Little Secrets (28 page)

There was something else too.

Chapter Forty-Two

Carrie splashed through the water to reach a low metal bed frame and stained mattress shoved against the far wall. The water licked at the mattress's bottom edge. It would be sodden in minutes. There were four of them. Or five. Ginny could not yet look at whatever they were, those crouched and shivering things with pale faces and grasping, skeletal hands.

Ginny switched the phone from one hand to another. The light shifted. Shadows loomed and swooped from the shaking of her hands. She closed her eyes. Pain, this time fierce and deep and seemingly unrelenting until then…it was gone. She opened her eyes.

Whatever was on the other side of the room had moved closer.

Ginny couldn't speak. Her breath came short and sharp as dizziness assailed her. She almost dropped the phone, but then clutched it so tight her fingers hurt.

She gave a breathless, gasping scream. They were in front of her, two of them, with Carrie hanging back with the other three still huddled on the bed. One stood, up and up, curving and hunched, its neck and head tilted at a strange angle to show her a smooth, pale face with dark eyes. It held out a hand to Carrie, who linked her fingers with it. They stood in front of Ginny, saying nothing. Just watching.

And… Oh God. They were not monsters, they were not things made of shadow and fear. They were children. A boy of maybe thirteen, grown too tall for this cramped space. A girl a little older than Carrie but not much bigger, her dark hair as tangled and dirty but pulled back from her face with a length of frayed ribbon. And there too, thinner and without her collar, but purring as she was cuddled—Noodles.

“Oh,” Ginny said in a broken, hesitant whisper. “Oh, you poor things.”

From beyond one of the dark doorways came a low, rattling hiss that turned the heads of all the children, those in front of her and the ones who'd hung back on the bed. Something slithered through the water, and Ginny saw a snake before she recognized it as something more sinister. A length of chain coiled and moved, disappearing into the water, now just past Ginny's knees.

“Mama, I brought the lady.” Carrie turned with another shy smile, and the shadows shifted.

The figure in the doorway moved toward her, one shoulder higher than the other as the weight of the shackled wrist kept one hand closer to the floor. The shaved skull and hollow cheeks made it impossible to guess its gender, though the worn dress gave a hint. Ginny knew at once who she was.

“Caroline. Oh my God. Caroline Miller.”

Caroline gave a hoarse croak. She was weeping, Ginny saw, though it was too dark to see if there were any tears on her wasted cheeks. She drew Carrie to her and kissed her head. She looked at Ginny.

“Is he gone? He's really gone?”

Ginny pushed closer, carefully, through the water, though the small room was mostly bare. “He's gone,” Ginny said, and let Caroline's withered hand take hers. “I'm here.”

Caroline's body racked with silent sobs, but when she raised her face to Ginny's again, her eyes were dry. She licked her cracked lips. “The water's coming in.”

“Yes. I know.” Ginny tried not to shudder. She failed.

Caroline might look weak, but her grip was so tight it became painful. She leaned closer, her breath sour but her eyes bright. “I sent Carrie for you. She said you were a nice lady, that you left things for her.”

Ginny nodded, though that wasn't quite the truth. “Yes. I didn't know… Oh my God. I'm so sorry. I didn't know.”

Caroline's bright gaze didn't dim as she shook her head. “Nobody knew. It's all right. It's all right. You're here now. You can help us. You can help us?”

“The door closed behind me.” Ginny tried to breathe shallowly so she could avoid the stink. “How do you open it?”

A rough and grating noise came from Caroline. Incredibly, a laugh. “From this side? You don't.”

Ginny watched as Caroline's children gathered silently around her, staring with wide eyes and open mouths. There were four children altogether. The oldest, a girl, hunched like her brother, put a hand on Caroline's shoulder and murmured something Ginny didn't understand.

Caroline replied, her voice pitched low and mumbling, the words not only indistinct but not quite right. Strung together in a pattern Ginny couldn't recognize, like tuning in unexpectedly to a foreign radio station. Whatever Caroline said seemed to satisfy her daughter, because the girl nodded and stepped back, just outside the circle of light.

Ginny's fingers cramped, and she switched hands again. She looked at her phone's battery indicator. The water had risen impossibly higher, up to her thighs. “My light won't last forever. We have to get you out of here. All of you. How do we open that door, Caroline?”

“He had a key. Always a key. It was shaped like a…” Caroline's mouth worked, her expression momentarily blank before her eyes focused again, “…a T. It was shaped like a T and that's how he opened the door. There is no other door.”

“Of course not.” If they'd been able to get out through that door, wouldn't they have done it long ago? “Carrie. She was small enough to fit through the ducts—”

Before Ginny could speak again, a swift and hot gush of fluid ran down her legs. She clutched her belly and held out the phone, blindly, hoping someone would take it from her before she dropped it. Someone did, and she put both her hands between her legs, terrified she'd feel a baby's head bulging against her giant cotton panties.

“The baby,” she said, and a groan took the place of any words she might've said next.

“Your baby is coming,” Caroline said flatly. “Here and now? Don't worry. Don't worry.”

Worry was not the name for this vast and roaring terror, this overwhelming fury of anxiety and fear. Ginny gasped as the contraction peaked. She breathed with it, incapable of embarrassment though she'd bent over to put her hands on her knees and was panting like a dog on the street in August. Everything inside her pressed down, down. Only the rising water kept her from squatting right there, because she would not, could not push her baby out into that filthy wetness.

She became aware of Caroline on one side of her, the oldest daughter on the other. They walked Ginny in mincing crab steps, the largest she could take, through the doorway and into a smaller room the size of a closet. The light from her phone shone over their shoulders, illuminating a full-size bed and a dresser. As the light slanted crazily along the walls, Ginny saw they'd been hung with countless childish drawings like the one that had been left on her easel. The stick figures seemed to dance, and, nauseated, she closed her eyes while they took her to the bed.

She put both her hands on the damp mattress and bent forward. She breathed. And finally the contraction passed.

“My water broke. I'm having contractions,” she said without opening her eyes. “The baby is coming, yes. Here and now.”

Tears came, shaking her. A firm hand squeezed her shoulder. She looked up to see Caroline.

“I will help you. Linna will help you. We know…we know about babies, lady.”

“My name is Ginny.”

“Ginny,” Caroline said, and smiled. “Ginny, we'll help you. It's going to be all right.”

Nothing could be all right about this. Water up to their thighs, the stink overpowering everything else. Her baby born in this hovel? No. No. Ginny shook her head, but another contraction ripped its way through her, and there was nothing but pain to think about just then.

It passed.

There was something amazing about how much it hurt and how suddenly the pain ceased, and she'd have been able to think about it more if only the world would stop spinning. It was because she wasn't breathing, Ginny knew, and braced herself to take a long, stinking gulp of fetid air. It helped only a little.

“You need to get on the bed. Lie back. Lift your dress, and let us look.” Caroline gestured. “Deke. The light.”

Ginny'd prepared herself mentally for knowing that in the hospital it was likely she'd have a whole slew of strangers staring at her vagina while she pushed this kid out. In no realm of her imagination had one of those staff been a teenage boy. There was no shielding of her body, though, no way even for her to protest, because she was too busy bearing down against the sudden pressure in her womb.

Hands helped her back onto the disgusting mattress, propped her with pillows. Hands lifted her nightgown and pulled her panties off. Ginny wept, not from pain or shame, but from knowing there was no way her baby could survive this filthy place.

“Mine did,” Caroline told her, and Ginny realized she'd spoken aloud. “The ones who got born alive, they all made it. Yours will too.”

Ginny opened her eyes. “My phone. I have to see if…there's a signal.”

Deke handed over her phone without argument. Ginny thumbed the screen, with no luck. She tried anyway, first with a call that wouldn't even send and then a text. After that, another. Each time, a small, angry red exclamation mark showed up next to her message, proving it didn't go through. Her fingers tightened on the phone with the next contraction, and Caroline gently pried it from her hand.

“Let Deke hold the light, Ginny.”

Ginny panted and gasped, then gave in to a shriek. This embarrassed her more than anything else had, but Caroline patted her shoulder.

“It's okay to scream,” she said. “Nobody can hear you down here.”

“You…all…can.”

Caroline gave another rusty laugh, as cutting as knuckles on a grater. “Screams don't bother us.”

The pain faded. Ginny drew a breath. She shifted on the bed, against the pillows, and tried to see the floor. “The water?”

“Still coming in.” Caroline turned her head and coughed, then spit.

The chain on her wrist jangled. She didn't use that arm at all, Ginny saw. The fingers of that hand looked curled and useless. Caroline saw her looking and gave her a smile that showed straight, even teeth that could only be the product of expensive orthodontia.

This detail drove home the horror of this girl's…no, she was a woman now…this woman's life more than anything else could have. Ginny remembered that smile, flashing bright with metal. The curly permed hair, the fashionable clothes. Caroline had been smart and bright and beautiful once. All of that had been stolen from her, replaced with…this.

“When the pains get worse, one on top of each other, it will be almost time. You'll feel like you have to push the baby out. Like you have to use the toilet. You won't be able to help it. But until then, you should rest and try to get through each pain as it comes.” Caroline said this calmly, as though it were the most normal thing in the world to be giving birth in a flooding basement, in the dark. “Linna and I will be here to help you.”

Ginny waited for the next pain, but her body seemed to have gone quiet. “I can't feel it moving.”

Caroline said nothing at first. Then, softly, she put her good hand on Ginny's belly. “It doesn't matter. Your body will push it out, no matter what.”

More tears came, but Ginny forced them back. She clutched at Caroline's hand. “I'm so sorry. So, so sorry I didn't figure this out sooner. I didn't put the pieces together, they were all right there. I should've known. I should've…”

“How could you have known anything?” Caroline looked surprised, then sad. “My mother didn't know. My brother didn't know. Nobody ever did. But you're here now. And this will all be okay. But first, your baby—babies don't wait for anything.”

More contractions came and went, some longer than others. Ginny waited for them to form some sort of pattern, but they refused. Some were short, others long. She tried counting the minutes between them and lost track with their irregularity.

Ginny had no idea how much time had passed and asked to see her phone. Only half an hour since she'd come into this room. An hour, maybe a little longer since she'd last spoken to Sean. Not soon enough for him to worry. Not soon enough.

“Mama. Water,” the girl a little bigger than Carrie said.

“Yes, Trixie. I see it.” Caroline never lost her calm, flat tone. She sat on the bed next to Ginny and took her hand. “It won't be long now.”

“Until the baby comes?”

“Or the water.” She'd proven her ability to laugh, but there was nothing like humor in Caroline's voice now.

Ginny tried to think, to focus, to fixate on something her brain wanted to tell her was important. Something about…Carrie. Something about…the water.

And then she couldn't think of anything but the agony. It tore at her. It consumed her. As though from far away, she heard Caroline murmuring to Linna, something about blankets. Something about a basin. But then the all-encompassing urge to bear down took over, and all Ginny could think about was pushing.

Hands moved her again, lifting her hips, in the almost nonexistent break between contractions, to slide something beneath her. Hands pressed on her knees, parting and pushing them back toward her hips. Hands cradled her feet, bare, the slippers lost.

It had never been like this. The pain had been a familiar echo, vaster but still not entirely foreign. But this grinding, desperate need to strain and push and expel…Ginny was helpless against it. She couldn't stop it. Her body did what it was meant to do. If she died, she thought, her body would continue to birth this child.

She felt the baby move down the birth canal, inch by agonizing inch. Too slow, and too fast at the same time. A bright, red-hot center of pain burned between her legs as she screamed. The sound spiraled up and up until her voice broke.

“The head. I see the head,” Caroline told her. “The baby's almost here.”

Ginny looked down between her legs to see Caroline and Linna both poised there, hands ready. The light from her phone had no delicacy. It made everything harsh. Ginny saw the flash of the other children's faces, but Deke was solid and steady; he held the light focused firmly between Ginny's thighs.