“It’s my sister,” I tell Maria, but when I look down at her, she is already asleep. I tuck the blankets more tightly around us and take another sip of water. I want to stay awake long enough to see Andrew walk through the doorway. I need to be ready. One way or another, I need to end things.
A mother is the hole you spend your life crawling out of.
I lift my head slowly. I don’t want to wake the girl, curled up at my side. My eyes haven’t quite adjusted to the dark, but I can just make out a pool of shadow in the center of the floor congealing and clotting like old, spilled blood. Knotted hair and a bulge of pale skin, lumpy with protrusions of bone. The smell is clogged drains and high, polluted tides. I check Maria, but her eyes are still closed, her breathing soft.
She wants you to be her mother. How sad. Doesn’t she know what you are, Hazel?
My other sister’s hair is so matted it drags behind her like a thick, heavy cloak. My scar throbs in the small of my back.
“I am a rational woman,” I mutter, turning my face away. “I do not allow my imagination to play games with me.”
Did you know that a sow may savage her own piglets after farrowing? They have to muzzle the new mothers so they don’t eat their young.
I close my eyes and remind myself that I am a rational woman even though it feels like my blood is boiling in my veins.
I know the things you want to do. You want to shatter Maria’s skull with that stryker of yours. Break it open like a soft-boiled egg and dip your fingers into the soft tissue. You could taste the memory of the blue rabbit like an antacid on your tongue.
I look up. Now my other sister is crawling along the ceiling toward me. Her long, long hair brushes against the floor. I stiffen, biting my tongue to avoid crying out. I can’t wake Maria, so I remain very still as long, ticklish strands of hair brush over my skin. It leaves an oily trail along my lips, the lids of my closed eyes. It is the twitching antennae of insects, seeking a way in.
I grew beneath your bones, in the gaps between your vertebrae. I wound my hair around your spine. We are two parts of the same monster. Open your mouth. Let me in.
28
A sound wakes me, so sudden that my eyes snap open. The basement is empty. There is no grisly horror on the ceiling, no lank hair skimming my cheek. I listen, my heart pounding in my throat. There. That noise, faint and slightly muffled through the floors of the house, but unmistakable. I sit there a moment feeling cold goose bumps prickle my skin. Beside me, Maria moans, stirring in her sleep as if she is having a bad dream. I wish I were. I wish I were imagining things, but I am not. I am here.
Upstairs there is a baby crying.
I unravel from the covers like I am in a dream, leaving Maria limply sleeping. Outside it is full dark, and I am afraid, but not for myself. I am entirely focused on that high, wavering cry. It isn’t a sob, I think, as I climb the steps out of the basement. It isn’t a sound of panic or pain. But it’s heartbreaking all the same. A child needing comfort.
I take the stairs quietly. On the second floor I hear running water, and Andrew’s voice, talking quietly. I’m not close enough to hear the words, but his tone is muted, almost gentle. It doesn’t reassure me.
The door at the end of the corridor stands open so that a square of light falls through onto the carpet. By now the crying has tapered off, and that is worse somehow. I slide along the wall, my breath shallow gulps, blood roaring in my ears. Steam blooms out of the door in a fine white mist, and I hear Andrew saying, “We’ve got to get the water good and deep, see?”
I have a terrible premonition as I look around the door.
Inside, a small pink bathroom. Andrew has his back to me, bent over a large claw-footed bathtub. To the right, a porcelain sink beneath a small window. The window is propped open, and the sill is dusted with snow. I can hear the hum of the generator rising from the shed just below. Maria was right, it does sound like bees.
Scallop-shaped glass sconces are fitted to the walls, throwing out a soft rose-colored glow that only adds to that surreal, out-of-body sensation like I am inside a dream. Overhead, the water-stained ceiling bulges. Long tendrils of ivy have crept through the cracks in the plaster and boarded windows, trailing across the pink carpeted floor to where a child is sat, facing away from me. He wears a pale yellow sleepsuit the color of butter and is picking at tufts of carpet with the forensic interest of a toddler.
Andrew glances over his shoulder. He doesn’t seem surprised to see me standing there. He smiles. “Ah, Hazel. Come on in and say hello to your nephew.”
I’ve read about people collapsing in books. I’ve always thought how stupid it sounded for your legs to give way beneath you, but that’s exactly what happens to me. I remain upright only by holding on to the doorframe with my teeth gritted, swallowing the cry of dismay which rises like a pebble in my throat.
“Close the door, would you?” Andrew stands up. His sleeves are rolled to the elbows, and the steam has colored his face, makinghim look ruddy and healthy. Almost cheerful. “You’re letting out all the heat.”
“It’s the middle of the night.” It’s all I can think of to say. I look at him dumbly. “You can’t bathe a baby in the middle of the night.”
“I’m not bathing him, silly.” Andrew scoops Scout up in his arms and turns to face me. “I’m drowning him. Now, close the fucking door.”
Huge wings of horror unfurl in my chest. I take a staggering step forward, and then another. I look down at my empty hand, realizing I have left the stryker downstairs. Scout makes a clucking noise, stretching out his little arms toward me. His hair is treacle-blond and curly, just like Cathy’s. There is a tiny dimple in his chin, and as he smiles, it deepens. This unbuckles me somehow, this little dimple. I lunge toward him, aiming to snatch him away, but I’m clumsy, only half-awake.
Andrew knocks me easily aside and I’m thrown back against the sink, cracking my hip sharply on the curved porcelain. I yell, and Scout cries out in alarm. Andrew soothes him before he can start wailing again, bouncing him up and down in his arms. My voice is high and thin and wavering, the voice of someone who knows how badly they have lost.
“Are you punishing me? Is it because I got out of the cellar?”
“The cellar?” He looks at me, his forehead creased in confusion. “Ah no, at some point or other, you were bound to get out of the cellar. I’m just surprised it took you this long. One thing I’ve learned since doing this is that there is no such thing as a secure cell. There’s always a weak spot.”
“Then why? Is it Cathy? Because this will kill her, this will—” My voice breaks and I can’t finish. I’m so angry and scared I can’t even think straight.