A Whisper of Blood

by Ellen Datlow

  Mary shook her head. “Nobody worked in the infirmary, and you don’t wish you had. It was bad in there, a lot of sickness we could have caught. Don’t you remember Celia Duncan? She died in the infirmary, Grace. Some awful disease. They were right not to let us in there unless we were sick ourselves.”

  Grace nodded and chewed a bit of cubed beef. Mary cooked just as good as Mrs. Griffith used to. But tonight the food seemed to have no taste.

  “You’ve only been with us a year,” said Mary. She paused, then scratched her graying hair. The sound of the buffer stopped, and there was the bumping and scraping as Eldon put the machine back into the front hall closet. “You’ll be all right.”

  Grace wiped her mouth on the cloth napkin and put it back into her lap. “You don’t have to help me with dishes.” “Suit yourself.”

  “Who has devotions tonight?” “Paul.”

  “I don’t think I can eat all this.” “You don’t eat it you get no snack.”

  Grace sighed and brought another spoonful of stew to her lips. Eldon came into the dining hall. He was just three years Mary’s junior, but appeared much older. He was skinny and ugly, with ears that pointed forward like fleshy megaphones and white hair shaved close to his bony head.

  “Whole downstairs is done,” he announced. There was a pride in his voice. “Could skate on it. Could see your own face if you looked close enough. But I won’t be doing upstairs. …” He trailed off, then blinked and looked away from Mary and Grace. “Could I at least buff the nursery?” he asked softly.

  “No,” said Mary.

  Eldon’s shoulders went up, then down. Mary said, “Shake the rugs?” Eldon said, “Yes. All done.”

  “Barbara and Al and Paul will be in soon from their after-dinner chores. We’ll have devotions. A special one for Mother. Why don’t you wait in the living room for us, and find a nice verse for Mother in the Bible?”

  “But Paul has devotions tonight, don’t he?”

  Mary frowned, and Eldon became immediately submissive. “Okay,” he said. He pulled at one huge ear. “A long verse or a short one?”

  “Long,” said Grace. Her stew bowl was empty. She held it up and Mary said, “Better.”

  Grace took her dishes into the small kitchen at the back of the house, and washed the pile that waited there for her. They were nearly all dried and put away when Paul and Al came in the front door. Grace carried the bowl she was drying to the kitchen door and leaned against the frame.

  Paul shed his Windbreaker and hung it in the closet between the dining hall and living room. He was thirty-three, with short black hair and brown skin hardened to parchment by the outdoor work he and Al did to earn money for the others. Al stood beside Paul with his hands in his jeans pockets. Al never wore a coat, even in the coldest weather. He kept the sleeves of his T-shirts cut off, and he sported a constant sunburn.

  “Mother?” asked Al.

  “The same, I think,” said Mary. “Greg is with her.” Grace ran the dry rag around and around in the bowl. Paul set his jaw and his eyes hitched. “Devotions in a few minutes,” he said. He turned and went into the living room. “Barbara out back?” asked Al.

  Mary nodded. “Hanging out sheets,” she said. “Lots of sheets this past week.”

  “Want me to get her?”

  “That’s fine, Al. Tell her it’s devotion time, the sheets’ll wait.”

  Al walked past Grace into the kitchen. Grace took the bowl to the cabinet and put it in with the others. Al opened the door leading to the backyard, causing the blinds on the door’s window to clap noisily against the glass. He stepped out to the stoop and called for Barbara to come inside.

  Grace hurried upstairs for a quick seven o’clock feeding, then came back down to the living room. It was a long, narrow room with a single window facing the street. There were pots of plants that Barbara tried to keep, but most of them were dead or nearly so. The room was kept shaded, because Mary did not like the view of the street. She did not like seeing all the people going about their busy business in their frantic ways; she did not like the bustle of the independents, nor the stiflingly close vicinity of the neighbors. Grace knew Mary kept the shade down so she could imagine she was still at the Home. Mary liked to dust the empty bookshelves and sew up sock holes and think about the Home she had been forced to leave when she was eighteen, twenty years ago.

  “Greg going to come down?” asked Paul. He was seated on the flowered sofa beneath the mantel. The Bible was in his lap. Beside him, Eldon pulled at his ear.

  “Greg!” called Mary from the base of the steps. “Devotions. Come on, now.”

  Al sat down beside Eldon. Grace took the floor beside the broken recliner. Barbara, her thin brown ponytail blown askew by the backyard wind, sat on the straight-backed wooden chair by the door, across from the sofa. Mary sat on the recliner.

  They all waited in silence, Eldon holding on to his ear, Barbara twisting the end of her ponytail, Paul strumming the pages of the Bible, Grace picking lint from the rug. They did not look at each other.

  Greg came downstairs, buttoning his shirt. He entered the living room. “Mother moved a little,” he offered, but said no more. He sat on the floor beneath the window.

  Paul cleared his voice. “Verses first,” he said, and he began. “‘Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.’”

  Eldon said, “‘Jesus wept.’”

  Al said, “‘A bone of his shall not be broken.’”

  “‘They came round about me daily like water,’” said Greg.

  “‘Jesus wept,’” said Grace.

  Paul said, “Nope, already used.”

  Grace crossed her arms, frustrated. She could barely think. Then she said, “‘I will open my mouth in a parable.’”

  “‘And he was with them coming in and going out at Jerusalem,’” said Mary from her chair.

  “‘How much then is a man better than a sheep,’” said Barbara. This was one of the few verses that Grace liked, and that she understood. When she heard it she thought of pictures in her Sunday school class long ago, little baby sheep suckling Mother sheep, with Jesus standing by.

  Verses done, they all looked at Paul. He opened the Bible to a little torn scrap of paper marking a place. “I found something to read in honor of Mother,” he said. He sighed heavily. Nobody liked to be in charge of devotions. But Mary was stern; each took his or her turn. Paul’s voice was awkward with the words, and embarrassed. “‘Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.’”

  Grace listened as intently as she could, hoping this time she might find something that would make sense.

  “‘For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.’”

  Paul read on another five minutes. Grace sat and heard the Scriptures, and it was as it had always been, a jumble of old words, a ritual of ancient babble. She did not need to ask the others to know it was the same for them as well. But they were trained to sit and read and quote and listen. In that repetition was the only small sense of calm.

  Grace let her gaze wander to the photos and certificates on the mantel over the sofa. There was a picture of Mary back at the Baptist Home, no more than fifteen, wearing an apron and a wan smile, in the huge, smoky kitchen with Mrs. Griffith standing behind her. There was another picture of Al and Paul, twelve and thirteen, just old enough to be allowed to do grounds work, Al sitting on the seat of the Home’s tractor, Paul standing on the grass. Behind Paul and Al were George Brennen and Ricky Altis, both fourteen at the time. Both George and Ricky had gone on from the Home, gotten jobs, and had married. They had become independents. They had been able to. Most of the children who had grown up in the Home had been able to. To the right of Al and Paul’s snapshot was a photo that had been posed for inclusion in the Home’s annual fund drive brochu
re. In it, a ten-year-old Barbara and an eight-year-old Grace were holding hands and running across the lawn in front of the Administration Building. There were no photos of Eldon. He hated to have his picture taken, and always hid when the Baptist Home board of trustees came out on excursions with their cameras.

  “Amen,” said Paul. “Amen,” repeated the others.

  “Tonight, we’ll each have a shorter time with Mother,” said Mary. “No more than three minutes each, you hear me? Now, who was first last night?”

  Eldon wiggled his hand.

  “Then it’s you, Barbara,” said Mary. “Let’s go upstairs.” The seven filed up the steps.

  Barbara took off her clothes and went into Mother’s room, closing the door behind her. Time with Mother was private, and respected. The others sat on the floor in the hallway. This was the most favored time of the day, yet Mother’s illness had given it an urgent touch, and Grace sat quietly, trying to prepare herself. Usually Grace told Mother about her day as she snuggled and sucked on the great white breasts. Tonight, however, Grace thought that she, like Mother, would be without a voice.

  They sat and waited. Mary went into the nursery for a minute, then came out and sat down again. The kitten rose from its spot at the top of the stairs and stumbled toward the gathering, then fell several feet short, panting and mewling. Grace didn’t want the cat now, she wanted Mother, and so she let the cat lie.

  Paul went in after Barbara. Grace had wondered what the boys did in the room alone with Mother, but would never ask. Before Grace had come to live with her brothers and sisters, she had tried to be an independent. She had lived with a man, and he had made her do awful things, like suckle him. She had tried to please him but could not do it, and he beat her. When she tried to kill him, the state put her into a home. Not a good place like the Home, but an ugly place where she had no chores and no devotions and they wanted to talk about her feelings. Grace wondered if Paul and Al and Eldon wanted Mother to suckle them as Grace’s man had wanted.

  Mary took her turn, and when she came out, her face was ashen. “Not long,” she whispered as she zippered her skirt and sat beside Barbara. “She won’t eat.” Barbara put her head down on her arms. Mary stared at her fingers.

  Grace went into Mother’s room. As required, she went to the night-stand and chose a nice piece of candy for Mother. She mashed it in her fingers to make it easy for Mother to take, then leaned over the huge, naked body and pressed the candy to the sick lips. Mother did not take the candy, nor acknowledge that it was there. Her eyes did not open. Grace blinked and waited, hoping Mother would awaken and take the offering. But she did not.

  Grace dropped the candy to the floor, and crawled onto the mattress with Mother. The cold dampness of Mother’s sweat on the sheet made Grace’s skin tighten and crawl.

  “Today I began a picture of a cat,” Grace said, pulling herself more tightly into the body. “It will be a nice one, a picture for you, and you can hang it up in your room.” Grace looked up at the wall above Mother’s head. On it were sketches that she had done with pencils and crayon crumbs. Pictures of sheep and their babies and Jesus and children doing chores and reading Bible verses and mowing lawns and saying prayers at cot-side and eating meals in the dining hall.

  “It is a picture of the kitty I have now. She was a nice kitty, but not so nice anymore. But the picture is what she looked like when I first got her. Gray and white. You’ll like it, I think.”

  Mother said nothing.

  Grace closed her eyes and continued with her tale of the day. “Mary made stew, and it was good. Sometimes I wish we could have candy, but candy is sweet for sweet Mothers.”

  Mother did not move, but Grace could feel a pulse in her huge arm. Grace straddled Mother, and took a breast into her mouth. For a few minutes she suckled in silence. Peace settled on her and she lost awareness of the smell and the sweat and the fact that Mother was dying. Grace’s body calmed. This was Mother. This was what they all had wanted. The others had banded together after they left the Home, forming a Home again in this house. They lived as they had learned, doing as they had been taught. But Greg had decided a Mother was the missing element. They had all needed a Mother for so long. After Grace’s release from the hospital, she had called the Home and got Mary’s new address. She was accepted into the Home of her long-ago brothers and sisters, and into a family that had at last, thanks be to Greg, a Mother.

  Grace let go of the nipple, then rolled off the bed. As a parting gesture, she offered another piece of candy, and again, Mother did not take it. Grace stroked Mother’s arm and thigh.

  Suddenly Mother arched her back and her eyes flew open.

  “Mother?”

  Mother did not seem to recognize Grace, nor focus on anything. She trembled violently and her throat rumbled. The soft but strong terry towel restraints that were tied about her ankles and neck and shoulders drew taut and caused the bedposts to groan. Mother’s mouth dropped open, and she grunted. The massive woman fought the cords. Her eyes spasmed.

  She is dying certainly, Grace thought.

  Then Mother slumped down again to the bed, and her eyes closed. She was silent, and the shuddering breathing resumed.

  Grace went out into the hall. She put on her clothes. Al took his turn with Mother, closing the door behind him.

  When the turns were done, Mary directed Eldon to take first watch with Mother during the night while the others slept. She did not believe Mother would last until morning, and it would be wrong for her to be alone when she died.

  Mary told the others to brush their teeth and say their prayers and be off to bed. Grace washed her hands for the eight o’clock feeding.

  Mary joined Grace at the nursery door. She said, “Why don’t I help you this time?”

  Grace shrugged. “You don’t have to.”

  “I know I don’t. But we’ll do it together tonight.”

  Grace said, “All right.”

  Grace opened the door and the two went quietly inside.

  There was a bed in the center of the nursery, a bedside table, and the rest of the room was bare. No one stayed in this room long enough to need a chair. This room was strictly business. It was a room for tending and cleaning and monitoring. It was dark and quiet and busy, like a little chamber in a honeybee comb.

  Mary and Grace moved to the bed. Grace opened the box of candy on the bedside table. She smashed the chocolate between her fingers and held it out.

  The figure on the bed strained and caught the candy. Then the mouth opened for more. Grace smiled slightly, then looked at Mary for approval.

  “This is good,” said Mary. “She’s healthy and she eats.”

  Grace held out more mashed candy, and it was gobbled up. Even Grace’s fingers were mouthed clean when she held them close enough.

  Grace wiped her hand on her hip, then looked down at the woman on the bed. The woman was filling out nicely. With hourly feedings of good, sweet candy and soft drinks, she was beginning to look like a Mother, with soft, fleshy side rolls and arms like foam pillows. Soon she would be big enough to cuddle, large enough to hide in, soft enough to suckle. This woman, like Mother, was secured to her bed. This woman, also like Mother, had no voice. This was Greg’s idea. He was the one to find the women and bring them home; and he was the one who said it was best to remove the tongues. This way, each in turn would be a good Mother. A good Mother who would listen and not scold.

  Grace touched the woman’s arm. The woman looked at Grace. Her eyes were alive and sparkling, as if mad tears swirled in them. She grunted and pulled at her restraints. Mary smacked her soundly.

  “She’ll learn,” said Mary.

  Grace picked another piece of candy from the box and looked at it. Candy tasted good, but Mother’s breasts were sweeter. Mother’s love was peace.

  Grace crushed the candy. She offered it to the woman on the bed, who took it even as her eyes spilled and then brimmed over again.

  At two the next morning, Mother died.
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  My husband, Roger, grew up in a children’s home. He and three of his four brothers were put there when their mother died. Roger was six. His brothers were all younger. Roger lived there until he went to college at age eighteen.

  Although the children’s home was not a nightmare orphanage, the grounds were well maintained, the cottages clean, and counselors were on the payroll, there lacked the warmth and affection and support one would hope to have in a family. The house parents maintained strict discipline and inflexible rules. They never hugged the kids. They never told the kids that they loved them, or even liked them. The children grew up without adult affection, leaving them to either gain it from each other or not at all.

  So I imagined that there would certainly be a number of people who, having grown up in this type of institution, would never be able to get beyond the routines and the security of the control the place had over them. And yet, out in the world, trying to re-create what they had known as children, they would also seek the adult tenderness they had never known.

  Hey, the search for love is universal, right?

  Too bad that search is sometimes deadly.

  Elizabeth Massie

  FOLLY FOR THREE

  Barry N. Malzberg

  Malzberg’s science fiction has often been tinged with horror, so this story, with its minimalist style, should come as no surprise to those who have been reading him regularly over his career. It effectively conveys the fear of losing control—of a situation, and of one’s life.

  Good, he said again, this is very good. Just turn a little, let the light catch you. I want to see you in profile, against the light. There, he said, that’s good. That’s what I want. His voice had thickened, whether with passion or contempt she had no idea. They were still at that tentative state of connection where all moves were suspect, all signals indeterminate. Ah, he said, you’re a piece all right. That’s what you are. I’ve never done this before, she said. I’ve never done anything like this before. I want you to know that. She looked out the window, the grey clouds on the high floor hammering at the panes. Way, way up now. For everything there’s a first time, she said.