Chapter 15
The nausea is odd. I had morning sickness with both Clementine and Poppy, for the first eleven weeks, after which it disappeared seemingly overnight.
I would throw up once, first thing, and then feel great for the rest of the day.
This time is different. It comes on at work—typically at the end of the day, immediately after my conservation sessions—with little warning.
A brief moment of that bubbly stomach feeling and then BAM.
I’ve started carrying emesis bags in my pockets.
“It’s probably a boy,” Shelby says, when Wyatt and I tell her about the pregnancy, the evening after our first ultrasound. We’ll wait a touch longer to tell Clementine. “Because you feel so different this time. That’s my guess.”
Everything in me tells me I’m carrying a girl. Mother’s intuition, I surmise. Or perhaps it’s merely fervent wishing; the universe rectifying a wrong. Regardless, the sickness is different, and different isn’t reassuring.
Later, after Clementine is in bed and Shelby and Wyatt are watching a movie, I retreat to my studio to review the work session’s video.
I remain troubled by the errant fiber, or whatever floated up from the painting’s surface.
Not only because of its presence, but also because of its just-as-sudden absence.
I’ve moved the bioluminescent fig plant into my studio because the glow of it was too bright for our bedroom.
The studio is dark except for the low light of the fig leaves, and I slide in earbuds and open my tablet.
Sitting at the small desk, I press play, zooming in on the painting—getting as tight as I can to the area where the strand appeared.
I switch my glasses to the low-light, infrared setting.
I can’t see myself on the screen, as I’m off to the side and out of frame.
There’s no sound, thankfully, so I don’t hear the suctioning that made me turn in the first place.
That made me vomit after I hung up with Cecil.
But as I zone in on the canvas, I see the tendril release and jut out from the painting—gently swaying.
Right above the subject’s waist. Hitting pause, I zoom in again, but it doesn’t provide a clearer view.
So I drop the image into GIA’s AI program.
The tendril is magnified, but it’s too pixelated for the program to identify.
Frustrated, I push back from my desk, the way I would if trying to get a wider view of an impressionist painting, changing my perspective until the shapes and colors become a familiar pattern or figure.
It doesn’t help. I’m no closer to understanding what released from the painting.
Also, I blocked the camera when I hunched over the canvas, not thinking about the recording at the time.
Because of this I don’t see the tendril retreat on the video.
I keep trying different angles until my eyes burn from the strain.
I need to go to bed. Wyatt called more than an hour ago, and my watch has been buzzing me every fifteen minutes, reminding me that my minimum seven hours of sleep goal is at risk.
At this point I’ll only get six, maybe less if I don’t fall asleep right away.
I’m so focused on the screen, on those pixelated images, the flicker in light barely registers.
Until it happens again, drawing my focus away from the screen.
Then one side of my fig plant shifts strangely—a section of leaves darkening, as though shadowed.
I pause, staring at the plant, but the glow is restored.
Tired eyes, I deduce, powering down the tablet before heading to bed.
If I had looked closer, I might have seen the southern flannel moth caterpillar, covered in beige down like a teardrop-shaped toupee, nibbling the edge of a leaf.
Southern flannel moth caterpillars were native to Georgia but have been mostly eradicated to protect the oak trees—their food of choice.
The caterpillars are also highly venomous, and if touched the soft hairs leave spikes in the skin, causing headaches, nausea, shocklike symptoms. Good riddance, Shelby said when the news reported their diminished population.
By the time this southern flannel caterpillar transforms into a moth, I’ll have solved the mystery of the floating tendril. Things that turn out to be much more ominous than they sound.