On my twenty-second attempt, my half-blooded niece clung to her mother, becoming twisted and foul much too early. By the time my eldest found her resolve, it was too late, and eyes descended from the heavens, her dark wish granted in a hall of moist epithelium and a pool of pus. Millia Gnu Aye succeeded the throne.
Nona stood by the bathroom mirror, leaning against the sink, her elbows up, cradling her cheek in her left hand and holding a small plastic white strip in her right. She wore nothing but her small clothes, making fists with her toes against a carpet, her dress piled on the floor beneath her feet.
“Please, please,” she said. Nona chewed on her lips, her right eye flashing a brilliant green color. “Oh, gawds, please, no.”
She was a week late. There was no denying it. No escaping the reality of the situation, but so soon after her last episode?
Nona stared at the oval window near the end of the strip. A vertical yellow line appeared against a white backdrop, the control strip. She told herself a dozen times but still jumped, breaking into a cold sweat.
Not pregnant, she thought repeatedly, like a prayer, a fervent wish at the edge of a shallow toilet bowl-shaped well. But who was listening to her? Her father? Iapyx had all but tied the mantle of fertility on her birthing hips like a garter on a blushing virgin minutes before her wedding night. Pregnancy was her natural state, but never twice in the same year.
Gawds, please not twice in the same year!
A faint blue line appeared to the left of the yellow.
“Damn it!” Nona threw the plastic strip against the mirror, which bounced, clattering against the lip of the sink and skipping across the bathroom tiles, landing next to her feet.
She sighed, sitting on a fluffy pink toilet seat, hanging her head, and biting her lip.
Pregnant, again. She couldn’t believe it. She’d pissed a positive test at the beginning of the year, which was bad enough. Oh, how happy Nona had been when she dilated six centimeters four months early. A preterm birth. How unusual for her. Thirty minutes of labor, two pints of blood, and an afternoon play session with her little sister Clotho.
There was no baby.
There was never a baby.
“You are not pregnant,” she said, pinching her thigh.
Her body never listened to her. She’d go through the motions like the hundreds of fake pregnancies before. False contractions, cravings, morning sickness, and labor pains all without the momentary pleasures of intercourse or the joys of hearing a newborn’s first cry.
Nona lifted her head out of her hands, staring at the pregnancy strip. The once faint line was now a solid blue color.
She couldn’t help but wonder what it all meant; her well-being so closely tuned to the fertility of mankind. A second pregnancy could be something as innocuous as twins or as significant as a baby boom, but on which peninsula was hard to guess. She’d never gotten into the habit of reading her menstrual cycle like tea leaves.
The light from the neighboring window cast Nona’s shadow against the strawberry-colored wallpaper—a groundhog, ready to announce six more painful weeks of winter. She sighed, picking up her skirts and drawing her hands into fists.
With no prenatal checkups or ultrasounds, she was going to have to handle this pregnancy on her own, proving her independence from the garden. The Gnatu would surely fawn over her if they knew, and, oh gawds, if Morta found out she’d go on another crusade trying to ascertain the father’s whereabouts.
Nona pressed her fingers against her temple, leaning on the bathroom sink and staring at her reflection.
“I look ridiculous.” She admitted, holding her garments against her body. “I’m glad Morta’s not here.”
She dressed in long green skirts and a bowknot collar, tying a ribbon around her waist, tucking her blouse, and slipping into her white ankle-high stockings. She twirled in front of the mirror, her hair woven into tight sausage curls. The garments were a little tight along her bust, but still a good fit. She’d become accustomed to the gowns of this era, which mimicked the long flowing dresses of the Victorian empire. Polka dots, however, she could do without.
“My lady,” Nona said. She gave herself a curtsy, tilting her skirt and bending her knee—a perfect execution. Bastion and Charon would be proud of her.
She stepped from the bathroom and into the hallway, greeted by cheerful wallpaper and fluffy brown carpets. Her mother’s bedroom door was cracked open.
“Mother,” she said, gingerly knocking on the door. “Are you feeling better today?”
There was no answer.
Nona pursed her lips, pushing the door open and gasping. The bed was empty, sheets torn to shreds, and claw marks sunk into the walls as if in the solitary quarters of an unhinged beast. Feathers lay across the floor, the remains of a pillowcase swinging from the ceiling fan.
She stepped inside, slipping and falling backward, landing with a thump. Something cold and slimy—freshly shed skin — stuck to her slippers. She gritted her teeth, peeling the waxy film off her feet and wrinkling her nose. A foul yeasty odor hung in the air, and the walls dripped with saliva.
“Gawds, not this again,” she said, shaking her head.
Nona found her feet, left the bedroom, and climbed down the stairs into the living area. The radio was silent, and the Gnatu were strangely absent. She rubbed her shoulders, wrapping a shawl around her neck as she moved into the kitchen.
“Charon,” she called. “Have you seen my mother?”
She peeked into the kitchen, where the dishes were neatly stacked, the napkins folded, and silverware, forks, knives, and spoons sorted.
“Charon?”
A noise came from the basement—the sound of something grunting in the dark. She jumped, stepping back into a countertop, a
trail of mucus leading from the walls and the kitchen tiles down into the cellar.
She pressed her hands against her chest and gulped.
“M-mother?”
There was a scuffling of feet across the floor, a sharp snap, and then nothing. Nona held her breath, peeking around the corner and into the darkness. She could see a pile of torn clothing and worn shoes.
She slid her hands along the railing and slowly took the stairs, her breath visible, and her knees shaking.
“Mother, is that you?”
She tripped, stumbling onto the concrete floor slick with that same waxy substance.
A pair of slit eyes lit up in the darkness and she could see pale scaly skin and the unhinged jaw of a human serpent throwing back the still wriggling feet of its prey, swallowed whole.
Nona yelped, falling on her hands and sliding across the floor until her back hit the wall.
Her mother stumbled from the darkness, indents of hands, feet, and adolescent faces pressing against her engorged belly. Her jaw snapped back into place and she licked her lips with a forked tongue, whisps of hair dangling from her brow as she maneuvered her dislocated shoulder from the basement drain like a cephalopod squeezing into tight spaces, limited only by the rigidity of its beak and the girth of its prey.
“My beautiful daughter,” she said with a wicked smile. “So good of you to join me after the feast.”
“You’re not well, Mother,” Nona said, scrambling against the wall. “Come back to bed. I’ll make you better.”
The serpentine woman shook her head, fingers coiling about her knuckles like a brood of asps. “Better?” she asked. “But I’ve never felt better.”
Nona squeezed her eyes shut, feeling her mother’s raspy, forked tongue flick against her forehead. “Please, Mom, I just want things to return to how they were.”
“There’s no going back, child. Not for me and not for you, but you should rejoice, for your awakening has only just begun.”
Nona screamed, but from the darkness of that damp cold cellar, nobody could hear her.
