When the baby had finished, falling lax from her breast and into sleep, Tori carefully tucked her child into a snug bundle of blankets. Holding the baby close to her chest, Tori made her way down the hall to the bathroom the hulking man had shown her last night. The bathroom was so small the only place to put the baby was on the floor in front of the toilet or in the claw foot tub. The tub at least looked clean, so that's where Tori settled her.
She peed forever, biting her tongue against the urge to cry. She lost. At the sting between her legs, silent and scalding tears slipped over her cheeks and into her mouth. She couldn't even wipe properly, not with the handful of stiff toilet paper from the roll set on the back of the toilet. Even the quilted kind would have been too much, and this paper was the bargain variety, cheap and pulpy. She was lucky it didn't have bits of wood left in it, that was how rough it felt. Eyes closed, she leaned forward, breathing through the burn, then opened them to tug open the cabinet beneath the sink to see if maybe there was a box of tissues or something softer.
She found a small bucket and a stack of folded rags. Even by the bathroom’s dim light, she had no trouble seeing the faded stains on the cloth. Her lip curled. She'd hoped to find a package of pads or maybe some incontinence panties, either would've done the job, but she had not expected to find old-fashioned cloth menstrual pads. Then again, thinking of the crone she'd met last night in the dining room, how could she be surprised? The last time that old lady had her period, women probably hadn't yet been granted the right to vote.
It hurt to laugh. Tori clutched her still softening belly with one hand and put the other over her mouth to hold back the giggles. She didn't want to wake the baby...or anyone else. Especially when the laughter became a series of choking, gasping sobs that rasped at her throat.
She had survived giving birth unattended in a supply closet, being hit by a tractor trailer and hiking through the woods in the dark, enduring frigid temperatures with a baby strapped to her by bungee cords. She was not going to lose her shit now. It was true that Tori had never been good under pressure. She'd been known to freak out because she'd snagged a pair of new tights, not to mention her habit of cutting and running in the face of any kind of conflict or adversity.
She had to be better than that, now.
For her daughter.
"Gonna take care of you, Little Bit," Tori murmured. The baby's tiny mouth pursed, sucking at nothing, but she didn't wake.
The disposable pad pinned to Tori's underpants was soaked nearly through. The panties themselves came up to her belly button in the front and the middle of her back behind; the pad reached as far. She turned her face from the dark, glistening mess. Several large clots slipped out of her and into the toilet, splashing. She shuddered. Her gorge rose, but the years she'd spent sticking her fingers down her throat had also given her the ability to control her puke reflex with spectacular precision, and she managed not to vomit.
The problem was, she didn't have anything to use in place of the sodden pad. Tori took a long, shivering breath and forced herself to count to ten. Then again. Every time she drew the air in through her nose, she winced at the stench of body odor, coppery old blood, and sour breast milk. She needed a shower, desperately, but didn't dare attempt one. Not with her sleeping infant in the bottom of the tub, certainly. Not in a stranger's house without permission, no matter how kindly they'd taken her in.
By the time she opened her eyes, she was no calmer, but she'd formulated a plan. It would be more embarrassing to bleed through her clothes and possibly onto the bed sheets then it would be to take one of the stained rags from the pile beneath the sink. They'd been used, but they were clean, and they were all she had. Within minutes she'd tidied herself and wrapped the used pad in wads of the horribly rough toilet paper, then tossed it in the small trash pail next to the commode. She stood at the sink to wash her hands, amazed at how much better she felt with such a simple change.
In the mirror, her face looked gaunt. She turned it side to side, studying her hollowed cheeks. The circles beneath her pale green eyes. She'd spent a lifetime wishing for her cheekbones to stand out, but now all she could see was a skeletal face staring back. She cupped a handful of water and rinsed her mouth, then spat to rid herself of the taste that had lingered since last night. She gripped the sink, bent over for a moment or so while she waited to see if she were going to faint. The dizziness passed in seconds, but left her feeling trembly and weak, on unsteady legs.
Her stomach rumbled. Tori turned off the water and dried her hands on a stiff towel embroidered with daises. A layer of dust covered the top of it, something she only noticed when it darkened her damp hands. With a frown, she rinsed her palms again, then looked at the towel. Possibly it had never been meant for more than decoration, the way her mother's bathroom had been set up with soaps shaped like shells and towels never meant to be used. She patted her hands against the front of her oversized t-shirt, instead.
"C'mon, Little Bit."
Too late, she realized that putting the baby in the tub had been easier than lifting her out. Something again tore deep inside her when she tried. She had no choice, though. Gritting her teeth, Tori managed to brace her knees against the tub's curved rim, then get her hands beneath the bundle of blankets and pull the baby against her chest. Breathing hard, she gave herself a few seconds to get her balance. How did anyone manage this alone? How had she ever thought she could?
The hall was empty and quiet, and she was grateful. She wasn't ready to face anyone. In the bedroom, she tucked a spare diaper and the last of the wipes into the pocket of her sweatshirt. Her stomach rumbled again, and she put a hand over it. She thought of the granola bars in her bag, but she needed something more substantial than that...and she wanted to save them for an emergency she hoped never came.
In the hall, she passed a long line of closed doors, then paused at the head of the stairs. She could barely remember climbing them last night. Luka had shown her the bathroom and left the tea, and after that everything was blurry. Daunted by the incline, she bounced the baby gently, considering how much it was going to hurt to descend, not to mention the odds that she was going to trip over her own feet.
It took her a long time to get down, one careful step at a time, but she made it. At the bottom, she faced the front door. Arched doorways on either side led to shadowed rooms, and a long hall stretched to the back of the house. A kitchen, she presumed. Food, she hoped desperately. It seemed she’d spent most of her life fighting off her appetite, but it had never been this bad. Since having the baby she’d suffered a never-sated hunger nibbling constantly inside her.
Tori stopped, listening for signs that anyone else in the house was awake. Luka was big enough to shake the house if he were up and around, she was sure of that. Despite the silence, something prompted her to peek into the dining room.
It looked no different than the night before, although now the dim wall lamps were off and the only light filtered in through the large front window, hung with heavy curtains that kept out most of the brightness. The same broad, ornate table set with the patterned cloth. The vase of dead flowers. The upholstered chairs, six of them.
"Oh," Tori said. "Oh, God. I'm sorry. I didn't expect to see you there."
Had the old woman not gone to bed? She sat in the same place at the head of the table. Wore the same dress with the high throat and long sleeves. Her gnarled hands rested in the same place on top of the table, this time one to either side of the spirit board.
"Good morning," Tori ventured and kissed the baby's cheek when it began to stir against her chest.
The old lady put her hands on the plastic planchette. Looking straight at Tori but not saying a word, she moved it toward the YES. Something moved it, anyway, Tori thought, holding her ground in the archway. She lifted her chin. So…this was creepy. Sure it was. But she didn't believe in ghosts and never had, so she wasn't going to start now.
Tori cleared her throat. The awful taste had gone away, but her voice
was still hoarse. "We didn't have much of a chance to meet last night when your...grandson? Brought me in."
NO
The baby snuffled. Tori held her closer. No, they hadn't had a chance to meet? No, Luka wasn't this old lady's grandson?
"I'm very grateful to him. I'm not exaggerating when I say we would have died last night, if he hadn't found us and brought us here."
YES
Tori moved closer. "I'm Tori, by the way."
"And the child?" The old woman's voice slipped from her lips, clear and cultured and with the faintest hint of an accent Tori couldn't name.
"She doesn't have a name yet."
"It's better that way," the old woman said. "How old is it?"
"She's a week and two days."
"When it's been alive at least three months," the old woman said, "then you can give it a name."
Tori frowned. "That's...well, that's a little...I didn't not give her a name because I'm afraid she's going to die."
"You should be afraid. Babies often die before they're three months old. Don't name them until you're sure they're going to survive long enough to sleep through the night. And even then," the old woman said with a wave of her bent fingers in Tori's direction, "you can't really be sure."
"She's not going to die." Tori clutched her child to her chest hard enough to startle the baby into a low cry. "Stop saying that."
The planchette moved in a slow spiral, a figure eight and then a line, back and forth.
YES
NO
YES
NO
Back and forth, the pointed tip and the clear window showing each word for no more than a second or so before moving across the board again. The old woman wasn't watching it, but although her fingertips looked like they were barely touching it, they didn't slip off the planchette even when it jerked.
Tori didn't have a name picked out. That was something she ought to have thought about for months, choosing the perfect name her daughter would use for the rest of her life. It wasn't something she could come up with on a moment's notice, and the truth was that's how it felt even though the baby had been born a little over a week ago. As though she'd entered this world only moments before.
"The right name is important, you know. It doesn't really matter if you grow up and change it, the name you're born with is the one that makes you who you are." The old woman's mouth thinned, not showing her teeth, in a grim parody of a smile. "Your parents named you Victoria, after a queen, but look at you."
Tori flinched at the assessment. "Actually, my name's Tori, just Tori."
"Ah. Well. That makes so much more sense."
The planchette skidded across the board, one felt-tipped foot veering off the edge and stopping the triangle's back and forth motion completely. The old woman lifted her hands and gave the board a look of surprise. She glanced up at Tori again.
"You've upset the spirit."
"I haven't upset anyone," Tori said. "I just came downstairs to see if I could get something to eat."
"There is food in the kitchen. Luka can fix you something. He's probably still sleeping, considering how late it was last night when he brought you in. He won't be happy to be woken, but I supposed that can't be helped. After all, if he didn't want to take care of you, he ought not have brought you in. I suppose you're better than another stray puppy.”
Tori didn't know what to say to that. She'd already said thank you, and her gratitude had been sincere. She and Little Bit would have died if the big man hadn't brought them here. Tori bounced the baby lightly as she waited for the woman to call for Luka. To move. To do anything but stare at her.
The old lady grinned, a sudden fierce baring of teeth so white and straight they couldn't possibly have been real. She pointed toward the wall closest to the arched doorway. "There's a button there. You can ring for Luka and wait in the kitchen."
Tori found the small metal button amongst the wallpaper's busy floral pattern and pressed it. Somewhere far off in the house, a buzzer sounded. She looked at the woman, who'd replaced the planchette on the center of the board and was moving it in those same slow spirals. The planchette stopped when Tori looked at it. Then it slowly turned to point at her.
"Go," said the old woman.
9
Luka didn't say much. When he did speak, it was in grunts and low, growling phrases that Tori had to struggle to interpret. She'd offered to cook the breakfast herself, but was relieved when he refused. She was shit with cooking.
Instead, she sat on a hard-backed chair and nursed her baby again while she watched Luka move from the fridge -- an ancient, rounded model straight out of the fifties -- to the counter and then to the stove, a monstrosity fit for a restaurant. Oddly, in contrast to the fridge, it was also clearly almost new. He cracked eggs four at a time, tossing the shells into the sink and scrambling them in a blue ceramic bowl.
"I'm hungry, but not that hungry," she protested as he emptied a carton of the entire dozen.
Luka turned, shaggy dark brows furrowed. She'd imagined his eyes as being dark brown, but even at this distance she could see they were a bright, pale green. Almost like her own. He frowned.
"Huh?"
Tori shifted on the hard chair to ease the grinding ache in her back. She still hadn't quite gotten the hang of the nursing thing, and fumbled a bit as she switched the baby from one breast to the other. Tori had always been what her stepfather had called "a member of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee" and so hadn't considered much how she was flashing Luka, convinced there was no way he could possibly be interested in looking at her in that way. Not with her greasy, straggly hair, her floppy, oversized clothes. Surely the cluster of pimples on her chin and the burgeoning fever blister in the corner of her mouth was anything but attractive.
Even so, when she looked up at his question, Luka was staring. Hard. Instinctively, Tori shrugged the shoulder of her shapeless zippered hoodie to cover herself.
"I said --"
"This isn't all for you. I have to cook for all of them, too. You can have as much as you want, though." Luka opened the fridge to grab another carton of eggs. Those all went into the bowl too.
"All...of...them?" Alarmed, Tori put the baby to her shoulder, patting the kid's back until she let out an impressive belch.
"My brothers."
Tori settled the baby back onto her lap. The infant's eyes were wide, but she wasn't crying. Her little mouth pursed and the tiny hands flailed.
"I didn’t know there was anyone else here."
Luka gave her another glance, this time with a smile that surprisingly transformed him into...well, she couldn't call it handsomeness. He was too big and hairy for that. Feral, she thought, pulling out a vocabulary word from a distant part of her mind she didn't even know she had. But the smile made him look at least less intimidating.
"You're kind," she added when he didn't reply. The words seemed to surprise him, but she'd surprised herself even more by saying them. "I mean, this is nice. You finding us and taking us in was enough, but making me breakfast, too. It's very kind, Luka. Thank you."
Tori's mother had tried to teach her many lessons. Most of them, Tori had discarded over the years as being stupid or impossible. Some of the things her mother thought you ought to be grateful for were fucked up -- a backhand across the mouth instead of a punch. One finger probing in secret places instead of all of them. But the idea of being thankful for being treated kindly? That was something Tori had clung to even during the times when she had nobody or nothing to be actually grateful for.
"Welcome," Luka said after a hesitation.
The ceiling groaned above them. He cast a baleful glance upward before turning back to the bowl of eggs he was scrambling. Tori tensed. Brothers.
"How many brothers do you have?"
"Three."
"Any sisters?"
"No," he said.
Footsteps, lumbering and heavy, marked the path of at least one of them toward the stairs. The baby was still awake
, but her little face had started to go red as she strained to fill her diaper. Tori laughed, breathless, not with much humor.
"I'm going to need to change her," she said, almost apologetically, and hated herself for it. There was no reason for her to be embarrassed that her baby was pooping in the kitchen, the same way she had no reason to be humiliated about the fact that she wore a borrowed menstrual pad that even in this moment might be soaking through.
"You can do it in there." He pointed to a wooden door, ajar.
Inside was a laundry room, fitted out with an old fashioned wash sink and a wringer. Pinkish-gray water filled the sink, and clothing floated in the muck. Dark brown splashes, like dried chocolate pudding, flecked the sides of the sink. Uneasily, she turned from the sight and changed the baby on the wooden countertop as quickly as she could. She washed her hands, avoiding touching the dirty water. The flow from the faucet stirred it up, bring bits of dark string to the top and pushing it under again. Not string. Hair. Maybe fur. Tori shuddered and turned off the water as fast as she could.
She paused to study a faded poster pinned above the sink. The young woman in the line drawing wore Victorian clothing, although it might have been from that era of the seventies when the long prairie dresses and soft Gibson Girl hairstyles had made a reappearance. The drawing also prominently featured a Ouija board and what looked like a schedule of dates below it, but splashes of wet had destroyed so much of the text that Tori couldn't read what the poster was advertising. Clearly, though, the people in this house had a boner for the paranormal.
In the kitchen, Luka had finished cooking. "It's ready. You said you were hungry. There's toast. Coffee. Bacon. Eggs. I can make oatmeal if you want it."