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Teresa kicked with her free foot, but Ruthie had a strong hold. The sheriff lumbered over, his skin tight and bloated. He didn’t even look like the old man anymore. He bent down to grab Teresa’s other foot, his sausage fingers groping. Teresa kicked his hand away. He stumbled sideways and stepped on Ruthie’s head, crushing the side of her face. Ruthie’s shriek gurgled from her unhinged jaw. She let go of Teresa and grabbed what was left of her face. Teresa crab-walked backward until she hit one of the many tombstones.
She let out a scream, lunged onto her knees, and crawled as fast as possible through the brush and forest debris until she reached the stairs of the funeral home.
Fear and panic and exertion caught up with her. Somehow she’d managed to keep hold of the hypo. The zoe inside undulated like a lava lamp filled with coagulating blood. The green lights of the lost souls hovered around her, drawn to the zoe.
I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t do this.
Ruthie stalked along the barrier, holding the side of her crushed head. The sheriff stared in Teresa’s direction.
Would they always be there, waiting for her every time?
Five more . . .
The thought filled her with desperation. With dread.
“Mommy.” Tiffany’s touch trailed along Teresa’s cheek. “You are so brave. Yaldabaoth is very pleased.”
Teresa clenched her jaw and looked into her precious baby’s eyes. Then she looked at the dead people waiting for her beyond the barrier. She looked at the hypo in her hand. This was for Tiffany.
She limped up the steps and followed her daughter into the abandoned house. Inside, the sandy brown cave walls with torches appeared.
“I’ll go get him.” Tiffany skipped down the dark corridor, leaving Teresa in the flickering torchlight.
Teresa tested her ankle. She could put most of her weight on it. Some ice and elevation and she’d be good as new.
She wandered to the edge of the pool and peered into the black water. She couldn’t see the bottom and wondered how deep it was. The water rippled. She stepped back and into something solid but warm.
“You have pleased me this night,” Yaldabaoth said.
She turned around to face him. He stood too close, trapping her between him and this fathomless pool. With great reluctance, she looked up into his eyes and clenched her jaw.
“Take this. I’m done.” She slapped the hypo against his bare chest and tried to push past him. He took it but didn’t move out of her way. His amused chuckle vibrated through her.
“Done, are you?” He let her pass, but the doorway back outside was gone. “What about Tiffany?”
He snapped his fingers. A scream came from deep within the cave and ripped straight through Teresa’s resolve.
“Tiffany!” She ran toward the corridor, but it was too dark. Impenetrable. And she was too afraid of what might lurk there. “Stop, please!” She rushed to Yaldabaoth and tugged on his arm. Tiffany’s screams died, but her daughter wept in residual pain.
“Mommy . . .” she moaned.
“Tiffany,” Teresa called. She paced at the mouth of the corridor like Ruthie had at the invisible barrier. “I’m here, baby, I’m here.” She held out her hands. “Come here.”
“She can’t,” Yaldabaoth said. “Your inability to carry out what you have started will keep her from you.”
“I can’t do this,” she whimpered.
“You already have, twice.” He cocked his head and lifted an eyebrow. “You can do this, and you will, or else . . .” He grinned and snapped his fingers again.
Tiffany wailed. Teresa’s mouth went dry at the desperate, agonized sound. She covered her ears and dropped to her knees, crying out for her baby.
“Okay!” Teresa shouted. She gasped and sobbed. “Stop hurting her. I’ll do what you want.”
Suddenly, he knelt behind her. His arms wrapped around her body and pinned her arms to her sides. He licked her neck and, though she knew she should be disgusted, a thrill coursed through her body. The cave heated. Or was it just her inner temperature?
“Good girl,” Yaldabaoth breathed in her ear. Teresa closed her eyes. “Five more and you can have her.” The air chilled again. He was gone.
Teresa got to her feet. “Tiffany?” she called down the corridor.
Tiffany didn’t answer. Teresa took a torch from the wall and started down the tunnel. After a few yards, she looked over her shoulder. The cave behind her had disappeared into darkness. She continued slinking along the wall until she came to a door. A standard white home interior door. She turned the knob and opened it.
Old lumpy couch, sleeping bag, urine smells. She was in the abandoned funeral home. She turned around to go back, but it was only a closet. She looked at the torch in her hand and found it was just an old wet decayed piece of wood. She threw it into the corner with an angry shriek and stomped outside.
Ruthie and the sheriff had gone back to whatever hell they stayed in when they weren’t chasing her. She stumbled toward town and wondered if she ought to return to the sheriff’s house and make sure she didn’t leave any evidence behind.
Evidence. Worry flashed through her. What if the sheriff had found her necklace at Ruthie’s place?
The squeaky crunch of footsteps in snow broke the night’s silence.
“Good evening, Doctor Hart. Or should I say good morning?” an old woman’s voice asked.
Teresa whipped around. Louise wore a puffy, full-length coat that looked like it came from the second-hand shop down on Forest Parkway.
“Louise!” Teresa gasped. “You frightened me.”
“What are you doing out at this hour?” the woman asked.
Teresa reached for her cross. God bless it! Where had she lost it?
Louise smiled and held out her closed hand.
“Looking for this?” She opened her palm. Teresa’s cross dropped and dangled by its chain from Louise’s fingers.
“Where did you find that?” Teresa moved to grab it, but Louise jerked back.
“Not so fast, Doctor.”
“That necklace is mine. Give it to me.”
“What were you doing in the old cemetery last night?” Louise held the cross out. A carrot to Teresa’s horse.
“How did you know?” Of course. Louise lived over on the other side of the old cemetery from the funeral home. “I’ve been having trouble sleeping. Walking at night helps me relax.”
“Yes, but you were in your robe and slippers.”
She knows too much.
If only Tiffany would appear with another syringe—she’d get a two for one deal.
Like a shoe sale.
The thought made Teresa giddy and sick at the same time.
“I don’t need to explain myself to you,” Teresa said. What did Louise know? What did she think? She took a step back. What rumors would she spread?
“Don’t worry, Doctor Hart. I won’t tell anyone your secret.” Louise held the necklace out to Teresa.
“I don’t have any secrets.”
“We all have secrets,” Louise said. “You should see what’s in my basement.” She raised an eyebrow, and Teresa’s eyes widened. The basement nursery was gone; surely she didn’t mean that was one of Teresa’s secrets.
Teresa snatched the cross and clasped it around her neck.
“How is our dear Maggie, by the way?” Louise asked. Something in her inflection made her inquiry sound ominous—like the witch asking about Hansel and Gretel after she ate them.
“She’s . . . fine . . .” Teresa said. “She’s settling in. Just fine.”
“And you?”
“Me?” Teresa peered through the darkness. “I’m fine, too.”
“Okay, then,” Louise said. She stepped over the creek and disappeared into the woods.
* * *
Teresa eased the front door shut. She took off her gloves and boots, hung up her coat, and stepped onto the first step to head up to bed. Someone cleared their throat from the front room. Teresa grabbed the banister with a start.
“Who’s there?” she whispered.
“Teresa. Come here, please.” Derrick’s voice, thick and slow.
Teresa stepped into the doorway of the front room. He sat on the love seat. She flicked her eyes to Big Bear, still hidden among the pillows on the chair in the corner.
“Yes?” she said in an innocent voice.
Play it up. You didn’t do anything strange.
Derrick held out his hand. Teresa went to him and slid her fingers into his palm. He pulled her down next to him.
“I’m sorry,” she said. She flung herself at him and hugged him tight. His arms wrapped around her and moved up and down her back in that comforting way she loved. It filled her with warmth.
“It’s okay.” Derrick said. “I found her.”
Did he think she was out looking for Maggie?
Oh, what luck!
“Thank God,” Teresa said. “I’m sorry I yelled at her. At you. I’m so sorry.”
He brushed her hair aside and kissed her neck in the same place where Yaldabaoth had licked her. She pulled away in case he could smell the stench of dried saliva.
The moonlight coming in the window twinkled in his eyes. She leaned into him and kissed his lips. He tasted of—what was that—stale alcohol?
“Have you been drinking?” she asked.
He nodded. “Just a little. It’s mostly worn off.”
“Where did you find Maggie? At Flynn’s?”
Flynn’s was the town watering hole. She’d never been, of course. Ladies didn’t frequent such establishments. Besides, it was a place for the locals, not her.
Derrick shook his head. “She was at Ann’s.”
Teresa stood and backed away. “Ann? What was Maggie doing there?” Besides making friends with Derrick’s ex-high-school-sweetheart.
“Ann found her and picked her up.”
“And she didn’t think to call us? To let us know Maggie was safe?” Teresa vaguely remembered the phone ringing, but it seemed like days ago.
“Teresa, please,” Derrick said in his oh-so-casual-drunk voice. “Maggie didn’t want Ann to bring her home.”
“And I suppose everyone does what Maggie wants.”
“Because, if you’d let me finish, Maggie didn’t want to come home. And besides, we weren’t here to answer the phone anyway.”
“She didn’t want to come home?” Great. Maggie didn’t want to be with them anymore, and it was Teresa’s fault. Her hand went to her throat, to the cross. But it didn’t bring her the strength it once did. “Is she home now?”
“Yes. Upstairs. Sleeping.” Derrick tried to get up twice and finally got to his feet. “And that’s what I’m going to do, too.” He kissed her cheek and left the room.
“Where did you go to drink?” Teresa asked.
Derrick paused in the doorway, and his shoulders raised up like he was bracing for a blow. She could almost hear his mouthed curse. He turned around.
“You know alcohol is not allowed in this house.” She crossed her arms.
“Yeah, I know,” Derrick said. “Not since Tiffany died.”
She dared him to blame her. She even gritted her teeth, expecting it. She’d formed a retort in her mind already, and when he didn’t say it, she let it loose.
“Not since you drank yourself into a stupor for months on end, you mean.” She was goading him. Did she want him to say the real reason?
“I had no choice,” Derrick said through his teeth. “You were in and out of the hospital. What was I supposed to do? I didn’t have you, Teresa. I didn’t have my wife—who I thought I could get through anything with. And when you were back, you weren’t you anymore.” He stepped toward her and pointed his finger at her chest. “I made promises when I married you. I stuck by your side in sickness and in health.” Tears welled in his eyes. Alcohol made him emotional. It always had.
“I needed you, Teresa. We needed each other.” His voice had softened.
“Seven years—and now you’re telling me this?” She failed to keep the snap out of her voice. This was no small thing to keep from her.
He sighed, and his whole body drooped with the exhalation. “What happened to us?” A tear dripped onto the floor.
Teresa stared at where it landed. She didn’t know what to say. Tears welled in her eyes now, and when she lifted her gaze to his, they streamed down both cheeks.
“I’m trying, Derrick,” she said, her voice low and measured. “All we do is fight.” She took a step closer to him, then another. She stood inches in front of him, so close she felt the heat of him.
He pulled her against him and rested his cheek against the top of her head. She cried into his chest. For the briefest moment, she wished they could stay like this forever. It was like before. The way they were in the pictures on the piano.
She stopped crying and relished in his embrace, drank it up. She lifted her chin. He lowered his lips to hers.
The kiss was everything she wanted it to be. She expected it to be rough and lusty—the way he used to kiss her. Though it was gentle, she could feel his need. His hands moved up her back and into her hair. He moved his lips to her neck, his hands to her buttocks. He lifted her, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. He stumbled backward, regained his balance, and lowered both of them to the floor. He lost his balance again and they landed with a thump on the rug.
“Oh, sorry,” Derrick whispered. “You okay?”
Teresa giggled but stifled it. “Shh. We don’t want to wake Maggie.”
She hadn’t felt this way in . . . she didn’t even remember how long. He gazed into her eyes, then fastened his lips back onto hers while he fumbled at her pants. Taking his cue, she unfastened his belt and brazenly reached into his boxers.
He pulled her hand out of his pants and pinned both of hers above her head. She didn’t usually like these kinds of rough games, but this time it brought her thrills. She lifted her hips to him. With one hand, he worked her pants and panties down to her ankles.
Even after he let go of her wrists, she left her hands above her head, surrendering to him, allowing herself this moment.
He teased her with his fingertips while grinning at her with the sweet-yet-devilish-smile he stole her heart with. Then he replaced his fingers with his tongue.
Teresa opened her legs to him. She wound her fingers in his hair. A guttural and primal moan escaped her, uncontained pleasure rippling through her vocal chords. Her ecstasy built, higher and higher, faster than any other time she’d been with him.
At the peak, Derrick lifted his face. She met his eyes.
“Please.” She hitched in a ragged breath. “Keep going.”
He no longer had a lusty look to his eyes. Had her moan killed the mood? How could it?
“I . . . can’t.” He lurched to the side and vomited on the rug.