The minute she let him take her elsewhere, she would die; she was sure of it. Use your voice. “I’m not going anywhere,” she said, sounding as soothing as she could. “Not until I understand what’s going on.”
Kelan drew in a hissing breath through clenched teeth as though he’d been struck. When he raised his head, he glared at her, his nostrils flaring. She had said the wrong thing. Kelan lifted the gun and walked toward her until she was backed up against the wall.
She got out one word, “Don’t,” and then he shoved the barrel so hard into her belly that the pain bent her over. Steel met watery membrane, pushed against the tight drum of her stomach. Something wet and warm leaked down her leg. Clara screamed.
“Shut up,” he screamed back. “You don’t get to decide.” He cocked both barrels and pressed deeper, and her gorge rose in her throat. Then he must have seen the urine pooling underneath her because he stepped back. “Gross.”
While stooped over, Clara stroked her stomach when she could breathe again, felt pressure shifting from her back to her pelvis, the baby searching for a way out. Somewhere, she’d dropped the pen she had been hoping to use for a weapon. So stupid. Squeezing her eyes shut, trying to steady her breathing. Her heartbeat, the child’s heartbeat, thumping in her ears. Think.
“Filthy,” Kelan said. His voice deeper now. A man’s voice, angry. His father?
Clara opened her eyes and studied him. The same gleam, opaque as smoked glass, as she’d seen in that old woman’s eyes. Bynthia. Cold and hostile. “I can be clean again,” she said. She felt tears warm on her face. Her nose running hot. As though she were a witch, melting. “If you show me how.”
“Stop it!” he shouted at her. The gun shaking in his grasp. “Stop crying!”
Clara wiped her nose on her sleeve, wiped away the tears.
The voice, the fatherly baritone, came into him. He drew himself up, circling her, careful not to step in the mess she had made. “Do you want to live forever?” It sounded like something he’d been asked many times himself, a question beaten into him.
No, she thought. The most important thing was to go on living right now. For her, for the baby inside her. “Yes,” she said. Heaven. Heofon. The sky, the firmament.
“Forever with me?” Softly spoken now, a slackness sliding over his face.
“Yes,” she said, keeping her voice firm. Lull him into trusting you.
His face contorted, lips peeling back to show his teeth. “Liar!” he shouted. “You lie! Why do you have to lie to me all the goddamn time?”
Her legs gave way. She was sitting in the puddle of cold urine. Dizzied by a sudden contraction squeezing her middle, by the force of his anger. Kelan stomping up and down the room, ranting. “I’ve seen you! I’ve watched you!” She hoped his words carried out into the street. To Nora’s, to neighboring houses. “You thought you had me fooled. You fool all the rest of them, but not me. I know what you’ve been doing. I see everything. I know, I fucking know what you are.”
He was reenacting something, some familiar drama. He didn’t really see her in that moment, Clara realized. She was an it, an object, and they were both playing parts. A terrible sense of helplessness swept over her, Clara pulling her knees up to her chest, her vision narrowing to a single vanishing point.
Then a sharp pain drew her up to her feet, Kelan dragging her by her hair. “Get up. Not here.”
“Let go of me,” Clara cried, and he did. His face drained of color, he bid her take off the soiled robe, and she let it drop to the floor, and he stood looking at her in her damp gown, her one shoulder bare, exposed. Whatever happened she was not going to let him push that gun into her belly again.
Kelan pointed toward the door with his gun. Clara brushed past him and stepped into the hallway. Midway down the stairs another contraction halted her, and she had to grab hold of the banister to keep from falling. Kelan prodded at her back with the barrel. Somehow she made it down the stairs, and midway through the kitchen she saw her own shimmery reflection in the window, her hair wildly askew, the boy behind her in a coat too large for him, the sleeves rolled up, his mouth muttering. The images pale and