Cauchemar

by Alexandra Grigorescu

  Hannah looked up into the rafters, hearing the flutter of wings. The sagging beams of wood were shedding yellow hay. “It’s funny that you mention crows. Was it you?”

  Her mother cocked her head. “What?”

  Hannah squinted. Light squeezed through holes in the ceiling, like a pinhole camera. “Was it you,” Hannah repeated, “who sent that bird, that thing? Were you trying to scare me?”

  Christobelle gingerly bent at the knees and plucked a large, thick-legged spider from the plush hay. “Here you are in my house, girl,” Christobelle said lightly. “It is a place of worship, where those who are willing can see beyond the limits of sight. You speak when spoken to, and listen well.” She took a step toward Hannah and extended her arm. The barn spider sat on her middle knuckle, its striped legs fit to the trenches made by tendons in the woman’s hand. “I pity you, having grown up lost. The world must be so frightening when you know so little of what comes next.” A slight tremor went through her hand and the spider stirred, tiptoeing up her finger. “I imagine it must make you feel helpless.”

  Hannah straightened her shoulders as Christobelle’s hand brushed her collarbone. Her whole body quivered. She felt the spider hesitate against her neck.

  “Child,” Christobelle said, her voice velvety. “It’s just an insect. It’s a fraction of your size. You kill them without even noticing, without giving it thought.”

  “It’s repulsive.”

  “Is it?” Christobelle looked down at it as if admiring a ring. “I find it pleasing. It’s one of nature’s many indulgences.”

  With great effort, Hannah forced herself to brush her mother’s hand away. “I’m too old to be receiving lessons from you. Especially on what I should and shouldn’t fear.”

  “But you are afraid.” Christobelle placed the spider onto her shoulder and fanned out her skirt. Hannah saw the papery skin around her mother’s ankles. “It comes off you like an odor.” A shade of sadness passed over her mother’s face, quick as a door closing.

  “Nature is against me.” Hannah sagged forward. A stroke of color caught her eye. Below a rough hill of hay, she could see a patch of dark red staining the floorboards.

  Christobelle breathed a long sigh. The blush seemed to drain from her cheeks as her eyes pouched inside violet-veined skin. “Leave us,” Christobelle said softly, and Hannah scanned the room. Two men rose, as if from a deep, confused slumber, from the hay stacked in the dark corners of the barn. They seemed like shadows come unstuck, stepping through the back door and into the sunlight.

  Christobelle turned back and stared at Hannah’s stomach with ravenous intensity. “What’s happened?”

  “I had a dream that wasn’t exactly a dream.” The words sounded ridiculous. “A crow came into the house, but it was wrong, wrongly made somehow. It attacked me here,” she pointed to her belly button. “And it spoke. Or, I thought I heard it speak.”

  Christobelle frowned. “It came into the house? I saw it circling when I was last there. An unusually large one.”

  Hannah’s mouth opened, then closed. “It attacked me,” she repeated. She’d expected more, having forgotten not to expect anything. “Something’s wrong. It’s in the air, in the floorboards, everywhere. Everything feels threatening.”

  “Because you are threatened.” Christobelle moved forward over the bleached hay, seeming to float. Nothing rustled beneath her feet. “The child is distressed,” she whispered. She pulled a small vial out of her innumerable layers and handed it to Hannah. “Drink.”

  “What is it?” Hannah asked, not reaching for it.

  “It’s for the child,” Christobelle said evenly. “To calm it.” Then, exasperated, “You came for help, and this is it. Drink.”

  Hannah took the vial, then hesitated. She held it up to the light. The liquid inside was dark and thick, and sat over a layer of black sediment, but even after she opened it and breathed in, she couldn’t guess what it might be. Hannah gagged slightly against the few drops that slid down her throat, metallic and sour as spoiled meat.

  Christobelle locked her hands over Hannah’s stomach and the chill permeated deep into her gut, sinking though her bladder. A low pain began between her legs. Hannah groaned and the sound hung between them. “It’s time to speak the truth, Hannah, all of it. Some things are written on your face, so tell me.”

  Hannah’s body felt constricted, as if all her veins were bathed in frost.

  “What else have you seen?”

  The child kicked inside her and Hannah looked into Christobelle’s face. Her irises lowered as she blinked. She’d felt it. “It’s something I used to dream about when I was young.” Hannah’s voice cracked. There would be no unspeaking this. There’d been an implicit treaty of silence, some sense that acknowledging it through speech would make it real. “A recurring nightmare that always started the same, in a house that wasn’t mine, but I thought was mine through that strange dream logic. I always felt watched.”

  Christobelle nodded impatiently. The long, patrician nose was inches from hers. So close, Hannah could see the filigree of dark purple veins clustered across her cheeks, along her chin. There were flecks of gold in her mother’s eyes, just like hers.

  “I’d hear it first, a swishing across the floor like a fish dragging itself toward water. Then I’d see a flash of white out of the corner of my eyes. Not a pure white, but yellowed. Organic. Its movements were reptilian, like an alligator. It never felt threatening, just watchful. In my dreams, it never came close to me, just circled me. But lately …”

  “Lately?” Christobelle prompted.

  “I’ve seen it,” Hannah said in a whisper. “Out in the world. Not even in a half-sleep, but out walking in the woods.”

  “I see.” Christobelle backed away. She bent at the waist and gently set the spider down onto the hay. It scurried away from her long fingers.

  Hannah waited for more, but her mother turned her back and stood staring at the rafters. The words rushed out of Hannah. “I did wrong against someone when I was younger. A boy named Jacob. You said his name the other day, and I feel—punished. Ever since Mae died, nothing feels safe.”

  “Child,” Christobelle said gently. “You have never been safe. We are all always at the mercy of the world, this one and the next, but fear serves nothing. Fear gives power to shadows, even though they can only exist in the presence of light. As for this boy, this Jacob, he was not what you thought. He would’ve harmed you. Guilt can be as dangerous as fear, if it’s undeserved, if you take on too much of it.” Her mother’s head shot up sharply, her fingers flexing at her sides. “He’s out there.” Christobelle said.

  Hannah rubbed her eyes. Having said it, having had it dismissed, lightened everything. Excuses and explanations suddenly soothed her like medicine: it was the hormones from the pregnancy and the grief at Mae’s death mingling in her chemistry. The mind was susceptible when surrounded by so much quiet. “Callum.”

  “Callum. I’d forgotten about the name. It means dove. Don’t you find that interesting?”

  “Should I?”

  Christobelle shrugged and turned back to face Hannah, a half-smile haunting her mouth. “I’d like to meet him.” Hannah saw her teeth grinding back and forth “Will he be my son-in-law?”

  Hannah gathered her hair into a loose bun at the nape of her neck. She’d been waking up to find long strands of her hair mottling her pillow, coiling and knotting in her sleep. “I’d have to be your daughter by law first.”

  “Law. Doesn’t mean much out here, as I think you’re starting to learn.” She gestured for Hannah to lead the way out.

  Callum stood with his back to the barn, his hands in his pockets.

  “Welcome to our swamp.” Christobelle said softly, stepping up to him.

  Callum turned. “Thanks, but I’ve already been here for a while.” They watched each other like hawks circling the s
ame mouse.

  Callum searched Hannah’s face. She tried to keep her features steady, despite the painful loosening in her womb, like a valve split from too much pressure.

  “But you’re only just now being welcomed in return.” Christobelle moved forward and gripped his face, her fingers sliding into his hollowed cheeks. “A cool reception, is it?” Her body reared suddenly, and though they barely moved, her hands shifted from clenching to cradling almost imperceptibly. Tenderness filled her face, and seemed ill-fitting. It made her seem younger. “I’m sorry, child,” she said, in a whisper.

  Hannah forced a smile. “For what?”

  Christobelle hugged herself. Her bony arms looked as if they might clasp around her corseted waist. Bits of hay hung from the hem of her skirt like decoration. “I thought I could, but—” Some realization had dawned on her. “I can’t help him. I can’t help either of you.”

  Hannah cried out as warmth seeped out from between her legs.

  Christobelle shushed her. Hannah began to retch, but her mother only whispered, “Let it work.” Hannah convulsed again.

  “What’s happening?” Callum asked, fear in his voice. “The baby?”

  “Get the boat, boy,” Christobelle said quickly, “and take her home. Put her in bed.”

  “What did you do?” he cried.

  “I need you to remember this. She can’t leave,” Christobelle said quietly. “Not with the child inside her. The house may still offer some small protection.”

  “From what?” Callum asked.

  Christobelle closed her eyes against Callum’s desperation. “You must take her home.”

  Hannah met the eyes of the man on the bank, hoisting another cracked statue from the water. He fell to the ground with it, hugging its painted plaster. A greasy, browning vine hung from his neck like a noose. Hannah’s moans didn’t register on his face. Beyond him, she saw the two men from the barn, slumped in the grass. They shook their heads from side to side, raising and dropping their arms as though taken aback by the ability to do so. She saw their faces. Horror and amazement conjoined.

  Callum stepped toward Christobelle, rage puckering his face. “You did this!”

  Hannah doubled over, and she tried to focus her vision on something that might calm her. The kicks inside her felt bruising. Spit flew from her lips as she shushed senselessly. She meant it for the baby but addressed a beetle on the ground that thrust its horns impotently against a rock.

  “What have you done to her?” Callum cried, moving as if to strike her mother. The two men rushed toward them as if they’d sprung up from the damp earth, waiting for a signal.

  “Go home. All that is left is to wait.” Hannah felt her mother’s hands on her head, tangling in her hair. They pulled painfully as she stroked. “You should’ve listened to me. Now you’re exposed.”

  “Come on,” Callum urged as he pulled Hannah toward the boat. “What did she do?” Hannah shut her eyes, unable to speak. Unable to tell him that some small part of her had known, and had drunk. Callum folded her into the boat and gunned the motor.

  “They have you,” Christobelle called out after them, her head bowed like a willow.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  Hannah stayed in bed for days, her finger circling the small puncture wound in her belly button. Outside, the world moved feverishly as another storm descended and falling branches shattered windows. She watched the bedroom door, her pulse pounding in her throat, but there was only Callum calling out, “Just a window, honey. I’ve already locked Graydon away.”

  Cramps choked her stomach, signaling blood, but the sheets remained unmarked. It was only this that kept Callum at bay, even as he paced the length of the bedroom, threatening to call James, to rain down police batons on Christobelle’s men.

  “Your own mother,” he repeated again and again, and Hannah was too weary to clarify that they were family only in the barest sense of the word. He brought her ginger tea, his face worried. “Wake up, sweetheart,” he cajoled, his voice increasingly fatigued, but she remained on her back, her limbs at once leaden and liquid.

  She dreamt of the child excavating patiently through the red dome of her womb, braiding veins as it went, then swinging from the vines. Always, its hands were clawed. She dreamt of Callum lying on the floor outside their bedroom, her child’s heartbeat resounding through the house. His body thinning, his very skin growing more transparent with each pulse.

  Callum finally called Dr. Merrick. He kept his leather bag tight against his chest, the very picture of a small town doctor, as he moved around the room. He avoided touching the furniture and he gasped when a large black raven met his eyes from a branch outside the window.

  “It’s taken up residence,” Callum explained, tapping on the window. “I think it’s probably after all the dead frogs.”

  Dr. Merrick sniffed the air like a possum, frowning at the ammonic smell of her body. “Smell that?” he asked Callum, anger in his voice. “Smells like Fetor hepaticus, or breath of the dead. It’s the terrible sweetness of a liver fighting too much toxicity in the blood.”

  No matter how Hannah turned, how she stoppered her face with pillows, the smell was pervasive. It inhabited her.

  “Tell me the truth now,” the doctor said. “Have you taken her to some traiteur on the bayou?” Callum regarded him blankly. “A witch-doctor, son.”

  Hannah slammed the heel of her foot down on the mattress and threw Callum a warning look.

  “Of course not.”

  Dr. Merrick gently pulled back the sweat-drenched sheets to study her body. His eyes settled on her stomach. “What’s this then?” Hannah rose onto her elbows to see the faint outline of a cross over her belly.

  “Jesus, I don’t know,” Callum breathed, staring wide-eyed at Hannah. Dr. Merrick made a sound of disgust as he handed Callum his stethoscope and placed the end on her belly. Watching his face relax, Hannah could almost hear her baby’s heartbeat.

  “I can’t figure it out.” Hannah heard the doctor say. “That smell …” He hesitated. “When the chemicals produced by the body aren’t filtered out anymore, they seep into the lungs. But her blood pressure seems to be fine, her circulation’s good, and there are no clear signs of jaundice. What’s she eaten in the last few days?”

  When he only shrugged, the doctor considered Callum carefully. “You’re looking a bit ill yourself.”

  “It’s just stress.” Callum’s mouth tightened as he pointed the doctor’s attention back to Hannah. “Sleep has become a luxury we can barely afford.”

  “It could just be a bad flu, but in the meantime, I’d like to get her in for some tests.”

  “No,” Hannah groaned from the bed.

  The doctor nodded to himself and pulled out a syringe and five vials. “Then we’ll do them here. One way or another, young lady.” Hannah glared at him as she extended her arm. He wiped down a fat blue vein, then plunged the needle in. Her blood was viscous, flowing slowly into the ampules. “Whatever happens,” Dr. Merrick said to her in a low voice, “don’t turn to folklore. It’ll do more harm than good. Mae fooled around with it, but underneath it all was a foundation of medicine, pure and simple. You have more than yourself to think of now.”

  Hannah stared fixedly out the window at the cloud-laden sky until he left.

  She knew the smell wasn’t her body leeching poison, not entirely. It was laced with the pungent stench of fear, at what waited outside and what lay inside her. Christobelle had said that she couldn’t leave with the child inside her. Hannah felt cornered, paralyzed by the sense that leaving the land, leaving the swamp, might cause the child harm.

  Her own mother had given her what was, by her definition, a remedy. Lose the child and leave freely. Keep the child and live in fear. She didn’t yet know the dimensions of her prison, but she was caught like a moth in a killing jar.

  Ca
llum sat back in the chair beside the bed. He massaged his chin with his thumb. “What can I do?”

  Hannah shook her head wordlessly and rolled over, seeking the refuge of sleep. In her sickness, the memory of his kiss with Leah felt like an infected wound. She’d dreamt of Leah, unafraid, before a sea of men’s hands and eyes. Many of the mouths that closed around Leah’s were Callum’s, his lips replicated and insatiable. She woke confused. While it might be sanded away, polished and painted over, it would never really fade. A careful touch would always find its edges.

  At some point, the storm calmed. She woke to the gentle chime of trees shedding their last raindrops into puddles outside the open window. The air smelled laundered. And then the drumming started. Hesitant at first and deep inside her, her child began to tread water. Each kick pulled her into consciousness and the motoring of its legs felt like it was frothing her insides, all the heaviness of days past turning to spume. Hannah wiggled up onto her pillow.

  “That was quite a storm,” Callum said from the doorway. “I thought it might tear the whole house apart.”

  Hannah’s eyes felt swollen, her throat parched. “Water, please.” He hurried away and returned with a tall glass. She took the glass, then pulled his hand onto her belly. “Feel,” she ordered.

  Callum’s laugh was half gasp. “There it is! God, he’s strong. He’s alright.” His hand followed the child’s movement, darting like a minnow. “You missed the strangest thing. There were frogs in our backyard. Dozens of them, all drowned.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “From the storm, I guess. Graydon was pawing at the kitchen window, meowing like mad. They were just bloated and washed up in the grass.”

  “How high is the water now?”

  “It’s risen but only by a few feet,” Callum said. “There’s a bit of flooding in the basement.”

  “It’s testing us,” Hannah whispered. “It was a warning.”

  Callum squinted at her, and licked his lips. She had the sense that he was summoning up patience. “Honey, you’ve been ill. There was a tropical storm down in Florida, and we’ve been getting the backwash. The critters got spooked. I bet every house around us for miles had some kind of fish or frog flopping on their doorstep this week.”