Baby Teeth meets The Invited in a haunting story of the sometimes-fragile connection between a woman’s sense of self and what it means to be a “good” mother.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Katrina Monroe’s Graveyard of Lost Children, which is out May 9th!
Once she has her grip on you, she’ll never let you go.
At four months old, Olivia Dahl was almost murdered. Driven by haunting visions, her mother became obsessed with the idea that Olivia was a changeling, and that the only way to get her real baby back was to make a trade with the “dead women” living at the bottom of the well. Now Olivia is ready to give birth to a daughter of her own…and for the first time, she hears the women whispering.
Everyone tells Olivia she should be happy. She should be glowing, but the birth of her daughter only fills Olivia with dread. As Olivia’s body starts giving out, slowly deteriorating as the baby eats and eats and eats, she begins to fear that the baby isn’t her daughter at all and, despite her best efforts, history is repeating itself.
Soon images of a black-haired woman plague Olivia’s nightmares, drawing her back to the well that almost claimed her life―tying mother and daughter together in a desperate cycle of fear and violence that must be broken if Olivia has any hope of saving her child…or herself.
Chapter Seven
Olivia
There was a moment where Olivia struggled to climb out of her dream. All she remembered when she finally woke up was blackness, heavy and sap-sticky and clinging to her skin. More disturbing was that the entire front of her T-shirt was soaked, which immediately conjured images of drowning somewhere dark. Claustrophobic. She kicked the blankets away and sat up, taking deep, measured breaths. It was hard to orient herself; the light coming from between the curtains was too bright. Pain throbbed behind her eyes and her breasts ached and she couldn’t remember if it was yesterday or today, what time she’d gone to bed, or where her wife was.
The dampness on her front smelled faintly musty, and she realized she’d leaked. The pressure from sleeping on her stomach all night, uninterrupted by midnight feedings, had forced the milk to express. She checked the sheet and was grateful to see it was only her side of the bed that’d been soaked. Still, the embarrassment burned. It was like her body wasn’t her own anymore. A liquid bag with holes poked in. Blood and piss and milk. Any relief she felt from having a full night’s rest was pushed away thinking of how she’d have to strip the bed, do laundry. It brought her back to a childhood plagued by nightmares, hiding in the bathroom while her grandmother yanked the sheets off her bed, both of them pretending nothing happened.
As she let her thoughts fester, the shame in her belly evolved.
How many YouTube videos had she and Kris watched together during those last months of pregnancy, the bright, glowing faces of new mothers taking center stage as the pain was left behind and their children placed in their arms? Where was that bliss? That wonder? Did all those women go home to wake up each morning only because there was the promise of sleep at the other end of it? Did they complain and resent what their days had become the way Olivia did?
No, she thought. It was just her.
She didn’t glow.
Maybe it was her fault Flora wasn’t eating properly. Maybe poison laced her milk. She needed to do better. To be better.
She stood to strip out of her wet T-shirt, and it was when her hip didn’t bump the bassinet that she realized—Flora was gone. Not just Flora, the whole bassinet. She ran around the other side of the bed thinking Kris had moved her sometime in the night. No bassinet. No Flora. Olivia started for the door—please be in the living room, please be feeding our daughter, please, please—when she heard the screams.
Every nerve on fire, she fumbled with the doorknob before finally getting the door open and followed Flora’s screams across the hall to the second bedroom. The bassinet sat in the middle of the mostly empty room, shaking with the force of Flora’s flailing body. Olivia moved to pick her up, a small sliver of relief that Flora was here, she was safe, but stopped when she saw Flora’s face. Her skin was sallow and dry, the whites of her eyes a pale yellow, and her wide-open mouth was cottony, her tongue spotted white and subtly pointed. Olivia’s shirt dampened with new milk, but she couldn’t make herself reach into the bassinet. She shivered, and in the corner of her eye noticed the open window. Her gaze dragged along the windowsill, where streaks of mud ended at the latch.
She took a step toward the window, but Flora screamed at a new pitch, freezing her to the spot.
Something was wrong with her daughter.
Except, her daughter’s eyes were brown, not the strange green she saw now, weren’t they?
Kids change, Kris had said.
Footsteps pounded down the hall. Kris appeared in the doorway, visibly shaken. “Jesus Christ. I thought someone was killing her in here.”
Olivia couldn’t move. Each time she thought of taking a step toward Kris, Flora’s livid eyes fell on her and they were like nails through her feet.
Kris shot her a look she couldn’t quite interpret before scooping Flora out of the bassinet. She rocked, patting Flora’s back. “Did you feed her?” Kris asked.
“No,” Olivia said.
Kris frowned.
Olivia continued. “Why is the bassinet in here?”
Kris shifted Flora to her other shoulder. The back of her head was red from screaming. It looked hot to the touch. “I wanted you to sleep. Every time she sighed you jumped, like she’d poked you.” She started toward the hallway with Olivia following behind. “I just went to the gas station. I was gone fifteen minutes.”
Flora sounded like she’d been screaming for hours. Her voice was hoarse, and she’d started to hiccup.
Had an animal gotten in, maybe, and scared Flora? Had she scared it back out to where it came from with her cries? Olivia glanced up at the window, guessing what could have slipped through and out again without breaking the glass. She squinted at the streaks of mud. But then, they weren’t mud, were they? The streaks weren’t nearly as dark as they had appeared earlier. In fact, they didn’t look like mud at all. Dust, maybe. Thick dust. They almost never used this room—when was the last time she’d cleaned the floors, let alone a forgotten windowsill?
But if nothing had gotten through, what was wrong with Flora? Why did she look so… “She’s starving,” Olivia said, distressed. How many feedings had she missed? How long had Flora been crying desperately for food? Hours? Was this an effect of the jaundice? Olivia’s gut instinct was to call the pediatrician, but a voice inside her cautioned against it. It’s your fault, the voice said. They’ll take her from you if they find out.
“She’s not starving,” Kris said, but she sounded unsure.
Had Kris even looked at their daughter’s face?
In the kitchen, Kris struggled to balance warming a bottle under the hot tap water and the flailing Flora. Olivia was rooted to the spot by Flora’s sunken cheeks and spindly limbs. Something was wrong. Olivia couldn’t stop thinking about the open window. The mud that wasn’t mud. What had happened to their little girl last night?
“Liv,” Kris said, “little help?”
Jaundice, she decided. That’s what the doctor said. That’s all. She just needs to eat.
She took Flora, who immediately began rooting. Something sharp nicked Olivia and she jumped.
“I got her,” Kris said after testing the bottle. But the moment she tried to take Flora out of Olivia’s arms, Flora let out a scream that vibrated Olivia’s entire body. It was like she was dying.
Kris tried to hand Olivia the bottle, but Olivia shook her head. The bottle wouldn’t be good enough. Flora wanted her.
Olivia wriggled out of her damp shirt and helped Flora latch. The pinch of Flora’s mouth was so tight that it sent little jabs of pain up Olivia’s chest and into the back of her head. She bit back a wince, knowing Kris was watching them carefully.
Kris rubbed Olivia’s shoulder. “Do you want to sit down?”
Olivia didn’t answer.
“Babe?”
“I’m fine,” Olivia whispered, afraid to break the fragile calm, of disturbing Flora, whose eyes were closed and whose fists bunched on either side of Olivia’s breast. Olivia could see Flora’s veins beneath her skin. Could see them pulsing.
Then she looked again. Soft, pale skin. Fat, cherubic cheeks. Flora was here. She was fine. What she’d seen had been a nightmare, Olivia thought, bleeding into the daylight.
“You’re beautiful,” Kris said.
Out of the corner of her eye, Olivia saw Kris take her phone out of her pocket and snap a picture.
“The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Kris murmured. “Truly.”
Yes, Olivia thought. I am a mom. I am beautiful. I am glowing.
Flora’s eyes flickered open, and her gaze locked on Olivia’s.
Lies, the baby seemed to say.
Flora fed for a long time, her strangled cries filling the house as Olivia swapped her from one side to the other and back again. She lost track of time and how often she switched. One of their friends had given her a thin, beaded bracelet that was meant to help remind her—switching the bracelet when she switched the baby—but she’d never worn it and couldn’t imagine remembering to use it anyway. She could barely keep a shirt on, let alone jewelry.
She wouldn’t have been able to remember her own name, watching Flora’s face. Gone was the sallow yellow, the protruding veins, the old paper texture of her skin. When Flora finally sighed, sated, her cheeks were fat and pink. Olivia just caught a glimpse of the dark brown of Flora’s eyes, the green long gone, as they fluttered shut.
I’m losing it, she thought, then banished the thought just as quickly. No, she absolutely, one hundred percent, was not losing it. She would not fall down that hole. She refused.
At some point, Kris had wrapped a blanket around Olivia’s shoulders and guided her to the couch, but Olivia couldn’t remember it happening. Despite the blanket, she shivered. She spotted the papasan swing and desperately wanted to lay Flora in it to give her body a break, but her arms wouldn’t move. An ache traveled down from her shoulders, touching every nerve, every muscle. She couldn’t even unfold her legs without whimpering. And why was she suddenly so tired? She’d slept all night. The adrenaline, maybe, from earlier. A surge and crash.
Kris sat next to her on the couch, a steaming mug in her hands. “Coffee?”
As much as she craved the caffeine, Olivia’s stomach turned. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten or had anything to drink other than water.
“Take her,” Olivia said. “I need to pee. And get dressed.” And be human for two seconds.
With Flora safely in her papasan, still sleeping, Olivia went into the bathroom with the blanket still wrapped around her shoulders. She locked the door behind her, and the moment she caught her reflection, her breath caught.
That’s not me, she thought.
Her skin was sallow and yellow, like old paper. The veins in her chest and neck protruded, blue and ropey. Her cheeks were sunken, and her lips were pale and chapped.
A knock on the door made her flinch. A small dribble of urine dripped down her thigh. She barely noticed. Her pelvic floor was shot, so even the smallest sneeze had her peeing herself.
“Liv?” Kris knocked again. “You okay in there?”
“Fine,” Olivia croaked, unable to look away from the mirror. She touched her face, bordering on disbelief as her reflection followed suit. This isn’t real, she thought.
“I forgot to mention—to ask, really—I invited Edie and Mark over for dinner.”
Edie. Mark. Dinner. Words that passed over her consciousness without sticking.
“From the birthing class. You remember? Edie always had that stuffed elephant and Mark was—Mark—but you and Edie seemed to get on and she gave birth about a week before us.” She paused. “Liv? Are you mad? I thought it might be nice to know some parents our age. Maybe Flora makes a friend. I don’t know.”
A small laugh escaped Olivia’s lips, even as tears burned her eyes. Her wife was talking about dinner, while she stood mostly naked in the bathroom with piss on her leg. And her face—God, she looked like death. She tried to convince herself this was like the shadow in the window, like the branch on her car. Another trick from an overtired mind. But this was too real. This was her face. Her body. She touched the veins in her neck and pulled at the loose skin under her eyes. She looked deflated. Drained of energy, of blood, of life.
“It’ll be fun. You’ll see,” Kris continued. “You can get back to being Liv. Right?”
Could she? There seemed to be so little left of herself in her reflection.
“Right.” Her voice sounded like she was gargling gravel. “Be right out.”
It took monumental effort to turn away from the mirror, to ignore the image in her peripheral. She turned on the shower and stepped in, the water scalding. If she stood here long enough, maybe she could burn these new, dangerous thoughts out of her head.
Olivia was dying from the inside out.
Flora was killing her.
