Page 37 of Queen of Nothing

I shift onto my knees—then still.

Because a splash of water strikes the dirt and wets my hands.

I blink at it, then my mouth turns down at the corners, because I know, I know what that is.

And it got all over me.

Slowly, I lift my gaze to Serena.

She is a struck statue.

The pallor of her complexion, the wideness of her eyes, it’s pure fear. And so is the tremble of her voice, “Get Sofía. Now.”

I don’t waste another second.

I scramble to my feet, then barrel into a run up the garden path.

6

Newborn babes are not very cute.

It’s more than the constant bowel movements that stink enough to run me out of the room, and the milk that regurgitates with a slight burp, and the crying that claws at my ears and has me wishing for a nursemaid to just magically appear.

It’s the look of them, too.

The babe that Serena holds to her chest, that she hums a soft tune to, has a complexion that’s pale in patches, purple in others, has eyes that are wrinkled shut, and little white dots on its nose.

His nose.

Serena gets mad at me when I say ‘it’.

Bet she would lose her mind if I called him what I really thought.

Monster.

How else does one describe a creature that tears its way out of a woman like that?

That’s what I remember.

That is what is seared into the grooves of my brain and will stay there to haunt me forever.

It tore out of her.

The blood, the stretching, the pulling—

Then I passed out.

Woke up on an armchair in the corner of the room, a damp towel on my forehead, and there on the bed with dated checkered sheets, Serena was slumped on the pillows, holding that swathed baby as though it didn’t try to rip her in half.

That was weeks ago now.

And what sleepless weeks they have been.

I lean against the dusty window.

Serena still hums that soft, gentle tune. I don’t recognise a pattern in it, so I think she makes it up as she goes. Not a melody I’ve ever heard before.

I’m glad when it stops—but not so much when Serena takes to talking to me instead.