The Blood of Seven

by Claire L. Fishback

  You took Marcie’s baby.

  Teresa gripped her stomach and doubled over. She vomited foamy bile into a bush on the side of the road.

  When was the last time she ate?

  “I need my mommy,” she whispered. Mother was gone, too. Teresa had no one. Nobody to help her, to take care of her, to love her.

  Except Tiffany. Except Yaldabaoth. She had to go to him. She shook her head. To them. Tiffany needed her.

  With renewed motivation, she set off toward the abandoned funeral home. If for no other reason than to regain a tremulous sense of purpose.

  Chapter 50

  “Hold on, Maggie,” Ann whispered. Her first thought was Teresa was hurting her. Ann grabbed her radio while she maneuvered the old Jeep toward the Hart residence.

  “Ann to George,” she said.

  “Yeah?” George responded.

  “Be on the lookout for Teresa Hart,” Ann said. “She is our prime suspect in the missing persons case. Likely armed, definitely dangerous.”

  “Is that a BOLO?” George asked, excitement in his voice.

  “Yes. I’ll radio you soon with more information.” Ann pulled into Derrick’s driveway and ran to the door. She pounded on it with the side of her fist. “Derrick!” she yelled. He was supposed to stop here to get Maggie’s overnight stuff. Ann tried the knob. The door opened. She burst inside.

  “Maggie?” she called. She held her breath and listened. No sound of anyone home, just the tick of a clock somewhere nearby.

  The phone rang. Ann jumped. The answering machine picked up.

  After the beep, a voice said, “Hello, this is Harmony Elementary calling. We have Maggie here . . .” Ann ran out the door, slamming it behind her. She jumped into her truck and hauled ass over to the school.

  Maggie Hart stood outside with a woman about Ann’s age. Tears streamed down Maggie’s cheeks. When her teary eyes landed on Ann, Maggie ran to her and wrapped her arms around Ann’s waist. The glow and the ache in Ann’s veins ceased. The mark continued to burn.

  “Daddy didn’t come get me from school. No one came. My teacher took me home, but no one is there, so she took me back here. Where is my daddy?” Her words came bawling out of her, full of desperate fear. She looked up at Ann, and Ann’s heart shattered.

  This poor child. Stuck in the middle of crazy and crazier with the literal weight of the world on her shoulders.

  Ann dropped to a squat, and Maggie wrapped her arms around Ann’s shoulders, sobbing hot breath against her neck.

  “It’s okay, Maggie,” Ann said. “I’m going to take care of you until they come back, okay?” She felt Maggie’s head nod and heard a muffled agreement.

  “Derrick Hart called the school earlier and said you would be picking Maggie up today,” the woman said.

  “Would have been nice if he told me I was supposed to do that,” Ann said in a tight voice.

  That son of a bitch.

  “We tried calling the number he left for you, but it didn’t go through.” She shrugged.

  “Thank you. I’m sorry there was a miscommunication.” She took Maggie’s hands and extracted them from around her. Maggie took a step back and hitched in several breaths.

  “Everything’s going to be all right, okay?” Ann told her.

  Maggie twisted her fists in her eyes and nodded.

  “Let’s go to your house and get some overnight stuff.”

  She nodded again. Ann stood and took the girl’s hand.

  As they drove to the Hart residence, Ann tried to contain her anger. She’d told Derrick to work things out with his wife. Not only did he not listen—and why should he? She wasn’t the boss of him—he’d put his daughter at risk. He put humanity at risk.

  On the other hand, if Teresa truly was behind the disappearances—murders—a mental health facility was exactly where she belonged. Ann was almost grateful. Almost.

  “Why didn’t they come get me?” Maggie asked with a sniffle.

  “I’m sure there’s a good reason.” Ann followed the street into Harmony’s suburbia. At Maggie’s house, she parked in the driveway and went inside.

  “Socks, underwear, clothes, toothbrush,” Ann said. Maggie ran upstairs. Ann wandered into the front room and perused the pictures on the piano. Teresa and Derrick seemed like a happy couple in all of the images. She lifted one that sat in the middle. A photo of Teresa and their baby. She seemed so happy. Ann supposed a lot of women suffered from post-partum depression on the inside but hid it on the outside at the risk of letting it break them open.

  Maggie clomped down the stairs behind her. “Got my teethbrush.” She giggled. “I call it a teethbrush because I have more than one tooth.” Finding her own joke so funny, she threw her head back and guffawed.

  Ann couldn’t help but laugh with her. She ushered Maggie back into the Jeep.

  “I need to run by the station,” Ann said. She hoped the printer had handled the massive print job. “Then dinner—and then I’m taking you to someone who is excited to see you.”

  “Who?” Maggie asked. “I want to stay with you.”

  “It’s a surprise,” Ann said. They got to the station a couple minutes later. Pinky greeted them with a woof. Maggie froze.

  “Pinky?” she said. The dog bounded toward her and licked her face. Maggie squealed with delight and hugged the dog’s head.

  “I saw you in my dreams. You smashed through the glass.” She stroked Pinky’s scabbed-over cuts, then sobered and looked up at Ann. “Brent’s gone, isn’t he?” Her eyes filled with renewed tears.

  Ann didn’t know what to say. She cleared her throat and went to the printer. By the grace of whatever, the station had a laser printer—not a dot matrix like she’d expected. Joey’s hacked documentation from the mental institution Teresa went to as a kid and from Mountain View sat in the tray. She grabbed the missing persons case file from the desk and stuffed the print job inside.

  “Are we bringing Pinky with us?” Maggie asked. She was on the floor with the dog’s big head in her tiny lap. Pinky rolled slightly onto her back and opened her mouth. Her tongue flopped out as she gazed adoringly at Maggie.

  “Please? I love her.” Maggie wrapped her arms around Pinky.

  Ann grimaced. Maggie may have known Brent was gone, but she didn’t know how he went or what happened to his remains thereafter. So much inside of her said no, leave the dog, but Maggie’s smile and Pinky’s obvious contentment at having a child mauling her . . . Ann would just keep a close eye on the dog.

  Ann found a rope in the storage cell to use as a leash. She tied it around Pinky’s collar. Maggie climbed in the Jeep while Ann loaded Pinky into the back.

  Behind the wheel, Ann glanced at Maggie, whose eyes were full of tears. She hitched in a shaky breath.

  “Three people,” she whispered.

  Four, Ann thought. But she wasn’t going to go there.

  “It’s okay,” Ann said. “Don’t cry. I’m here. You’re safe.”

  * * *

  Ann microwaved a frozen dinner tray for herself and threw together some noodles and sauce she found in the cupboards for Maggie. While Maggie slurped her spaghetti, Ann perused the file, dog-earing pages to come back to after she had Maggie safely with Raghib.

  Maggie finished a second helping of spaghetti, and Ann cleared away the plates.

  “I know you want to stay with me,” Ann said. “And I really wish you could, but I have a lot of work to do.” She tossed their napkins into the trash.

  “I’ll be quiet. I won’t bother you,” Maggie said. “Please, Ann.”

  “You’ll be safe with this person, and I’ll know if you are hurt or scared.” She pulled her shirt aside and showed Maggie the mark again. “Even when you were scared and sad at the school, I knew.”

  Maggie wiped away a single tear that had fallen from her right eye.

  “I can get to you in minutes if anything happens.”

  “Promise?” Maggie took in another hitching breath.

  A
nn nodded. Maggie grabbed her backpack with her overnight stuff, and they went out to the Jeep. A little way into town, Ann turned south toward Harmony B&B.

  Chapter 51

  Teresa hurried down the sloppy dirt road at a frantic pace. She stumbled up the front porch of Yaldabaoth’s house and went inside. The walls didn’t shift and transform. The cave didn’t melt into view.

  She didn’t have the zoe. Yaldabaoth must be angry.

  A figure emerged from the shadows down a hallway near the closet door.

  “Who’s there?” Teresa asked, peering into the darkness.

  “It’s me, Doctor Hart,” Louise said.

  Teresa took a step toward her and paused. That’s why the cave didn’t appear. Louise was there. Yaldabaoth only came to Teresa. Only she was special enough to talk to him. To touch him.

  “What are you doing here?” Teresa asked in a voice riding the edge of a nervous breakdown.

  “Oh my—what happened to you? You killed again, didn’t you?”

  Teresa took a shuddery breath and let out a soft wail. Tears blurred her vision, and she nodded.

  “How many now?” Louise asked.

  “F–Five.”

  Louise’s eyes widened. “You have been busy.”

  “I . . . I killed . . . my husband.” She met Louise’s eyes, shook her head, and looked away. “No. No I didn’t. It was an accident. A car accident. He . . . he swerved off the road and we crashed. I hit my head and passed out.” She looked at Louise. “When I woke up, the car was smoking. It had burned. Derrick—he didn’t make it. He was inside. He burned up.” Tears poured from her eyes now.

  Louise came toward her with her arms out.

  “There, there.” She pulled Teresa into a hug. “I’m sure it was all an accident like you said.”

  “Yes . . . yes, an accident.” Her voice took on a measure more of hysteria. “I would never . . . I would never . . .” She bawled against Louise’s shoulder.

  Teresa got herself under control and said, “I need to tell the police. I have to tell them. They’ll find the car, the body.”

  You’ll be atoned. They’ll like you again. You’ll be the sad widow.

  “Calm down. We need to think rationally here,” Louise said. “We need tea.” She gave one curt nod.

  Louise led Teresa out the door and through the woods. The lost souls floated on the cool air, but they didn’t follow Teresa like they usually did.

  Louise opened her front door and the two of them went inside. She put the kettle on while Teresa watched from the entry, her entire body trembling.

  The room spun. Teresa stumbled toward the kitchen, tripped on a cat, and leaned against a chair before sliding onto it. Her face fell into her hands.

  “My mom . . . my husband . . .”

  Louise gave her a glass of cold water.

  “Let it out, dear. Let it out.”

  Teresa looked at the old woman and saw her mother’s smooth, angelic face in place of Louise’s.

  She had to tell everything. From the start.

  “My dad ruined our lives. My mother’s and mine. He cheated on her. The media got hold of the news. A successful politician caught in the act with a woman not his wife.” Teresa glanced at Louise, whose wrinkled old leather face had returned.

  “She was so concerned with image. She couldn’t take the hit to her reputation.” Teresa’s eyes drifted to the far edge of the table and rested there, not really focusing on anything in particular.

  “But . . . no . . . That’s not what happened. That’s what everyone assumed happened. They didn’t know. No one knew.”

  “No one knew what, dear?” Louise asked. The kettle screamed. Teresa jumped. Louise got up and made tea. When she returned to the table, Teresa met her eyes. Now that she had started, she wanted it all out in the open.

  “I killed her.” A sob erupted from Teresa’s throat. “I killed my mom. She’s been dead for decades . . . but . . . I talked to her on the phone this week as if she were still alive.” Renewed tears burst from Teresa’s eyes. All this crying would wreak havoc on her skin and makeup.

  Derrick is gone. You have no one to look beautiful for.

  “The authorities took me to the hospital. I was only fifteen.” Her voice softened as the snatches of memory drifted through her mind.

  White walls, sterile rooms, over-starched sheets and gowns. The memories came to her as hazy reminders of a place she hated. Sessions with therapists, group therapy with people far worse off than her. People who didn’t know who they were or why they were there. People who were delusional or acted like someone different every day.

  Back then she knew she wasn’t supposed to be there. She wasn’t crazy like them. She was just depressed. Every day she had to take drugs that kept her in a constant state of muddled happiness. She didn’t remember killing her mom until her therapist hypnotized her, a dangerous technique in therapy, and she spilled the whole thing.

  “My mother was having an affair. I couldn’t handle the hypocrisy—she pounded lessons on how to be a good wife into me my entire life, then turned around and cheated on my father.” She had put an entire bottle of crushed lorazepam in her mother’s whiskey.

  When they released her she had done enough equivalent studies within the hospital’s walls to graduate high school. Even though college wasn’t part of her mother’s plan, she went anyway, and when she met Derrick, life was back on track. Then Tiffany was born. Then Tiffany died.

  To Mountain View. Only this time, she was committed for longer, and the drugs were so much stronger.

  “I lost my identity and could never get it back even when the drugs were out of my system. I spent so many years in a fog, going through the motions of life but not feeling. I could only remember what my mother taught me. To keep my husband happy. To look beautiful for him. To do everything in my power to make sure he is taken care of. Meals prepared. Children washed and fed.”

  She couldn’t let go, though. She knew they were happy once. Derrick seemed to dread spending time with her despite her upkeep of herself and the house. They weren’t happy. He had moved the baby’s furniture into the basement to store until he could figure out what to do with it.

  “I went down there and I arranged it like the nursery. Just like it.” Teresa smiled. “The changing table over there, and the crib—the pink sheets. A rocking chair.” She looked at Louise, who had her chin resting on the backs of her clasped hands. “It was beautiful. But . . .” Teresa slumped back in the rigid kitchen chair. “He took it all away.” She twisted her cup on the Formica table but didn’t drink from it.

  Louise cleared her throat. “Lovely story,” she said. “Where is the fifth zoe? Did you give it to Yaldabaoth?”

  Teresa looked up at her. “Lovely? The zoe? I’m telling you all this personal history about myself and you’re concerned with where the zoe is?”

  “Trying to keep you on track, dear,” Louise said.

  “Well, there is no zoe. Derrick lost control of the car . . .”

  “Because you took his zoe.”

  “I would never!” She sat up straight again.

  “You know what you did,” Louise said. “You know you took his zoe and that’s what caused the accident.”

  Teresa crossed her arms and scowled. “Everything else I told you is true.” She pushed the cup away. Tea sloshed onto the table.

  Louise didn’t say a word. She slurped from her cup.

  Teresa sighed and leaned forward. She put her face in her hands. “It’s at the crash site.”

  “You must retrieve it. You need to complete your duty to our cause.”

  Teresa lifted her gaze. “Fine. I’ll give it to Yaldabaoth, but then I’m going to the police to report the crash. Otherwise people will wonder what happened to him.”

  “That’s a girl. Now we’re thinking rationally.”

  She would be the sad widow.

  The town will love you again.

  Chapter 52

  Ann parked her truck
in front of room six at the Harmony B&B, which was actually a shitty motel that no longer served breakfast. She killed the engine and turned to Maggie. Pinky, on the seat between them, tried to lick Ann’s face. Ann pushed her away, but it only made her try harder.

  Maggie giggled. “She loves you.” The girl hugged the dog. Ann patted Pinky’s head and got out of the truck. She ran around to the passenger side and helped Maggie out. Pinky jumped out too and sniffed around. They walked to the door together, and Ann knocked. Maggie took Ann’s hand.

  “Who is it?” Raghib’s voice came through the door.

  “Ann.”

  “You shouldn’t be here.” He opened the door. His eyes landed on Maggie.

  “Baba?” Maggie said, her eyes wide and round. “Baba?” Her voice raised twelve octaves and came out a squeal. Ann couldn’t tell if she was excited, shocked, happy, or horrified. Her face contorted, and she opened her arms to him. And then she threw up spaghetti all over the welcome mat.

  Ann ushered Maggie inside and settled her on the couch with some blankets while Raghib cleaned up the mess. Pinky pushed her way past Raghib and jumped on the couch with Maggie. She gently lay down and rested her head on Maggie’s body. The dog’s noggin was nearly the size of Maggie’s small torso.

  “I’m sorry,” Maggie whispered to Ann, her hands resting behind Pinky’s ears. She looked over at Raghib as he closed the door and threw away the paper towels with a disgusted face.

  “It is okay, my child,” Raghib said. He washed his hands and came over to the couch. Ann backed away. “Even the mother of humanity is allowed to be sick.” He looked at Ann. “How much spaghetti did you cram into my granddaughter?” He smiled.

  Ann smiled back. Raghib moved to sit on the edge of the couch, but Pinky growled and shifted her head to block him.

  “She’s my protector, too, now,” Maggie said with a smile. “It’s okay, Pinky. This is my Baba.” The dog made a content grumbling sound and nestled against Maggie’s hand, but her eyes kept darting to Raghib every twitch he made. He pulled a chair over to the couch instead and sat down.