Chapter Clara
Clara
The listing had vanished. No trace of Greywood Manor on any site—just a blank space where photos of its gilded halls once graced. Rachel’s calls to the caretaker rang into a void; there was no voicemail or a disconnected tone—just…silence.
Three weeks of his voice slithering into my dreams, or feel his phantom touch trace my neck where he left his fingerprints. The marks were all gone, but I felt strangely hollow inside.
I drowned myself in work. Typed reports until my fingers cramped. Smiled through meetings while my mind replayed the sounds—the creak of the bed, the wet slap of flesh that wasn’t quite flesh, the way the shadows had breathed in time with his thrusts.
Confusion became my shadow. Listlessness, my new ritual.
Did I imagine it all?
◆◆◆
I pushed the house keys into my handbag.
My parents' cars weren't in the driveway, so I had the house to myself.
After vomiting at work, they sent me home, probably because they didn't want me to spread my germs. I placed my shoes on the shelf and went upstairs to my bedroom, eager to strip off my work suit.
I unzipped my black skirt and paused when my stomach fluttered.
No, it couldn't be.
The memory of the cots and cradles all piled on top of one another, and his words crashed through me.
I pressed down on the spot where I’d felt the flutter, and something pushed back.
The back of my legs hit my bed, and I stumbled back until I sat on the bed.
I stared at my stomach. The thing growing inside of me shouldn't be possible.
Three negative pregnancy tests later, I was in my local A&E, lying about being pregnant and bleeding.
◆◆◆
The ultrasound gel was colder than expected, like melted frost against my skin. The nurse dragged the wand in slow circles, her frown deepening with each pass. The screen flickered before grainy shadows swirled like ink in water.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. Just peeled off her gloves with a snap. “I’ll fetch the doctor.”
The wait was painful as I lay in the clinical room staring at the black screen.
When the doctor arrived, his smile was like a stretched rubber band, ready to snap. It seemed that everybody was stressed. He took the wand, pressing harder, his eyes locked on the screen, where something twisted and blurred.
“At first glance, it resembles a foetus,” he said, too carefully. “But the structure is…irregular. Likely a tumour. We’ll need tests done to determine if it’s benign.”
My lie slithered between us. I’d felt it move. It wasn't cancer.
I opted to walk home rather than catch a bus. The walk cleared my head, and the fresh air kept me focused. I arrived home all too soon, and I still didn't know what to do or who to speak to. No one would believe me.
Fuck. I couldn't believe any of it, and it was happening to me.
How could I accept this thing inside of me?
◆◆◆
The air smelled of beeswax and old roses.
I was in the red bedroom again—his bedroom. Candles flickered, their light pooling like liquid gold across the velvet drapes, the carved mahogany bed, the mirrors that reflected nothing but shadows. The room was alive, breathing in time with the creak of the floorboards beneath my bare feet.
Familiar. Too familiar.
I ran my fingers over the vanity, its surface polished to a ghostly sheen. A hairbrush lay there, strands of dark hair still tangled in its bristles. Mine. The realisation slithered through me before I could stop it.
A voice, low and honeyed, seeped from the walls.
Open the door.
My breath hitched. Edmond.
The gilded knob was icy under my palm. The door swung open silently, revealing the nursery.
And the cradle.
It sat in the centre of the room, bathed in an unnatural glow—the same one from the east wing, but here, it looked new. Mahogany carved with serpents and roses, the canopy draped in lace yellowed with time. My legs moved without my permission, drawn to it like a moth to a killing flame.
Empty.
The moment my fingers brushed the wood, the vision struck—
A man’s laughter, rich and warm, his hands elegant, ringed lifting me, the baby, high into the air.
“My heir,” he murmured, pride thick in his voice.
A woman’s face, blurred but beloved, her touch feather-light on my cheek. “Our miracle,” she whispered. Love, thick and syrupy, filled the air—
Then—cold.
Darkness. Water rushing into tiny lungs. Tiny fists beating, useless, against the crushing weight. Screaming for them—for her—but the only answer was the darkness swallowing me whole.
I wrenched my hand back with a gasp, my throat raw as if I’d been the one drowning.
Behind me, the shadows moved.
“My son.”
Spindly fingers—too long, too wrong—slid around my waist, pressing against the swell of my belly. Edmond’s chest pressed against my back, his breath a corpse-cold whisper against my ear.
“You feel him now, don’t you?” His other hand stroked the cradle, a lover’s caress. “How he hungers. How he remembers.”
The baby pressed—hard—as if in answer.
Edmond’s grip tightened, his voice bleeding into a growl.
“It’s time to nourish him, sweeting.”
He dragged me into the bedroom and the nursery door slammed shut.
◆◆◆
The next morning, my fingers fumbled at the skirt’s waistband. The zipper wouldn’t close. I forgot about catching the bus to work and stared at the mirror. The dream came flooding back to me. I blinked as flashes of the dream returned to me.
My stomach curved outward, smooth and round as a moonstone. Not bloating. Not weight gain. Showing.
Yesterday, a “tumour.” Overnight, a bulging pregnancy.
I pressed a hand to my swollen belly.
A small lump slid beneath my palm, pressing back with deliberate, knowing pressure.
I knew what I had to do.