When Tabitha Vandekamp found out, she would do to me what she’d done to Magnolia. I would have no more say in the fate of my unborn child than I’d had in its conception.
She must not know yet, or that would already have happened.
How far along was I? If I’d lost another month’s memories, Tabitha Vandekamp could have ended the pregnancy, and I might never even have known about it.
Could that still happen? Could I wake up tomorrow missing another two months and never remember that I was pregnant?
Does the baby have to do with my missing memories? Why bother to erase the conception, if they didn’t know about the pregnancy? Why bother at all? They didn’t do that for Magnolia.
After trying to untangle a knot of possibilities that led nowhere, I felt like I somehow knew even less than I’d started with.
What Ididknow was that to buy time to think it through, I’d have to hide my pregnancy for as long as possible.
I could not go see a doctor, even to test for communicable diseases.
Disgusted, terrified and exhausted beyond measure, I closed my eyes. Then noticed that though it must have been well past midnight, the light was still on. How was I supposed to sleep with—
Footsteps echoed down the hall, then stopped on the other side of my door.
“Who’s there?” I called.
A tray slid through the slot at the bottom of the door. It held half a red apple and about an ounce of cubed cheddar.
“Hey!” I crossed the small space to stand as close to the door as I dared. “Who’s out there?”
But the window only showed an empty hallway, and I could already hear footsteps receding toward the door at the end. As I knelt to pick up the tray, the overhead light dimmed to a level that would be comfortable to sleep in, yet still let me see the food in front of me.
I sank onto the stack of thin mattresses with the tray in my lap, and at first I could only stare at the food. Apple and cheese. A perfectly healthy snack, which was an extravagance in a facility that labeled itself “savage.” I’d never been given a snack by the Spectacle staff—not that I could remember anyway. Neither had anyone else, that I knew of. So why...?
Because I’d lost my dinner.
The answer hit me with the emotional force of a sledgehammer swung right at my soul. A private cell. Exercise and sunlight. Vitamins. Late-night snacks.
Someone knew about the baby. Someone with the authority to give me healthy privileges and protect both me and my unborn child from Tabitha Vandekamp and her infanticidal tendencies.
I could think of only one person who fit that bill, and who could have arranged to make me forget eight weeks of my life.
Willem Vandekamp knew about the baby.
And wanted it to live.
Untitled Document
“Scientists at Colorado State announce that they have isolatedthe specific hormone that initiates the change in form ofcanis lupus lycanus, otherwise known as the common werewolf.”
—from the June 2, 1998, edition of theNew York Times
Delilah
When Pagano brought my breakfast, he had to open the door, because my milk carton wouldn’t fit under it.
“I need to talk to Vandekamp.” I had to know how I got pregnant. I had to look into his eyes while I demanded information, so I could see the truth and hopefully rule him out as a suspect.
I needed to know why he’d locked me away from everyone else and put me on a prenatal health food diet, and what all of that meant for the fate of the baby I shouldn’t even be carrying.
I needed to shove my thumbs into his eye sockets and listen to him scream.
“That’s not a request you get to make.” Pagano pushed my breakfast into my room, then picked up the snack tray I’d slid into the hall untouched in the middle of the night. He frowned at the browning apple as he started to close the door to my cell.
