“You know what you have to do.”
Is it a thought, or a voice? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.
Holding the moth close to my cheek, I watch it move from my finger to my face. Struggling to get a grip until it finds the top of my lip, where it rests. Flapping one wing against my skin. It tickles but I hold still. The moth begins crawling again, across my lip. The tickling is almost unbearable. I slowly open my mouth, and the moth seeks the opening. I don’t move. I don’t even blink.
An image of Clementine, with dozens of these creatures inside her mouth and throat, sparks. My gag reflex kicks in but an instant later it relaxes. I’m oddly calm, my heart rate steady and slow. My watch buzzes and I recognize the pattern: a gold star, for a one-minute meditation and lowered resting heart rate.
The moth leaves my lip and crawls deeper in. Its good wing flutters against my soft palate, tickling pleasantly now. The body nestlesbetween the top and bottom rows of my teeth, I see in the mirror. One spindly black-footed leg remains behind, hooked at the corner of my mouth. I feel warm, peaceful. I begin humming softly, the vibrations holding the moth in place between my teeth.
I bite down as hard as I can.
The next morning Travis shows up at seven sharp. I’ve checked in on Clementine multiple times already—she’s fine, said she isn’t scared anymore because she had a dream she opened the window in her bedroom, and all the moths flew out. “They wanted to be free, Mommy. They weren’t trying to hurt me.”
I’m grateful she’s doing okay, though I don’t understand how.
I am definitelynotdoing okay.
Shelby helps Clementine get ready for school and will take her so Wyatt can be home for the extermination. I brew an extra-large pot of coffee before Travis arrives.
“Count your blessings,” I murmur, anticipating the imminent hit of caffeine. It’s something my grandmother used to say, and I smile at the memory of her. My mother’s mother, who was warm in all the ways my mother wasn’t, regularly made salted-caramel popcorn balls and called them “dinner,” and unfortunately passed away from a stroke when I was only twelve.
“That smile’s a sight for sore eyes,” Wyatt says, kissing the side ofmy head. He’s joined me in the kitchen, has a mug at the ready. “One hell of a night, huh?”
I nod, holding the smile with effort. “You can say that again.”
Travis arrives then, Wyatt’s watch buzzing the notification. I’m glad when he leaves to answer the door and let my smile drop.
—
Shortly after Shelby and Clementine leave for school, Wyatt, Travis, and I head upstairs. Travis, who has taken the lead, asks if we’ve seen any other signs of the moths, prior to last night’s incident.
“None,” Wyatt says, then over his shoulder asks, “Tilly? Anything?”
“No. Nothing.” It’s then I realize I have no clue about signs of a moth infestation, aside from the obvious. “But what sort of signs?”
Travis starts up the second flight of stairs. “Caterpillars, for one. They’re real furry, like a teardrop-shaped hairpiece. Or eggs, but those are tiny. Pinhead size. Hard to spot.”
No, we haven’t seen any caterpillars, nor eggs.
“Okay, good. The puss caterpillars are super venomous. Glad you didn’t run into those.”
We’re at Clementine’s bedroom door now, and I’m breathing heavily. I’m not yet pregnant enough to experience real breathlessness, but the exertion of the stairs, plus fear of what we’ll find when we open the door, has made me short of breath. Like I said, I am not okay.
“In here?” Travis stands in front of the still-closed door.
I glance at the rolled-up towel. A wave of nausea moves through me and I put a shaky hand over my mouth. Remembering how when I bit down on the moth, the dreamlike haze evaporated. I became hyperaware of the crushed furry body in my mouth, the bitter taste of its slimy innards coating my tongue. The panic that the moth was venomous and I had just poisoned myself and the baby.
I vomited into the sink, running the water in the hopes no one would hear. Then brushed my teeth three times using Clementine’scherry-flavored paste and an extra toothbrush from under the sink. Furiously enough that my gums bled. Flossed, too, because I kept picturing bits of the moth’s body, a filament of its fine hair or a leg, caught in the crevasses of my teeth. Then I used the towel to wipe my face before I rolled it up and stuck it under the bedroom door.
The worst part? I can’t explain what possessed me to let that moth crawl on my face, into my mouth. There was the voice, or thought—again, I can’t be sure what it was.“You know what you have to do.”I felt drunk, soft-minded, and yet the idea that I had to kill that moth—even though it was near death anyway—and in such a gruesome way, became like a blinking neon sign in my consciousness. I literally couldn’t turn away from it.
Am I losing my mind?I think of the tendril, wriggling out of the painting. The swarming cockroaches. The half-dead moth, sticky between my teeth. I set a hand against the wall, leaning into it, overcome by the horror of last night and the sickness in my stomach. I regret the coffee, am afraid I’m going to throw up on the recently disinfected floor. At least Wyatt and Travis are focused on the door and don’t see my semi-collapse.
“Yep, in here. Clementine’s bedroom,” Wyatt replies, though Travis and his family have been to our house before and so he knows this. Clementine and Travis’s son, Ford, are the same age and have played together many times.
Travis sets an ear against the shut door, listening carefully.
“I can’t hear anything,” he says. He raps on the door, five times and with force. I jump, my spine going rod straight with the adrenaline, but I’m still behind them so it goes unnoticed.
