do. “We need Michael to tell us what the fuck is going on.”

  Nausea rolled through me, and I stopped moving so fast. I tried to breathe through my nose, but it got me nowhere. I rushed to the bathroom, barely making it on time.

  “Were you this sick with your other pregnancies?”

  I leaned my head against the top of the toilet. “Each one got worse.”

  Victoria brought me a washcloth. “Here. You’re coming back with me. I’m not asking. I’m telling.”

  “All right. For a couple of days. But then you’ll have to leave wherever you are. I can’t know the location.”

  She nodded once. “That’s what we figured.”

  ***

  When I’d sent my family on the road, I hadn’t anticipated they’d be living in a very large beach house collecting seashells every day at dusk. I sipped a lemonade that was, for whatever reason, staying down and watched my kids play on the beach.

  Henry sat next to me. “Glad you’re here. Once we got that text, Victoria couldn’t sleep for worrying about you. I wasn’t happy thinking of you pregnant and alone either. Block is following Top Hat. Ross is there. Things can maintain until you start to feel better.”

  “Only for a few days. I have to run Malcolm’s business for him. It backs up so easily.” I didn’t even want to imagine how many messages had gone unanswered in the time it had taken me to drive to Destin with Victoria. “This is a nice place.”

  “Yeah, pretty spectacular for a rental. The kids have all been happy. We’ve been calling Jack the beach baby.”

  He’d gotten so big since I’d last seen him. I swore my three kids had grown inches as well. Maybe it was the sunlight and being away from the energy drain in Austin.

  “When I go home, I’m going to end the situation with Levi.” I wanted to say kill him, but they all winced whenever I said that, so I’d started referring to it differently.

  Molly ran from the beach and threw her arms around me. She was covered in wet sand, so soon I was, too. I laughed, letting her grasp onto me. I didn’t know how I was going to tell the kids about the baby.

  They didn’t know Malcolm was missing or what was about to happen to their dad.

  Dex ran up next and abruptly stopped, his grin fading. The blank expression he had when the visions moved through him took over his face. I took his hand in mine. According to Victoria, he’d had none since they’d been away. I guess I was bad luck overall.

  “Mommy.” His voice sounded small. “The shadows are everywhere.”

  I took his hand. “I know, buddy.”

  “It’s all going to blow up.”

  He shook his head, his eyes returning to normal. Usually, he could throw off a vision, but this time, he didn’t. Instead, he threw his arms around me and Molly. “They’re following you, Mommy. Everywhere you go; everything you do. You need Uncle Malcolm. You can’t do this alone.”

  “That’s the thing.” As I spoke, Grayson approached until he could hear me too. I didn’t want to hide things from them when the truth would do—particularly with Dex able to see as much as he did. “Malcolm has been missing. It’s part of the reason you guys have to stay away from me right now. We need to find him. So far, we’re not sure how to. I know it seems like adults always know what to do. In this case, I’m still trying to work it out.”

  “And Dad?” Grayson asked the question I hoped he wouldn’t. “What are you going to do about Dad?”

  Molly looked between us. “What happened to Daddy?”

  “He’s not Dad.” Grayson looked away. “I could feel it. You could feel it, too. I know it. That man was someone else wearing his skin.” He sounded sort of hysterical now. I grabbed him and pulled him into the circle of our arms. They were all crying, and so was I. We must have looked like a mess sitting out there on the beach. It was a beautiful day for my heart to break all over again.

  ***

  “Kendall.” I looked up as two men approached me at the Vortex. I covered my mouth to hide my smile. The last two members of our team had arrived, Logan and Peter. They stood together, side-by-side, their hands clasped tightly. Logan was taller than Peter by several inches. His blond hair hung to his shoulders. He wore a gray hoodie and cargo pants. Peter was smaller, dark haired, and dressed with the Flash superhero symbol on his t-shirt. They wore matching wedding rings on their left
ring fingers. “We’re here.”

  I hadn’t seen them since we’d come back to life. They’d clearly re-found each other. My smile subdued a bit. Like Troy, they’d had their memories and decided not to join us. “Where have you been?”

  “Denver.” Logan squeezed Peter’s hand, who, in turn, rested his head for a second on Logan’s shoulder.

  Finally, Peter spoke. “Skiing. That is, we’ve been in Colorado. Our last spot was Denver. But we’re ski instructors.”

  “Psychic ski instructors. You could open a business. Or a reality television show.” Maybe Malcolm’s baby was giving me some of his attitude. “Did Michael come and tell you that I needed you?”

  “No, I saw it in a vision.” Peter spoke softly. “We always told ourselves that if we had a vision where you needed us, we’d come.”

  “Listen.” I tapped my foot on the ground. “Here’s the deal. I’m not in a position to judge decisions people make. I get it. I bet you guys had a great life in Denver. I wouldn’t want to come here either. I had my memory gone for a while. When it came back, I wasn’t really in the mood for living in danger. But I’m here. If you want to be here, be here. If you don’t, go back to Denver. I’m not going to judge you. Troy lives in Fredericksburg. He isn’t joining us. No one’s going to make him.”

  Logan sat across from me first, and Peter moved to sit next to me.

  Peter’s voice had a scratchy tone to it, like he smoked cigarettes, only he’d sounded the same as a young child. “We’re sorry. Don’t be angry. Don’t be hard. Don’t pretend this is you. Don’t forget, we know you.”

  Logan finished, “It’s hard to be in this war with so little defensive powers. I mean, neither of us thought we’d live to see thirty. Then, when we bumped into each other, things fell into place. For a while, I guess, we thought we’d lucked out. No one needed us.”