Cauchemar

by Alexandra Grigorescu

  Ignoring the protests of her body, she stood and walked to the window. They were still there. Swollen, slick specks bobbing above the shallow water that had crept toward the back door. “How did they drown?”

  Callum shrugged and left the room. “I’m running you a bath, okay? What do you want, lavender or citrus?”

  She parted her robe and looked down at the hard bulge of her belly, her skin irritated from the terrycloth. “I shouldn’t have baths,” she called back. “It can harm the baby.”

  The water turned off, the sound replaced by the bathtub draining. “How can I relax you? Anything you want.”

  She felt restless. With sunlight warming her skin, she found it hard to remember why she’d placed so much stock in her mother’s warning that she couldn’t leave the swamp. A test was in order, and even though the thought of boarding a boat and running the motor straight into the Atchafalaya and beyond drove a spearing ache into her gut, she ignored it. “I want to get out of here for a bit.”

  His face brightened, the corners of his mouth fluttering toward a smile. “Sure. I can make reservations for dinner in town. Any preference?”

  She shook her head. “No. Let’s go for a walk or something.”

  “The ground’s too soggy right now. I don’t want you to slip.”

  “I’ll hold on to you.” The need to flee was almost physical, a slingshot trembling for release. “Look, you asked. This will relax me.” He came to stand beside her, his eyes sunken and dark. Each time she’d roused from her fever he’d been there, watching her. “You look tired. More tired than I’ve ever seen you,” she said, running her hand through his beard. The white speckles had turned to full strands.

  “I’ve been worried.” He nuzzled his chin against her palm, then looked past her. “Scratch worried. Angry, maybe. Terrified, definitely. I’ve been having nightmares to set your hair on end. But Hannah, if there’s something wrong, you have to tell me. You have to promise me.”

  How could she bring him into her world? He’d grown up in the light of the easily explainable, a place where the laws and medicine of men could tend to most harms. She thought of Mae, her poor neck strained, her face contorted by fear. Mae had died afraid, Hannah suddenly realized.

  She couldn’t help but feel that there would be more loss to come, but she knew that the ultimate loss, the one she wouldn’t be able to bear, was him. Her selfishness dripped bitter down her throat even as she said the words, “I promise,” her eyes unflinching.

  She used the clause from childhood, the chant of cross my heart and crossed her fingers behind her back like a baseball sign. It was an old trick, done by looking at the valley between the eyes. “A walk will do us both good.”

  “I’ll get your shoes,” he said.

  Hannah watched him go, then turned back to the window. The frogs lay on the ground below like an offering. From this high, Hannah could see what Callum had not. They were lined up in a watchful perimeter around the house.

  Hannah struggled with her swollen, water-logged ankles, and it was an effort to keep up with Callum.

  “It’s true,” he was saying, “everything’s stranger on this little patch of swamp.”

  Hannah hooked her hand around Callum’s arm. “It’s hard for me to imagine how it looks from the outside. People can get used to anything, if it’s all they know. I think I’d find it stranger in a city, around all that concrete with greenery struggling to break through. I’d find the noise distracting.”

  “You should’ve heard the racket that damn storm made, breaking into our septic system. I used to think I was enough of a man’s man, enough that my father didn’t worry too much when I turned to music,” Callum said, plucking at his light sweater. “But it hurts my pride to say I’m not sure I know how to fix it. There’s sludge coming through by the fistful. A roughed-up carp bubbled up when I flushed the toilet the other day and Graydon lost his damn mind. He’s still got some kitten in him.”

  “I would’ve liked to see that. Well, as appealing as a swamp sludge bath sounds, you should just hire someone to fix it up,” Hannah said, focusing all her attention on stepping between the puddles. The land sagged with rain.

  “I liked fixing up the windows, though, and I was thinking we could put in some stained glass to fix the one that broke. Add some character to the place.”

  Hannah snorted. “It doesn’t have enough character for you?”

  “It’s a great old house. But we could really make something of it, once we’re done getting the baby’s room ready. What do you think of the room with the bay windows, the one that used to be yours? It’d need a few quick coats of paint and maybe some new netting on the windows.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “It would add to its resale value.”

  Hannah stopped and stretched, both hands digging into her lower back. The symmetry was fitting: her room, where she’d wept and laughed and even tentatively masturbated for the first time, passed over to the baby. His last comment she doggedly ignored, even though she’d been expecting it. Callum knew normalcy. Of course he would want to return to it someday.

  “Isn’t it kind of big for a baby’s room? I’ve been led to believe they come out small.”

  Callum retraced his steps, and pecked her ear with dry kisses. “The whole house is kind of big. We have more space than we know what to do with, and with the money we’d make from the sale—”

  “You know it was Christobelle’s house originally?” Hannah said, moving her head away.

  “No shit?”

  “She settled here when the movement was in its infancy. I guess the congregation was more manageable then.”

  “You mean to tell me there were services in that house? Real-life ghost conjurings?”

  Hannah cringed into the sun and thought of the living room’s tall windows pouring light into the slack mouths of men. “I don’t know how real-life any of it is.”

  Callum stopped mid-stride. “I know it’s not my place, but I have half a mind to go on up to that church of hers and ask her why she didn’t lift a finger to help her own daughter. You collapse in front of her, and she stands there all-powerful like you’re some stray. I can’t believe those idiots she keeps around her don’t see her for the charlatan she is.”

  Hannah thought of the men and their blank eyes. “You have more sense than that,” she said. “Just leave it alone. For all we know, it was a stomach bug.”

  Callum’s jaw tightened. “Sure. Must’ve been that arsenic stew we had last week. Hannah, she’s not on our side.” Callum pressed his hands on either side of her stomach as if packing a sand castle. “I used to trust that the rumors about her were just that, but now I think she’s actually dangerous. And for the life of me, I can’t understand the instinct that would turn someone against their own blood.”

  “Now who sounds crazy?” Hannah scowled. “Look, I’ll admit that it was a mistake to go there. We were already so tightly wound. Maybe if we leave her alone, she’ll return the favor.” In saying the words, she wished them, wondering if they could be true. Under a cloudless sky and scorching sun, hope came easier.

  Callum shivered suddenly.

  “What’s wrong, Cal?” she whispered, touching his skin. It felt like a skillet, searing.

  “Ignore me,” he muttered. “It’s just lack of sleep. I’ve been dreaming about—well, never mind.”

  “No, what?”

  Callum’s shoulders heaved as if he might sob, but he only stared out at the trees with his increasingly troubled eyes. “My mother, collapsed in a chair, trying to pull herself up by tugging on the tablecloth. Over and over again. I thought I saw her this morning at the dining table. I thought I felt her.” He wiped his mouth. “It’s all just stress.”

  She burrowed her body against his, a small creature nuzzling for a moment of safety. “The mind plays tricks when you’re so isolated.”

  “Th
en let’s leave it behind, the isolation,” Callum said in a rush. “Maybe it is just fear, and that’s another thing my father would frown to hear me say, but it’s poison all the same. Not just for us, but for the baby.” He shook out his head. “Tell me you haven’t thought about it. And what that woman said? About you not being able to leave? She’s just messing with us. It’s all about control with people like her.”

  Something buzzed in Hannah’s head, more physical sensation than sound. “Of course I’ve thought about it,” she trailed off.

  Callum fingered his ear. “What’s that sound?”

  Hannah took a step back. “You hear it, too?” Something was coming over the hill in a pale and distant wave.

  He swatted at his ears. “It feels like it’s inside my head.” Then he saw them, spreading like a dome over the field, their sonorous bodies blotting out the sun. “Are they locusts?” Panic was seeping into his voice. “Jesus,” he let out a laugh that verged on hysteria, “is it a plague?”

  “This isn’t the Bible.” Hannah unwound the cotton scarf from around her neck and tugged down the sleeves of her sweater. “We need to move quickly,” she said. “They’re usually harmless, but sometimes they’ll try to feed.”

  “Feed?”

  “They’re cicadas,” Hannah said calmly and tied her scarf around her waist. She took Callum’s shaking hand and started to trot toward the trees. The sound was swelling, thousands of bodies clicking and strumming in concert. A kicking, of protest or celebration, started in her belly.

  “There’s so many,” he said, craning his head as they ran.

  “They live underground for a decade or so, then come in swarms to overwhelm their predators.” Two women in jeans and white sneakers stood at the edge of the trees, pointing and shrieking. Hannah didn’t recognize them. “Go back,” Hannah called.

  “Cicadas?” the older of the two called back.

  Hannah nodded, out of breath. She grasped a tree trunk and rested her forehead against it. “I haven’t seen it this bad since I was a kid. It’s far too late in the year for them to come out like this.”

  The sound rounded over them and was muffled by the canopy. Behind them, the clearing was dim, a stream of cicadas settled like crusted caramel.

  Callum stretched his arms out on either side. A few strays hovered above his trembling hands, darting down then retreating. “This is so fucked up,” he cried, and seized as a cicada burrowed under his shirt collar.

  “Nature’s been strange,” the older woman said, then pointed to the other woman. “Wasn’t I just saying that the other day, Dina?”

  Dina nodded eagerly. “We’ve been finding bloated bullfrogs in our gardens. Lined up in rows and most of them dead. The ones still alive so sluggish it took a dozen firm shakes of my broom to move them.”

  “I found a mound of grasshoppers, biggest I’ve ever seen, just climbing atop each other like they were pretending to be ants. They made such an awful racket that they woke up my husband, and that man will snore through anything.”

  “It’s a strange time,” Hannah muttered, rubbing her belly. The rhythmic beating continued unabated, like war drums.

  “Oh, sweetie,” the old woman exclaimed. “When are you due?”

  “Around two months,” Hannah said.

  “May I?” The older woman stepped forward when Hannah nodded. It was a strange feeling, all these hands drawn magnetically to her stomach, settling there with a rapturous look as if she were miracle made flesh.

  The woman whistled. “He’s really going at it, isn’t he?”

  She laughed. “We don’t know the gender yet.”

  “When will they clear?” Callum asked, peering out past the trees. He’d moved in front of her, acting as a buffer.

  Hannah stepped into his shadow, grateful for the protection. “It’s hard to say. They’ll migrate eventually, but until they do, we can move through them as long as we’re quick and cover up.”

  Callum gave her a sideways glance. “You’ve seen this before?”

  “Oh, sure,” the older woman interjected. She massaged her bare arms. “There was another bad swarm fifteen years back. Farmers were locked up in their houses for days, with these darn insects covering up their windows. This looks to be much smaller than that.”

  “My father said we were being punished,” Dina said quietly. She had a full, freckled face and plush red lips. The corners of her eyes looked like crinoline.

  The other woman scoffed. “Your father was more superstitious than most old women I know.”

  “Well, we should be getting back,” Callum said, offering them his hand. The older woman clasped it between both of hers.

  Dina hunched her shoulders as they passed. “Whereabouts do you live? Have you had much flooding?”

  “A bit. We’re right down in the swamp,” Hannah said quickly. “The house that slopes down to the water.”

  Dina’s eyes narrowed. “The one that used to belong to the conjurer? That’s a bad house. They call it a crossroads, where all the doors are open. Where all things are possible.”

  “Shush, girl,” the older woman hissed and slipped an arm around her shoulders. “There’s no such thing.”

  “That woman, the tall one that claims to speak to the dead,” Dina insisted, her voice growing louder. Her eyes were muddled, terror and anger swimming together in her whites.

  Hannah stood stiffly, taking in the woman’s fear.

  Dina’s body went loose as a dropped doll. Her face blanched as she began to speak, low and quick as an incantation. “My father said it was her fault our crops died. My mother got sick in May, and by June they cut a tumor out of her that had teeth and a tail.”

  “Goodbye now,” Callum said, then he was propelling Hannah into the clearing. Hannah began to walk, holding her belly like a bowl. The tension of so many wings held aloft faded to either side of her as she passed.

  “See how she parts the veil,” Dina said from behind her. “They’re afraid.”

  Hannah quickened her pace and passed through the edge of the trees. There was a deafening clutter of wings, like a thousand tambourines circling the clearing.

  “Hannah,” Callum said in a low voice.

  Hannah looked up. The cicadas hovered a few inches above her head, so close she could see their corded legs and the blue of their bodies. They were her escort back to the house. She knew suddenly that if she deviated from the path, their mouths, tubed like a butterfly’s, would sink into her belly.

  “Hannah,” Callum urged.

  It was true that cicadas swarmed from hibernation to overtake their predators, sometimes in numbers that could be called plague. It was true that they fed on crops and stuck to houses so they made a false night. But ahead of her, they were taking shape. They were clumping to form dark patches, arms and a torso atop long, thick legs. A face that Hannah almost recognized, blurry and wavering in the wings. And then it dissolved.

  As she looked around her, she saw thousands of them, treading air and stationary. Watching her. And lower, she was conscious of a gulf stream, a quiet subcurrent of wings circling her waist, closing atop each other as delicately as petals.

  “What do I do?” Callum tried to wave them away, then cried out as he was bitten.

  Hannah looked down into dozens of eyes, polished like the butts of rifles. They had settled over her small bulge in layers, and she could feel their slight legs pinching at the fabric of the scarf wound around her belly. Her body thrummed with their vibrations and lower, deeper, her child hammered frantically. Hammered, then suddenly stopped.

  They dropped from her body like leaves, shaken loose by each of her steady steps. She kept her head high, her eyes fixed straight ahead, and eventually they passed through the swarm. Callum matched her stride.

  They were a few meters from the house when she leaned against a tree and lifted her dress up o
ver her belly.

  Callum gasped and moved his fingers over the marks, scores of small bites that had turned her white stomach red. “He’s not moving.”

  “Baby’s first cicada swarm,” Hannah said. Kick, she thought at the baby, the word pounding in her head. “It’s practically a rite of passage. Every generation gets a couple.”

  “He’s okay, though?”

  She nodded against him.

  “I thought I’d jinxed it. You asked me to wait, but I couldn’t.”

  Hannah’s body stiffened. “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll show you, but don’t be mad, okay? Take this as it was intended.” He took her hand and led her up the path to the back door, kicking branches out of the way. The ground felt like quicksand under her shoes, more marsh than solid earth, and she stopped when she saw the frogs. Speckled bullfrogs and tree frogs, the pure green color of new ferns, littered the back slope.

  “How was it intended?” Hannah asked, allowing Callum to take off her sweater then kneel to remove her muddied shoes as if she were a child.

  “A reminder of my love,” Callum said grandly as he led her up the stairs. They stopped in front of Hannah’s old bedroom and she felt her stomach sink.

  She knew before he opened the door, could almost picture the mobile twirling, but the reality took her breath away. He’d pasted transparent, colored films to the windows so the light filtered in as rainbows. A gleaming mahogany crib stretched against one wall, beneath two mobiles, one with flowers, the other with stars and moons.

  The crib was lined with a thick white mattress and covered in a yellow fleece blanket embroidered with a lamb.

  She gripped her belly. It would be that small, that utterly vulnerable, when it left her. There’d be nothing to protect it from corners and stairs, from particles in the air and water, or from finer particles still, in the unknown spaces between worlds.