Chapter 19
I wake up two floors below, in our building’s medical center.
“Wyatt’s on his way,” Dale says, his brows knitting together so two lines form between them. He’s also smiling cartoonish-wide, clearly forced. His unnatural expression worries me more than the forehead lines.
I try to sit up but am restricted. There’s an oxygen cannula in my nostrils.
An IV in my arm, delivering fluids. A thin but weighted blanket, used to control temperature, has been placed over much of my body.
My dress is on the chair beside the bed, inside out.
This bothers me, that it wasn’t turned right side out.
A physician assistant is at the foot of the bed—a young-looking woman with a blond braid over one shoulder, wearing augmented reality medical glasses.
“Welcome back, Tilly,” the PA says. “Lie back. We’ve got everything under control here.
” Then she gestures upward with her finger, scrolling the menu of vitals she’s tracking with the MedAlert glasses, and I hear heartbeats—one that I can feel, and the other much faster, which I know has to be the fetus’s.
“The baby!” My throat is dry and it comes out as a whisper. I realize this is the first time I’ve referred to the fetus as such.
“Is just fine,” the PA says. She turns the bedside monitor toward me and points to the screen. The baby’s heart rate and mine are there, running in parallel wavy lines (my rate is 73 beats per minute, the baby’s 130).
I settle then, allowing my body to sink deeper into the gurney’s mattress. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Dale says, frowning now. “When I got to the room you were passed out on the floor. I had to use the emergency override to get in.”
Right. The emergency override program. Whoever had accessed Room D and knocked the canvas off the workbench could have used that fail-safe.
Wyatt rushes in as I’m about to ask Dale if he knows who else used the override in the past twenty-four hours—it would have been logged.
“Babe, are you okay?” He grabs my hand, kisses my knuckles. “What about the plum?”
“Are we doing this again?” I manage a smile. Our MotherWise literature compares the size of the fetus to a fruit, updated week by week. I’m eleven weeks pregnant, and the fetus is apparently about the size of a plum.
“Wow, a plum! We’re on our way,” Wyatt announced at dinner last night after reading the email. Proudly, as though he was the one growing the baby. It was sweet, if not mildly annoying to hear the royal “we” used. “Lime is next, babe. I’m thinking virgin margaritas to celebrate…”
This is also why Clementine is named Clementine. When we had our twelve-week ultrasound, the technician said she was about the size of a clementine orange, and that became her nickname. Then when she was born, it was the only name that fit.
At four weeks a fetus is the size of a poppy seed. I wish I had the chance to tell Poppy how she got her name.
“I’m good. And the plum is too.” I shift my eyes to the monitors, Wyatt following my gaze.
“All good, Dad. Measuring eleven weeks, two days,” the PA says, giving Wyatt a confident smile. He visibly relaxes, his shoulders dropping, his face loosening.
“All right, okay,” he says, returning the PA’s smile before turning to me. “You scared the hell out of me. What the heck happened?”
“Dale found me. Guess I passed out?” I shiver, thinking of that wiggling tendril. The way it stretched out, glistening black, straining to get closer and—
“Out cold. Couldn’t wake her up, so I called Medical,” Dale says, the forehead lines back. My shivering kicks up a notch, but no one seems to notice.
“Thanks, man. Glad you were there.” Wyatt claps Dale on the shoulder.
“I’m going to head back up to the lab, give you two some time,” Dale says.
“And before you ask, Tilly, Room D is secured. The piece is stable—and, no, we didn’t take a peek.
” He’s read my mind. “The cover was already on it, so Tony and I set it back on the workbench, all anchors double-checked.” Tony is Dale’s apprentice.
“Thank you,” I reply, before adding, “Wait. You said the cover was on it?”
He nods. “You just worry about getting well, okay?”
“I will, thanks again, Dale. And thank Tony for me,” I murmur, as Wyatt walks Dale out of the room to say goodbye. I watch them from my bed, can see they’re talking but can’t hear anything.
“I don’t know how the cover got on it,” I say once Wyatt returns. It’s disturbing, because the cover was absolutely not on the painting when I passed out. If I didn’t cover it, and Dale and Tony didn’t…then who did?
“Cover?” he repeats, but he’s distracted. Running his hand through his hair the way he does when he’s thinking through a problem. I wonder what he and Dale were discussing.
“Never mind. It’s not important.” I turn to the PA. “So, when can I get out of here?”
“Waiting on some blood work, and then you’re cleared to go. Home,” she adds, with some emphasis. “This pregnancy needs to be your number one priority. At least for the next couple of days.”
“Naturally,” Wyatt says, nodding. His mouth is tight when he smiles at me. “Number one priority, right, Tilly?”
I nod and murmur yes, understanding that’s the correct answer. But my thoughts stray back to Room D. To the Leclerc. To the inexplicable tendril I decide to keep to myself for now, at least until I have a reasonable explanation.
A short time later, after I’m discharged and am changing back into my dress, I see something curious on my stomach. A small purplish bruise, dime-size and in the shape of a circle.
—
That night I dream of Charlotte Leclerc. She’s in a lab coat, covered in luna moths, whose wings beat softly, in unison. We’re in a cold, gray cinder-block room—a single metal gurney in its center.
“Where are we?” I whisper, then notice a disembodied hand on the gurney. Holding a…paintbrush? Suddenly, the hand comes to life, dipping the bristles into the pool of blood under it. Sinew and skin hang from the stump, flapping with the motion. Disgust fills me, and I recoil.
“Follow me,” Leclerc says, her voice different from what I expect. Low and deep, but crystal clear. I’m grateful to follow her, to leave the macabre hand behind.
With a single finger she beckons, down a long, dark hallway lined with steel doors, each bearing a symbol.
A one-handed clock. A broken matchstick.
A tipped-over hourglass. Then a shattered mirror.
When I look into it, my eyes go wide. The shriek burns my throat but is halted at my lips, which are curved into a smile.
The moths flutter chaotically, a stomach-churning kaleidoscope in the fragmented mirror.
A metal name tag is pinned on my white lab coat, iridescent in the darkness. Dr. Charlotte Leclerc.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” this image of me says. “We’ve been waiting.”
Who’s been waiting? For what? My mind screams, but my face—Charlotte’s face—bears no sign of alarm.
There’s a sudden pressure behind my eye, dull but relentless.
I blink, then press my fingers against it.
Something’s tickling my eyelid from the inside, pushing into my fingers.
Slowly, I let my hand drop as a tendril—the tendril—pulses from the inner corner of my eye.
Making the white sclera bulge as it resists.
The tendril stretches farther, as though reaching toward the mirror, about to make contact and—
—
My watch wakes me up, buzzing due to my sudden elevation in heart rate. I rip it off my wrist. My throat burns, like I have a bad case of strep. Swallowing convulsively, I force myself to breathe deeply through my nose. It’s just a dream, Tilly. Just a dream. Eventually I fall back asleep.