Chapter 6
Filius obcisor.
Filia obcisor.
Filius et filia eversor.
“Goddamn it, Arielle! Wake up!”
Arielle’s eyes shot open. Everything was blurry, and at first she thought she was drowning. Her blond hair was plastered to her cheeks, stuck to them as if she were underwater.
“Help!” she croaked, but despite the wetness that engulfed her, the words came out dry and hoarse. She tried to raise her head, but couldn’t.
“Arielle!”
Someone was shaking her, and when she finally managed to blink her eyes clear, she realized that she wasn’t underwater after all.
She was lying in her bed, her hair and face so drenched with sweat that when she moved, it oozed out of her pillow like pus.
The hand eventually stopped shaking her, but Arielle’s body kept on trembling. She felt like sitting up, but her body felt too heavy, too tired to move.
If she had been underwater, she would have been wearing concrete shoes.
“Arielle? What the fuck, Arielle?”
Martin’s handsome face came into view, but this time he wasn’t smiling.
Come to think of it, he had been not smiling nearly as often as he had been smiling over the past few days; an oddity for him.
“You were shouting something, something crazy… you sounded like the psychos in the church.”
Arielle closed her eyes tightly and held them like that for a moment.
Was I dreaming?
If she had been, she couldn’t remember. The only thing she remembered was a turquoise stone, falling and falling and falling…
When she finally opened her eyes again, they immediately fell on the solitary picture frame on her wooden bedside table.
It was the only photograph she had of herself as a child—her only link to her past, before she’d been found and her memories kick-started. She must have been four or five in the photo—it was difficult to tell based on the poor quality image—with a shock of long blond hair that was tied in a braid and lay over her chest. There was a woman standing beside her who she had, over time, convinced herself must have been her mother. The woman was wearing a dark outfit that almost looked almost robe-like in the grainy black-and-white photo. It was strange, wearing what looked like a bathrobe even though they were clearly standing outside. Aside from obviously being outside, there really was nothing descript about the landscape; the picture quality was just too poor to make out any details. Which in itself was also odd, given the fact that if she had been four or five at the time—even if she had been six, which was unlikely—then the photo must have been taken at best in the late seventies. Regardless, there was a man behind both Arielle and her mother; her father, most likely, but he, like the dark shadows that surrounded the subjects, was nearly unrecognizable. It wasn’t a good picture, or even a nice picture, but it was the only evidence of a childhood she didn’t remember.
Arielle blinked hard again and the image of her younger self, complete with a missing front tooth, faded into memories that didn’t exist. She squeezed her eyes tight, forcing tears out of the corners. When she started seeing spots, she eased the pressure and opened them again.
This time, her focus went immediately to an object lying directly in front of her framed picture.
It was small, like a marble, but it wasn’t a perfect sphere. Instead, it was oblong, with one side extending further than the other.
“Martin?” she whispered, slowly raising her head again and beginning to sit up. “What is that, Martin?”
As her vision continued to clear, the object came into more acute focus.
“Martin! What the fuck is that, Martin?”
“What?” Her husband was immediately beside her, helping her up. “What is it?”
Arielle shrugged him off and pointed at her bedside table.
“That! What the fuck, Martin?”
“What, the picture…?”
“Not the fucking picture, Martin! The fucking stone! The goddamn rock! Where did you get it from?”
She didn’t dare take her eyes off the stone, but she knew by the way Martin’s hands reached for her again that he knew exactly what she was referring to.
She said it anyway.
“That stone.”
It wasn’t a question, although it probably should have been. Instead, it was a statement.
“It’s just a stupid rock, Air.”
Arielle scooted backwards, further burying herself in her husband’s arms. It wasn’t that she needed comfort, although this wasn’t an unwelcome side effect, but more because she wanted to get as far away from the turquoise stone as possible.
Filius obcisor.
She shuddered.
“It’s not just a rock, Martin. Where did you get it from?”
Martin gently turned her to face him.
“From the church… I grabbed it as a, ugh, a souvenir.”
Souvenir?
The image of the woman with the dark hair and gaunt features, the one with the trembling hands lighting a candle—a physical representation of someone she had lost. A child, maybe? She had been at the table with the painting of Saint Nonnatus, after all.
Filius et filia eversor.
“Souvenir? Souvenir? Women put those stones in the bowl as a prayer to conceive. What the fuck were you thinking, Martin?”
‘You took one out already.’
If Martin’s hurt expression was any indication, she was being too harsh. But still… a fucking souvenir?
“I thought… I dunno, a good luck charm?”
Arielle remember what else the woman in the church had said and her heart skipped a beat.
Martin had meant well—the man’s upturned eyebrows and boyish expression said as much.
“You shouldn’t have taken that.”
Martin averted his eyes like a child caught stealing the last cookie from the jar.
“I know. I’ll throw it out.”
Arielle shook her head.
“You need to take it back.”
He leaned away from her.
“Take it back? With those psychos? I’ll throw it out, but—”
Arielle turned and stared her husband directly in his hazel eyes.
“You can’t throw it out, Martin. It’s someone’s wish, someone’s hope. You need to take it back.”
Martin rolled his eyes.
“Fuck, alright, I’ll take it back, then.”
Arielle nodded and then threw her head back onto the pillow. It landed with a wet plunk.
“What time is it?” she asked, staring at the ceiling.
There was a pause as Martin scrambled for his watch on the bedside table.
“Almost six.”
Arielle closed her eyes again and lay in darkness for almost a minute.
It was Martin who broke the silence.
“Air?”
“Yeah?”
“What were you saying in your sleep?”
Arielle’s breath caught in her throat.
“Nothing—gibberish. I was asleep.”
Another pause, but this one was different. It was almost as if she could hear Martin’s brain working, trying to figure out if she was telling the truth.
“And those women in the church? What were they saying?”
Filius obcisor.
“I have no idea,” she lied.
She knew, because she had looked it up on the Internet the second they had gotten home.
Filia obcisor.
“I don’t know,” she repeated.
“Okay.”
All of a sudden, Arielle felt her stomach flip.
Oh God.
It felt as if she had a whole nest of worms writhing through her intestines.
Her cheeks puffed with gas and she belched.
“You sure?”
Arielle couldn’t answer; her mouth suddenly filled with vomit, and she threw the duvet back and hopped to her feet. She bolted to the en suite bathroom, tast
ing the worst combination of bile and last night’s dinner.
As sick as she was, she wasn’t ill enough not to answer Martin’s query in her mind.
Filius obcisor.
Son killer.
Filia obcisor.
Daughter killer.
Chapter 7
The best thing about running is the shoes.
Arielle stared at the words on her computer screen, hoping that they magically improve on their own.
They didn’t.
That’s stupid.
She erased the line, and rewrote it.
The best thing about shoes is feeling the run.
Her head slumped in her hand.
Also stupid. This is all bullshit. The best thing about running is the Big Mac you can enjoy guiltlessly afterward.
One of her largest clients had commissioned her to write the copy for their new shoe launch. An impossibly lightweight running shoe with essentially zero sole. Normally this job would be a breeze for her, a simple task of putting together a few catchy lines that her client would be happy with.
But today was different. Today, she was distracted.
Arielle stretched her arms high over her head, groaning as she did. Then she took a sip of coffee—it had gone cold—but as gross as it was, it served to momentarily relieve her dry mouth, which was enough.
“What about… you have enough soul to run,” she said out loud.
Soul/sole. That was good, that was nice. A play on words—everyone always likes those.
“You have enough soul in you to run, you don’t need any more on your shoe.”
Not great, but good. Something to work with.
Arielle heard the door open, and she immediately cracked a smile.
A few moments of jingle-jangling keys later, Martin hollered at her.
“Honey, I’m home!”
Arielle smiled so hard that her cheeks started to hurt.
“In here,” she replied, turning back to her computer and resuming typing.
Soul/sole. I can work with that.
A few seconds later, Martin came into her “office,” which was just a simple a desk pressed up against the wall adjacent the kitchen. Their house had an actual office—two, if you counted the room that had officially become Martin’s dirty laundry haven—but she liked this spot better. She liked it because it was right beneath a large window that overlooked the backyard. On sunny days like today, she could bask in the warm glow without having to worry about mosquitoes or melanoma.
Martin crept up behind her and wrapped his arms around her neck. She turned into him and kissed his forearm.
“What you working on, Air?”
Arielle stared at the words on the screen.
“Copy for a new running shoe ad.”
“Sole-less, not soulless. Just run.” He read from her screen. “Not bad, not bad at all. Let’s just hope no redheads buy the shoe. Could be sued for false advertising.”
Arielle laughed.
“Fine,” she said, and erased the sentence.
Martin pulled back from her.
“Just kidding, babe. It sounded good.”
Arielle shook her head.
“Naw, just wasn’t right… wasn’t perfect.”
Martin let go of her neck and retreated to the kitchen.
“Keep at it, then.”
Arielle followed her husband’s reflection in the computer screen as he made his way to a cabinet above the stove and pulled out a rock glass.
She loved looking at Martin when he wasn’t paying attention. There was something about the way that he always seemed to be smiling even when no one was around that was just so him. It was as if he were always remembering the punchline to a joke that was running on loop in his brain.
It was one of the reasons why she had fallen in love with him.
It was Friday, and there was no rush to Martin’s movements. He first cleaned the glass with a paper towel, then made his way over to the liquor cabinet. After a fleeting inventory of his scotch collection, he pulled out his favorite: Talisker 18 year.
This, unlike his perpetual boyish grin, was not something that Arielle loved about Martin: his penchant for scotch. And Talisker in particular, or any of the other peaty scotches, was one of her least favorite. It smelled of acrid barbecue, and it made him smell like an old man.
And he wasn’t old.
Neither was she.
They were young and in love and…
The wooden cork made a small popping sound when Martin removed it from the bottle, distracting Arielle from her thoughts.
He still didn’t know that she was watching him, and for some reason this excited her.
Martin brought the bottle to his nose and inhaled deeply. He pulled back a bit when the full brunt of the smell hit him, and Arielle chuckled.
Apparently, even he wasn’t immune to the smell of the stuff.
“What?” he asked, turning to face her for the first time since she had started observing him. “You watching me again, perv?”
Arielle didn’t bother turning. Instead, she met his eyes in the computer screen reflection.
“Get over here,” she ordered.
Martin took a sip.
“Yes, ma’am.”
As he sauntered over to him, still in no hurry, she typed a few more words on the screen.
“I want your opinion on this… need your expertise,” she whispered.
“It better be good,” he said with a smile. “It’s blasphemy to interrupt a man before his first sip of scotch.”
Arielle said nothing as Martin leaned over her to get a better view of the screen.
A second later, his revered glass of scotch fell to the floor.
* * *
“I could stay here all night and all of tomorrow,” Arielle whispered, running her fingers through Martin’s short brown hair. She leaned in and kissed him on the lips. “All night, all day.”
They had made love again, only this time it had been different. This time it had been slow and sensual and her climax had been near earth-shattering.
“Wow,” Martin said.
Evidently, the experience had been the same for him.
She smiled, enjoying this thought. For so long, their lovemaking had become, as he appropriately referred to it, a unionized event; a ritual, a work-like process with an ultimate goal.
This time, however, there had been no clear objective… aside from pleasure, of course.
And that objective had been met in spades.
“Wow,” Martin said again.
Even during the entire forty minutes that their bodies writhed together in sweaty bliss, his face had been the same: incredulous.
And it had been that way ever since he had read the words that she had typed on the screen: I’m pregnant.
Just the thought made her heart skip a beat.
I’m pregnant.
She took a deep breath.
Finally.
“Wow,” Martin said again.
Arielle giggled.
“Is that all you can say? ‘Wow’?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
She stopped fussing with his hair.
For seven years they had tried, and for seven years they had failed.
But all that had changed.
“Hey, don’t stop playing with my hair,” Martin said, turning to face her. “That felt good.”
“Nope, not until you say something other than ‘wow’.”
Now it was Martin’s turn to laugh.
“Wow is a good word.” He made a dramatic wow gesture with his lips. “Wow, wow, wow.”
Arielle slipped the pillow out from under her elbow and smacked him with it.
Martin instantly flipped her over and proceeded to pin her arms above her head. She threw her head back and laughed.
“I—”
He kissed her neck lightly.
“—can—”
He kissed her collarbone.
“—say—”
&nb
sp; He kissed her bare breast, just beside her nipple.
“—wow—”
He kissed her ribcage.
“—as many times as I want!”
With each of the final six words he kissed her belly, his mouth making a puckering sound on the extra skin that seemed to have appeared overnight.
“Isn’t that right, my boy?”
Arielle stopped laughing.
Filius.
She reached down and grabbed his head and eased him back up to eye level.
“How do you know it’s a boy?”
Martin’s eyes were twinkling and he was grinning.
“Oh, it’s a boy, I can tell.”
Arielle frowned.
“You can’t know that.”
Martin flipped onto his back and lay beside her. With both of them staring at the ceiling, his right hand slowly snaked out from his side and gently brushed the hollow of her throat.
His touch was gentle, tickling. Just the way she liked it.
“I know everything,” he whispered, his hand creeping lower.
Martin’s touch didn’t linger when his finger brushed against her hardened nipple, but Arielle gasped nonetheless. And when his hand slid beneath the sheet and made it to the inside of her thigh, she moaned.
Any thoughts of the strange women in the church shouting at her were quickly vanquished by her building orgasm.
Chapter 8
“Right, left, right,” a muffled voice instructed.
Arielle followed the orders, driving her taped knuckles into the worn punching bag in rapid succession.
Perspiration dripped from her forehead, turning the few tendrils of hair that had fallen from her ponytail into dark, wet strips that clung to her red cheeks.
“Good,” the voice said. “Now finish with a hard left hook.”
Arielle lowered her hands to her sides and shook her arms out to loosen them as she jogged on the spot.
“You ready?”
The man’s voice was clearer now as he leaned around the side of the punching bag to stare at her.
He has just as handsome as ever, in a completely different way than her husband… which was probably the reason why she had fallen for him.
Fallen for him? Fallen?
Arielle balled her fists.
One time. A mistake, a stupid fucking mistake. I didn’t fall for him. I love my husband.
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