thought she was going to get up, fight for me maybe, hug me, but she didn’t. A growl rose from my chest but the pain in my stomach struck again. Vern dragged my dead weight out the door and all the way to the car. He pushed me into the backseat, and I kicked at the windows.
“Careful with that girth,” Vern said. “See how reckless you are. All the more reason to stay with us until the Birthing Day. We need you ripe and ready.”
He started the car and I watched Cherry’s house get smaller. A week, I thought. I had a week until the Birthing Day. A week with Vern. I thought of the baby shower presents, the soft cottons.
“Someone’s gonna come looking for me,” I said. “Daisy and Florin won’t let me just disappear.”
“No one will find you,” he said. “Not with God’s fence of power around us. The house is a pretty holy place,” he mused.
Derndra spoke up now, her voice soft and sweet. “We’re finding a peaceful approach just isn’t working anymore on those witches,” she said. “I see why witches used to be burned. There’s just no other way.”
“I’ll do anything,” I said, “just leave them alone.”
“She says she’ll do anything,” Vern said. “Anything to defend sinners of the worst kind, the very women who spoiled the goodness of her mother, but not willing to do anything for her church. Practically encouraged Sharon to kill herself.”
“You spoiled the goodness of my mother,” I told him. “You killed Sharon.”
“I was deep in prayer when Sharon died,” Vern said. He stopped the car in the middle of the road. A truck moved slowly around us, the arm out the window waving. “Help!” I screamed to it, but the scream stayed in the car, windows rolled up. Not that it would have mattered anyway. The good pastor could do anything he wanted.
He turned back to me, looked in my eyes. Spoke softly. “I felt her heart and the baby’s heart stop in my own heart, so please don’t tell me I had any hand in one of our own being sucked down under.”
Derndra cleared her throat. “Lean Cuisines tonight?” she asked him.
He turned back to her. Smiled. “Yes, dear.”
ONCE AT VERN’S house, his soft voice left him. They dragged me into the basement like I wasn’t a human at all, but a huge sack of flour. They were careful about the baby though, Derndra even cooed to it. It’s okay, baby, it’s okay. Fear covered my eyes and sent the world back to my mind distorted. They set me down on the floor. All I could see was red. I thought it was the red of the Turquoise Cowboy’s performance room, perhaps somehow I was to relive that again, but after a few minutes, after my breath caught up with me, I realized the lightbulbs were red and the walls brown. Heat and dust hung in the air. Derndra turned a radio up. Vern’s sermons came rushing though the speaker. Sometimes I wish God would give me a Holy Ghost machine gun, he cried. I’d blow every sinner’s head clear off! I remembered the sermon when he said that, probably a little over a year ago. I’d thrown my arms up, fists in the air. Yes, I’d screamed. How I wanted sinners to eat of their sin, to grovel at the feet of Vern, and then join us.
“We’ll leave you here to think,” Vern said. He kissed my forehead.
“Please.”
“The wages of sin,” he said, putting his hands up, looking around the room. “Is death.”
IN THE BASEMENT I didn’t know what time it was. The red light washed over my skin. It seemed specifically built, windowless. No one would know what went on here, who was here. A single black painted serpent wound up the wall, yellow eyes on watch. Artichoke was still and I kept time waiting for her kicks. I’d feel one and relax back into nightmares of pushing out not a baby but bunches of bloody muscats. I birthed a pack of Cherry’s chinchillas, Sharon, my mother. I screamed for the images to stop. I sweated, and fever became me.
Derndra came in and put her hand on my forehead. She was calm as she ever was.
“Water,” I said.
“If you’re good you can come up for dinner tonight,” she said. “I’m not a cruel woman.” She put her hand on my belly. “I won’t deprive this sinless being.”
“You don’t really want to be trapped with him forever,