Dearest, p.17
Dearest, page 17
Flora turns her attention to the books. Maybe they hold the clues she needs. There are three loosely packed shelves of spines that bear words like “divination” and “haunted” and “mythological.” Her fingers feel the books, some old and ripped, others newer with a sleek finish. She lands on a collection of photographs, a large volume that looks like a coffee table tome. But when she opens it, she realizes only a very morbid human would have this book on display.
The photos are from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Flora gets stuck on a black-and-white picture that features a group of eight people, all staring straight at the camera. They wear an assortment of dark fabric robes with light-colored scarves or neck pieces. Every one of them wears the same pointed hat, like a cone on top of their heads, that is decorated with devil horns and the moon and stars. But the most haunting part of all is what they wear on their faces.
Every one of them sports a different mask, each more horrifying than the next. There’s the plain white mask that covers the entire face, with only small slits for eyes and huge, dark, painted-on lips. Two of the masks feature bushy mustaches that look like bristles torn from a broom, obscuring and, in one case, disappearing the mouth completely. The worst one is a white mask with pockmarks, like it is half-melted, as if the person poured a bucket of hot wax on his head. Two thick, uneven eyebrows lay atop the eyes, which are cut large enough for the wearer’s actual eyeballs to show through. And the mouth is upturned in a wide, gaping grin.
She thinks of her childhood sleep paralysis, the nights of torment lying in bed immovable. Her body tenses, as if it can right now feel the crushing weight of the haunting Night Hag. She has never seen the Night Hag’s face, but she imagines it would probably look like this.
She flips through the pages and finds more of the same. There is little context for the photos, only the year in which they were taken and, in some cases, a location. Flora reads that people often dressed like ghouls on Halloween in order to trick the actual ghosts into thinking they were one of them, hoping they’d be spared. The thought tickles her spine.
“Looking for anything in particular?”
The voice startles Flora, and she drops the book. A hand reaches down and retrieves it for her. It belongs to a librarian she saw behind the reception desk earlier.
“Thanks,” Flora says, returning the book to its spot on the shelf. She has seen enough of those photographs.
“Interesting section, isn’t it?” the woman asks. She’s a petite woman with gray hair and rich brown eyes.
“Uh, yeah…” Flora looks around, trying to decipher whether the children’s story hour is over. How long has she been standing here?
“Okay, well, let me know if you need anything,” the woman says and starts to walk away.
“Oh—” Flora stops her with her voice. “I was hoping to find something about birth tusks?” The woman stares at her blankly. “My dad, he got one at an Egyptian museum. It was supposed to ward off evil spirits or something? I mean, a long time ago, obviously.”
The librarian thinks. “Do you know what time period?”
Flora wracks her brain. Her father mentioned that, didn’t he? She chews her lip until she tastes blood. “Oh!” she exclaims. “Middle Kingdom?”
The librarian nods, looking toward the shelves and scanning the spines. She grabs a book about Middle Empire magic. “There might be something in here.”
Flora smiles. “Thanks.”
The woman walks away as Flora adjusts Iris, who has fallen asleep in the carrier with her neck at an awkward angle. Flora turns Iris’s head, exposing her red cheek, warm from body heat, and the action is met with a loud protest. “Shhh,” Flora coos as she rocks back and forth. She must admit that holding her baby feels right. Natural. She has missed this. Even if she has to continuously check that Iris hasn’t suffocated in the folds of Flora’s sweater.
Flora carries the book to a nearby table. She can’t bring it home; Connor would have too many questions. She flips quickly through pages of figurines, bronze statuettes, carved bricks. There are passages on white magic versus black magic, descriptions of deities, photos of protective totems for tombs. Finally, she sees it: the apotropaic wand made from a hippo’s tooth. A picture of a birth tusk, similar to hers but more curved, with a higher arch and sharper end. The caption says these were used to draw a circle around the area where a woman was to give birth or nurse her infant. Inscribed on the wand are nine magical figures, including Taweret, the goddess of childbirth. Her image is striking, even disturbing. She has the body of a woman with the giant head of a hippopotamus.
Flora’s breath catches in her throat as she continues to read.
Taweret didn’t only assist with birth. Apparently, she also helped with rebirth. She cleansed and purified the dead to aid in the process of their resurrection.
Flora pries her eyes from the page. She inspects her hands, the scrubbed fingertips, the dark under her nails. She feels her hair, brittle and stiff in its unbrushed state. She tastes the stale remnants of sickly-sweet coffee on her breath. Her eyelid spasms.
resurrection of the dead
So it’s true: her mother is gaining more and more control of Flora’s body. It’s one thing to be tormented by thoughts and twisted ideas; it’s another thing entirely to act on those thoughts. If Flora doesn’t figure out how to purge herself of her mother, something terrible will happen to Iris.
no I’ll kill myself before I let anything happen to her
And then what? Leave Iris motherless?
She looks again at the photos of the hippo goddess and arched birth tusk.
She has to find it. She has to find that thing and get it out of her house.
Flora is out the automatic sliding door of the library with a singular focus and doesn’t even feel the blast of cold air as she and Iris barrel toward the car.
But then—out of nowhere—a face in her face. Red and raw and peeling, reminiscent of those horrible images in the book, the masks and pointy hats. She can’t help it, she screams right there in the library parking lot.
A voice responds to her outburst. “Oh my God! Are you okay?”
Flora steps back and assesses, the high-pitched voice squealing with familiarity. And then she blinks and the world comes into focus.
Wanda. It’s only Wanda.
“Your face,” Flora says, pointing to Wanda’s skin, horrified.
“Oh, I got a chemical peel! I’m just so tired of the age spots, you know?” When Flora doesn’t respond, Wanda asks, “But, eek, does it really look that bad?” She laughs, likely expecting Flora to respond with some kind of oh no you just startled me is all.
But Flora does not. Instead, she stares and imagines wrapping her fingers around Wanda’s neck, joining them in the back against the top of her spine, pressing until Wanda’s eyes POP out of their sockets like a plushy toy.
Wanda shifts her weight between her feet, uncomfortable with the silence. “Seriously, though, are you okay? You don’t look like yourself.” She doesn’t expand on Flora’s haggard appearance. Her weight shifts again as she tries to fill the awkward silence. “Any bad clogs lately?” she asks in a congenial voice as she points to Flora’s breasts. “Just because, last time, you know—”
oh God she thinks we’re friends
“I stopped breastfeeding,” Flora says. “We’re using formula now.”
Suddenly, Wanda’s shoulders relax. “Ohh,” she says, as if she has finally found the solution to a tough calculus equation. “My sister-in-law went through that. She got super sad when she stopped breastfeeding. Is that what’s going on? Has the transition been rough?”
Flora looks at Wanda blankly. Then, without another word, she heads in the direction of the lot.
where did I park the car
She has to get home.
“Uh, okay?” Wanda says, her voice getting smaller as Flora walks farther away. “Bye, I guess?”
Flora raises her arm in response, something that resembles a wave. But really, she is batting away her nosy neighbor like she would a gnat in her ear. The last thing she needs is another pair of eyes on her.
weaning depression
term
1. depression that can occur after a lactating individual stops producing milk; a result of psychological stress and hormonal fluctuations
2. can we catch a fucking break already?!
41
Flora is losing time. Seconds. Minutes. Gone. She has begun to think of them as Dark Spots.
This morning, as she made her coffee and watched the machine whir and spit, she telepathically urged the brown liquid to taste normal. As if her daily ritual of a hot cup has now become a litmus test for her sanity. And when she did finally lift the mug to her lips, she was relieved to enjoy the taste of her coffee black.
But a bit later, Connor approached with a handful of empty sugar packets. “You put all these in your cup?”
Flora swallowed. She had no memory of that. She looked at her hands and rubbed her palms with her fingertips, as if trying to prove to herself that she had control over her own limbs.
Later, she retrieved Iris from her crib and found a small lovey on the mattress beside her, mere inches from her tiny nose. Flora knew she was the last one to put Iris into bed. She also knew she would never leave that blanket in the crib. How many times had she warned Connor about suffocation hazards?
But then, if she didn’t put it there, who did?
The more time she loses to the Dark Spots, the more she fears what she will do. Or, rather, what her mother will do with Flora’s hands. Flora needs her body back. Her mother is latched to her brain like a leech, slowly sucking the good out of her and replacing it with a swirling, sinister matter.
That’s when Flora realizes: she might not have a friend like Belinda, but maybe she doesn’t need one. Maybe she can have the real deal—Belinda herself. If the lady really goes to psychic fairs like Jodi said, she won’t run from Flora’s wild claims. Right?
It’s at least worth a try. Flora doesn’t have any other ideas.
It is surprisingly easy to find Belinda’s phone number. Flora has a first name, an address (her mother’s same complex), and a rough age. With the combination of these factors, she finds her mother’s friend quickly. The accessibility is both convenient and frightening.
She waits until Connor is on a walk with Iris to enter the number into her phone. With each ring, Flora’s heart rate increases. But when an automated machine picks up, her chest sinks. What if this isn’t the right number, after all? She has no way of knowing. She talks after the beep anyway.
“Belinda? Hi. Uh, I hope this is Belinda… my name is Flora. My mother was Jodi Martin, you guys lived together. Or, not together together but were neighbors? In the Breakwater Beach complex? I was hoping to talk with you about her. My mom. She—well—please. Please call me back. It’s really important.” She pauses, then repeats herself another three times and leaves her number. What a rambling mess. She might have just botched her one chance of getting to the truth.
Angry with herself, she scratches the back of her hand with her nails, which are growing more and more brittle by the day. Is that normal? They were so strong during pregnancy.
Before she knows it, she has drawn blood. She looks more closely and realizes the back of her hand is covered in scaly red patches. Her childhood eczema is returning. She inspects the other usual spots between her fingers, in the crease of her elbow, along the soft skin of her underarm. For now, it appears the rash is only on the back of her left hand.
She scratches it aggressively again, unable to stop herself. The itch goes deep, beneath the inflamed patches, down to her bones. It crawls beneath her skin and tickles her from the inside. She is desperate to dig it out.
The front door slams sometime later. When Connor announces his presence, Flora returns to herself. She stares at the knife in her hand, no recollection of how it got there.
Flora rips open the boxes the moment they arrive. As promised, her father sent Jodi’s things as soon as he returned home. When Connor asks what they are, Flora shrugs.
“Oh, Dad mentioned he had some of Mom’s old stuff, so I offered to look through it before it got thrown away.”
He nods, and Flora hates how easy it is to lie to her husband. This is new territory for her. But the fibs slip out naturally, fluid and slimy like slugs that leave a bad taste in her mouth.
when this is all over I’ll make it all right
This is what she tells herself to get through the days.
The first box is disorganized, like a junk bag at a garage sale. There are pieces of jewelry—necklaces and rings, mostly. There are many packs of developed film from various decades: baby pictures of Flora, photos from her parents’ wedding, snapshots of birthdays and graduations and vacations. There are old cards and letters, as well as a couple of sketchbooks from when Jodi dabbled in art throughout the years.
And then Flora sees something familiar: the worn copy of The Yellow Wallpaper. The same book she saw on the nightstand when her mother was here. And underneath the book is the small baby hat made of soft pink yarn. She has seen these items before, touched them with her own hands in her very own house, but how is that possible if they were in these boxes with her father hundreds of miles away?
Flora knows she is close to something, on the edge of discovery, but not yet seeing the whole picture. It is jumbled within the recesses of her own mind. Like her entire life is a dream that she has just forgotten. It’s right there but slipping away with every deliberate effort to reach it.
She rips into the second box. This one is much lighter, and inside she is surprised to find a stack of beautiful handsewn children’s dresses. The tiniest is floral patterned with a gathered neckline and no sleeves. One shoulder has a large red-ribbon bow. She fingers the delicate fabrics. Each dress is progressively larger, as if there is one for every year of a child’s life. Ten in total. The last one is Flora’s favorite. It’s a lightweight dress with a faux button placket featuring giant baby-blue buttons. The sleeves are short and puffed, and the pattern is a plaid delicately woven of blues, purples, yellows, and reds.
Flora can’t begin to imagine the story behind these dresses. She wonders if her mother made them, but then, she never knew her mom to be a sewer. She never once saw her mend a pair of socks, let alone handcraft an entire dress. Even Flora’s Halloween costumes were sewn by her dad, because her mom always claimed he was “so much better at those things.”
So if her mother didn’t make these, who did?
Flora looks back to the book, the hat, the dresses. Although her hands are full of her mother’s things, she feels more disconnected from her than ever. There is so much Flora doesn’t understand. A chill climbs up her arms and makes the hairs stand on end. She wonders if she ever really knew her mother at all.
Flora’s eyes pop open. That deafening noise again: metal on metal, gears clashing. Like hot tires skidding to a desperate stop on cement.
again it’s happening again
Sleep paralysis.
It starts the same as always. Her arms glued to her sides, her chest taut, like plastic wrap pulled over a container so tight that it’s a fraction of a moment from ripping. Her breathing is shallow; if she tries to inhale deeply, it catches in the muscle under her heart. No part of her body will move, and she realizes that only her left eye is slowly adjusting to the dark. The right eye is blurry.
She braces herself for the heavy weight of the Night Hag, but it doesn’t come.
And then she hears footsteps.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
They are heavy and deliberate. Up the stairs. They get louder as they get closer. The Night Hag is coming. Taking her time.
Beside Flora, Connor sleeps, oblivious.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
Down the hallway now.
The footsteps stop right at the moment they would be in front of the nursery. A pause. Watching Iris sleep.
Flora tries to scream, but her lips are glued to one another. Or maybe she doesn’t have a mouth at all. Just smooth skin from the bottom of her nose to her chin.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
The footsteps start again. The Night Hag is coming for her now. Flora wants to warn Connor, who continues to snore beside her. But, of course, she cannot. She is only a sack of bones and useless muscle, like overworked elastic.
The footsteps get closer. They are in her room. They approach the bed. The Night Hag is only feet away now, though Flora can’t turn her head to look.
THUD. THUD.
The Night Hag stops right beside her. Flora knows she is being watched, can feel the gaze ravaging her body, filling her up with shame and filth.
Flora’s skin sizzles. It starts at the back of her left hand and travels up her arm, first to her elbow, then to her shoulder. A trail of gasoline lit by a match. She cannot react to the pain, but she can feel it. The worst of both worlds.
It’s there again, that deafening gear sound, metal on metal and the echoes of screaming souls.
Just as the familiar heavy weight lands on her body and the sound of rushing water fills her ears, a flicker of movement catches her one good eye. A shadow on the wall. The shadow grows and grows, until it is as tall as the ceiling. Like a shadow puppet made from a child’s hands. The creature has long legs and a ginormous head. It’s not quite human. It has the head of a hippopotamus.
Taweret
The hippo opens its giant mouth and sucks in air. Wind whips Flora’s hair against her cheeks as she lies still, paralyzed. The weight on her chest quickly dissipates, as if the shadow has sucked the Night Hag off Flora. The sucking sound gets louder and louder until WHAP!
The room is back to normal. Flora’s body buzzes with circulating blood. She wiggles her fingers and toes.
On the monitor, Iris sleeps, oblivious.
