fingers. She was so still she could have been a doll, but softly she sang that tune from Annie:
“Send a flood
Send the flu
Anything that You can do
To little girls.”
The tune was lovely. The woman’s voice smooth and deep as a river. Something wet dripped to the rotted wooden floor. The woman looked up. She wore black glasses and a blue sweatsuit. It was Clara DeLea. Only, her skin hung slack from her face like a mask, and her eyes were black. “Build the door, Audrey Lucas. Your mother’s waiting.”
Audrey ran down the fifty-foot hall, and out the door, and down the emergency stairs, all the way to Tom’s Diner, without stopping.
Part III
You Can’t Go Home Again
A Letter to the Editor
December 31, 1926
It has come to my attention that in small factions of the civilized world, Chaotic Naturalism continues to flourish. I would argue that said religion is worse than Satanism. At least Satanism is laughable. It’s possible that Chaotic Naturalism is real. Where, after all, did our base instincts go when we rose from the slime and became thinking, social creatures? As a physicist, I’m inclined to believe that all energy is preserved. These instincts persist. Chaotic Naturalism seeks their reunion with the human body, and the consequential demise of the human soul. I’m obliged to your article; it opened this old man’s peepers. The Breviary’s architecture is stunning, but these idiot flappers conducting séances in its old church play with fire. Sometimes I think I should have been born fifty years ago, when people weren’t so stupid.
Sincerely,
M. M. DeVoe, Arthur Avenue, Bronx
From the Christian Science Monitor
Another Dodo Tries to Fly
December 29, 1937
This city has been raining socialites for eight years. The most recent fall took place at the once-regal Breviary apartment building last night at 5 P.M., soon after the stock market closed. Martin Hearst IV discharged his hunting rifle from the roof, then followed the path of its bullets down the westward side of the building. His body struck and killed a young man, Eta Murphy, who was selling apples from a cart. Hearst is survived by his wife Sarah and son, Martin V. This marks the 211th high-profile banker suicide in the city, and the 28th that took place in The Breviary Out of deference to his mourners, The Breviary’s annual New Year’s Eve Gala is canceled.
From the New York Tribune
17
I’ve Always Lived With You
As she slept, the thing in her stomach unfurled. Behind her was the dilapidated Victorian in Yonkers. Faded picket fence with missing planks like broken teeth. Ahead of her, a yard plush with wild sea grass that slipped between her toes. For once, she didn’t mind the mess. Little voices shouted: “Higher!” “More!” “You guys, wait for me!”
Under the big oak, Saraub pushed a tire swing. Maybe too high, but the dark-haired boy hooted happily, so she let them have their fun. And then a small hand reached up and clasped her fingers. A little girl in green corduroy overalls with a bowl haircut. She had Saraub’s brown eyes and Betty’s high cheekbones.
The driveway was marked with chalk. Numbered single upon double boxes. Hopscotch! She’d only ever seen this on television, but the rules looked simple enough. Audrey leaped inside a box, and coaxed the girl to do the same. One foot! Two foot! Three foot! Four! They hopped back and forth, laughing, while in the distance the boy shouted, “Higher, Daddy, higher. I want to fly!”
Her family unborn. How she loved them.
But dark storm clouds swallowed the puffy white cumulus. The sky opened, and black rain poured. The sticky little fingers holding her hand disappeared. The chalk washed away, and the empty tire swing creaked. Sadness carved a whole in her stomach: Saraub was gone, too.
A gaunt woman with wiry white hair and pink plastic barrettes watched her from the window. Betty. Audrey’s blood went cold as it pumped.
It’s a bad place where you live, Lamb, she’d said, and now Audrey thought: But I live with you, Mom. I’ve always lived with you.
The woman receded from the window, and into darkness. Black rain fell. Something pricked her bare toes. Sharp pins and needles. The ground swelled with black water. Red ants seeking higher ground thrashed. They crawled up her legs in uneven clumps that looked like weeping scabs. She swiped, but not fast enough. Tiny mouths pinched. They chewed her insides until she was hollow and bleeding like a full-term miscarriage.
Once inside, they met with the thing in her stomach and expanded.