Lowen is alone, and Baby is screaming, and she cannot find her. Left her in the bed and now, gone. Please, please. She checks in the bathtub, under the bed, behind the curtains. Taps the walls as she searches. Please, please. Searches the ceiling for footprints and opens all the windows, peering over the edges. Please, please. The screaming stops and Lowen’s ears are ringing. There are sounds in the house that have been lost to her since Baby and now she hears them again. An echo through the floors. Please, please.
She places her forehead against a wall; it is the cool-wet to her hot-dry and she breathes long, gulping breaths, breathes and presses her nose against the wall now. Hears the pulse that moves within it, the voice that belongs to the house, speaking to her now. Greets it like an old friend. Please, please. Wants to step into the wall, force her way through plaster and stone until she is there inside it, be-wombed and safe, where no one can find her. She twitches, involuntary, at the thought. Find it. The Baby. She must find the Baby, or they will think she’s done away with it.