Crisis managed, my fury builds (Who was in here, and how did they get in?). I press the intercom button to call Isla, but she’s not at her desk. Next, I call Dale.
“What’s up, Tilly?”
I explain the situation as calmly as I can. He’s appropriately alarmed at the thought of someone gaining entry to Room D and assures me he’ll be right there.
While I wait, I reinflate the cover to place it over the artwork before he arrives. Normally conservators work collaboratively on pieces, but this is a different project. Not to mention the signed NDA, which made it clear the art is to be concealed except when I’m actively working on it. Only Raoul (who is out of town this week), Cecil, and I know what’s in this room, and the significance of it. I can’t risk it—my fee, and reputation, potentially compromised if anyone else sets eyes on the painting.
I crouch, about to affix the covering, similar to a cushioned, fitted mattress pad, when a flash of movement catches my eye. I pause, cover in hand, and hold my breath, wide-eyed as something emerges from the canvas.
Again, the sickening sound of deep suction. A tendril slips out ofthe dark layers of soot, appearing to vibrate as it stretches thin, reaching toward me.Closer, closer…
I’m rooted in place, not breathing, watching in disbelief. It’s identical to what I saw the other night. The tendril quivers, like an inchworm waving in the air as it searches blindly for the next branch. There is a sudden smell of something musky, subtly spicy, acrid. I can’t place it, though it’s vaguely familiar. Then the thing reaches my containment suit and continues pushing forward. Pressing into the small bulge in my middle, where the fetus nests, with a near-painful pressure.
Like it wants to get inside me.
I wake up two floors below, in our building’s medical center.
“Wyatt’s on his way,” Dale says, his brows knitting together so two lines form between them. He’s also smiling cartoonish-wide, clearly forced. His unnatural expression worries me more than the forehead lines.
I try to sit up but am restricted. There’s an oxygen cannula in my nostrils. An IV in my arm, delivering fluids. A thin but weighted blanket, used to control temperature, has been placed over much of my body. My dress is on the chair beside the bed, inside out. This bothers me, that it wasn’t turned right side out. A physician assistant is at the foot of the bed—a young-looking woman with a blond braid over one shoulder, wearing augmented reality medical glasses.
“Welcome back, Tilly,” the PA says. “Lie back. We’ve got everything under control here.” Then she gestures upward with her finger, scrolling the menu of vitals she’s tracking with the MedAlert glasses, and I hear heartbeats—one that I can feel, and the other much faster, which I know has to be the fetus’s.
“The baby!” My throat is dry and it comes out as a whisper. I realize this is the first time I’ve referred to the fetus as such.
“Is just fine,” the PA says. She turns the bedside monitor toward me and points to the screen. The baby’s heart rate and mine are there, running in parallel wavy lines (my rate is 73 beats per minute, the baby’s 130).
I settle then, allowing my body to sink deeper into the gurney’s mattress. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Dale says, frowning now. “When I got to the room you were passed out on the floor. I had to use the emergency override to get in.”
Right. The emergency override program. Whoever had accessed Room D and knocked the canvas off the workbench could have used that fail-safe.
Wyatt rushes in as I’m about to ask Dale if he knows who else used the override in the past twenty-four hours—it would have been logged.
“Babe, are you okay?” He grabs my hand, kisses my knuckles. “What about the plum?”
“Are we doing this again?” I manage a smile. Our MotherWise literature compares the size of the fetus to a fruit, updated week by week. I’m eleven weeks pregnant, and the fetus is apparently about the size of a plum.
“Wow, a plum! We’re on our way,” Wyatt announced at dinner last night after reading the email. Proudly, as though he was the one growing the baby. It was sweet, if not mildly annoying to hear the royal “we” used. “Lime is next, babe. I’m thinking virgin margaritas to celebrate…”
This is also why Clementine is named Clementine. When we had our twelve-week ultrasound, the technician said she was about the size of a clementine orange, and that became her nickname. Then when she was born, it was the only name that fit.
At four weeks a fetus is the size of a poppy seed. I wish I had the chance to tell Poppy how she got her name.
“I’m good. And the plum is too.” I shift my eyes to the monitors, Wyatt following my gaze.
“All good, Dad. Measuring eleven weeks, two days,” the PA says, giving Wyatt a confident smile. He visibly relaxes, his shoulders dropping, his face loosening.
“All right, okay,” he says, returning the PA’s smile before turning to me. “You scared the hell out of me. What the heck happened?”
“Dale found me. Guess I passed out?” I shiver, thinking of that wiggling tendril. The way it stretched out, glistening black, straining to get closer and—
“Out cold. Couldn’t wake her up, so I called Medical,” Dale says, the forehead lines back. My shivering kicks up a notch, but no one seems to notice.
“Thanks, man. Glad you were there.” Wyatt claps Dale on the shoulder.
“I’m going to head back up to the lab, give you two some time,” Dale says. “And before you ask, Tilly, Room D is secured. The piece is stable—and, no, we didn’t take a peek.” He’s read my mind. “The cover was already on it, so Tony and I set it back on the workbench, all anchors double-checked.” Tony is Dale’s apprentice.
