Chapter 18: Parenthood (Part 1)

Last I remembered, I was within Adam’s arms on a very comfortably soft bed. What I felt beneath me was familiar, but by far too hot and hard for it to be someplace in his room.

After a silent moment, I asked myself, “Why?”

Just so this night would end, an undisturbed sleep was all I wanted right now. I had a serious discussion ahead of me.

For a few seconds, I thought if I kept my eyes shut I’d be able to sleep here. It may have been some kind of Hell, but if the fiery daughter had to rest, then that meant sleeping here was possible.

“Ow!” Something just hit my breast. “What the Hell?” And whatever it was had bounced off of me again. “The fu-- Stop that!”

With my eyes wide open, I sat straight up and glared at the one throwing pebbles at me. The next tiny stone went flying was predictably aimed at my bare chest, but in the heat of the moment, I snatched it out of the air.

“Stop it!” I stared daggers at the culprit --

-- and experienced a vertigo that caused my stomach to flip.

The dark demon was facing me.

On the highway, she sat a small distance from me with her legs crossed in an indian style. As I shifted to start standing up, I cautiously kept my eye on her idle toss up and down of more pebbles in her hand.

“Wha…? Lah-- look, wuh-- what is-is it that you want?” In response to my stammered query, she smiled. I stood and gestured at my abdomen as emphasis for my next statement. “I dididid-- ...I did it. what you wa--”

“Liar.” With that swift interruption, another solid pebble was thrown right at me. I just smacked it away. “Dauntless?”

“Wuh-- what are you talking…?” I shut my mouth and stared at her.

The way she leaned forward to listen to me had reminded me of a behavior I’d seen before from guidance counselors. I’ve had my fair share of time being forced to sit and talk with them. All they had done was either jotted down notes or somehow triggered a resentment I had about myself to keep me yapping.

It belatedly occurred to me that I was being studied. I shook my head in bewilderment and stammered a statement. ”I… if I cuh-- could, I would...”

“Fight? A warrior?” In response, she tilted her head to the side, smiled wider, and gave me a waving gesture to come closer. “Come.” I thought, ‘That’s bait.’

“I ss-- said, if I… if I could.” I knew damn well I was nowhere near capable of harming a creature who could fill the whole entire sky with flames.

And on top of doubting myself, I still felt a tingle of fear. It kind of felt like a needle had shot a full vial of terror up into my spine for me to stand so very still and frozen to the spot.

A gentle sigh of disappointment escaped from her ashened lips. “Foolish. A life spoiled, secured, to be laid bare and soft for the taking.” I didn’t have to ask if that described me. I had begun to decipher some of her weird manner of speech. “Bad parent?”

“Me?” I was taken aback by what she said.

“This Will I am charged with finding.” Very slowly, she begun to stand up as she continued to speak. “Weak.” One step was taken towards me.“Dull.” Another step, and another until the distance between us closed and she stood right in front of me. “How have you survived for so long?”

“Me?” Repeating the same single question had me believing that I had not been capable of coherent thought. I was scared of her.

Her smile dropped.

The tiniest brush of warm passed along and around my hip. By the time I mentally processed what I sensed, it was too late. I had completely forgotten she possessed a tail.

And she coiled it around my hips and waist before I was pulled into her.

In a blank episode of mindless terror, I came to my senses with slender, yet powerful, arms down along my sides, kept still, and my wrists locked tight in her strong grips. As if her hair were alive, I felt the ticklish course of their midnight blackness thread over, under, and all around my body.

What had me more alarmed was the lack of ground beneath us. There was an abundance of freedom for me to realize what the serpentine motion of her tail could lead towards. The heated ashen flesh of her tail was soft and yet firm while running its unfathomable length further around me. It had a tantalizing interest to explore other vulnerabilities in my state of exposure.

Despite how quickly water evaporated upon the contact on my skin, I felt the irritable sting in my eyes and cool trail of tears on my cheeks.

“A failure, your father.” I tried to jerk out of her hold, but I hadn’t the measure of strength in comparison her fathomless dark force. For some reason, that had brought the smile back to her lips. “Promise?” I didn’t want to pay attention to her anymore, but I wasn’t in a position to safely piss her off. “You’re correct. Not wise to anger me.”

As if to feature what might have happened if I had ignored her, I was greeted with a threat of either molestation or violation. The line of my rear had a touch of heat lazily running down to pass on to meet the concealed valley secured tightly between my legs. This tail, it had erotically sawed my cheeks apart while it poked and prodded until the long limb forcibly had squeezed through my barring of its passage.

“Stop! Stop -- Stop!” As I repeatedly cried out for her to stop, her tail circled and looped around my thighs individually for her to easily have my legs pried apart. I pleaded, and screamed: “Please, please stop!”

“Fight!!”

It was several seconds of hearing a high pitched ringing that I later had silently swallowed and my ears popped. I had then felt the constriction around my figure relaxed, squirmed for a second, and gradually loosened up to drop away from me.

The emotional state I had built up had gathered into a tantamount moment of all I had been through tonight up until this point. Everything I cared about was either lost or damaged and I was clearly not in control of my life. What was worse, I wasn't sure if I cared anymore.

...I still cared. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t feel like I had just fallen to pieces. Ever nerve had a sensitive sharpness to it, like I was covered in tiny cuts and the keen edges were still poised to deliver more harm to me.

And all I could've done was watch the bits of me fall.

It hurt. I was in an indescribable amount of pain from exhaustion. And it wasn’t the physical kind either.

Without ever receiving a single night of rest, or even a break from this nightmare, I hiccuped for every breath I took just so I could bawl my eyes out. I wanted this all to end.

“Broken?” Within her tight bonds, I felt the rumble through her bosom as if she growled in annoyance. It didn’t stop me from using her chest to hide my face in shame of defeat. A softer tone was used when she said, “Listen to me… ssh, listen.”

It was then that I heard her shushing me. The way I was now didn’t have an ‘off’ switch, so she failed at calming me the fuck down. And if she expected me to look up with attention, I couldn’t. I simply buried my face further and harder into her. I wasn’t ready for any of what she wanted me to do.

“...Broken.” My wrists had been let go, but I soon felt her embrace me. “A mentor. Fair. I’ll give you what is needed.” As per usual, I had no idea what she meant. That was until I she said, “Neglect has damaged your upbringing. A good, loving, protective parent is what I shall provide for you.”

In denial, I shook my head. If I heard what I thought I heard, I believed she meant to raise me. There was no way in Hell I would be okay with that.

“Trust... listen, trust me. Sshh… Stay beneath my roof a while longer.” She said it as if I could leave this Hellhole any time I wished. “I… I promise, before long, I -- or one of my own -- will have found your father.”

When she paused giving me her promise, I shivered in surprise. My feet had touched down on the ground, but it was cold as ice. Like a spider’s web, I felt the dark shrouding length of her hair break apart. I was unwrapped and presented to an arctic-like environment.

The snowy landscape… A frozen Hell.

My feet had not stayed in the snow for long. I was lifted up from behind the knees and supported with an arm around my back.

Then she sat down with me laid across her lap. I hadn’t taken notice when I stopped crying. I thought, ‘Maybe she did it?’

“No, to secure our realms, we each have an extreme element, and the Jotnar... never mind, you’re freezing. Hiss through your teeth.”

How I used to respond toward cool winds, I honestly had thought being I would be heaven, but this chill was a bit too much for me to tolerate. I supposed I had gone a little further down the path of fire.

After I gulped and swallowed, I half-heartedly obeyed her command. And as a result: a flare of rising heat followed by a series of cramps waving across my body.

“I will not be harmed by that, but others will. Use that against them.” I felt a stroke of heat hotter than me run along one side of my cheek, and then the other. “We’re early. She’s busy teaching someone a lesson. A brutal one.” With the roll of her shoulder, she nudged my cheek to face up towards her. There was only a small smile on her face as she said, “This is why I prefer warriors. To survive… the softer, more difficult, and yet the better for you to be molded into the shape required. Adapt.”

Once again, I simply tried to close my eyes and clear my mind in hope of just passing out. I was tired, so tired…

“Nourishment?” The icy-blue and white light of the sky had been bright enough for me to see through my lids, but not anymore. I felt the temperature rise around me until I was beneath a familiar blanket of warmth. “Rest. I will provide what you require… I… I will be here.”

Nothing more was said. Between us now was only the frigid wind battling our radiant heat, and silence…

---

I was startled awake.

Turning to see what had caused my surprise, I saw that Adam had jumped quickly out of bed and rushed to put some clothes on. I wasn’t in that Hell anymore.

It took me everything I had to keep myself from bursting back into tears. With my eyes shut, I kept silent until I convinced myself that I was safe. Adam and his family were the only ones in this house.

A minute later, I rolled onto my side and watched as Adam scurried around his room like a frightened mouse. In a strange way, his behavior this morning made me smile.

My initial thought was that he might be late for school. Then I saw the panic on his face was more concerning than receiving a tardy. He looked back at me, and with an upward wave of his hand, gestured for me to get out of bed.

Unsure of what was happening, I got up and out of bed to discover I was too sore to walk. I assumed he wanted me to dress, so I looked around at where he was pulling clothes from.

Careful to not get in his way, I took some clothes that looked comfortable. A long black tee, a pair of boxers that I easily slipped on, and some light dark green sweats tied snug around my waist before I let the black hem of my shirt fall over them. Likely, I would wear those flip-flops by the front door if I went out today.

With a sigh, I knew it was best that I should. For my sanity’s sake, I had to distract myself with something, and I had in mind a project.

That gutter and downspout had to be fixed.

Helen would have to take me to a store if we didn’t have the appropriate tools. I was busy going over the list of items in my head: short nails or screws, something to fasten the downspout to the wall more securely -- like a clamp -- and hammer or screwdriver -- depending on nails or screws. I didn’t want the nails long, otherwise I would have to frequently clean the downspout of debris that got caught by the trap I nailed in there.

While I had nails on my mind, and as I smoothed the shirt down around my hips and thighs, I saw my own fingernails had changed. They were longer, narrowed at the tips, and black. I inspected them to see if they might be that way from internal bleeding, but the nails themselves had colored that way.

So long they didn’t grow out any further, I would be content. I had no desire to be wielding dark claws.

As I remembered the nightmare I just had, I stood still and thought for a moment about these changes. My mind was set on a theory that my inhuman transformations were adaptations rather than demonic corruptions.

She, the dark demon, having considered what was now my daughter, would have thought of ways I could better protect myself and that tiny life which was vulnerable within me. Then later, I’d watch over an infant until she grew up to resemble me.

That thought caused me to shiver uncontrollably. To think I would become a mother…

To get my mind off of that, I looked at Adam and wondered why he had been silent. “Adam?”

He turned and faced me for a second with a smile that wavered as he saw me. “Ah, sorry. I was thinking about how to tell my mom what happened.” I watched him turn away from me to open the bedroom door. “I think, ah, I ah, I don’t know… ahmm, okay. YOLO.” He walked out and I followed him up to the open bedroom door to witness what he was about to do. He gave the master bedroom door a knock and called out: “Mom? Can you wake up? Ah, we kinda have an emergency.”

After a minute -- maybe a little more than that -- the door opened with Helen popping her head out to see and groggily ask: “What’s up?”

“I’ve got to go, but, ah, yeah… I know what you said yesterday, but we had an accident. I think…? I did it in my sleep without, ah, well, ya know…” The raised eyebrow she gave him silently said otherwise. “A rubber. Ahmm, and I don’t think she’s on the pill.”

That caused both me and Helen to drop our faces and stare at him. I never would have imagined he be this straightforward with his family.

And on another note: I would admit, he might honestly have thought that what happened last night was the case. I really was unsure if he had any semblance of awareness last night. So saying he had been asleep the whole time would have the ring of truth.

Helen rubbed her eyes sore and shook her head. “For fuckssake, Adam.” She sighed and closed the door. I heard her mumble through to us: “Getyer ass to school. I’ll get dressed.”

I looked from the master bedroom to Adam as he turned and waved at me. “Gotta go. I’ll see you later this afternoon, okay?”

In a soft voice, I said, “Adam...?”

What I wanted to say had caught in my throat in a swollen ball too fragile for me to voice. I was confused at what all was going on. I understood him going to school, but not what Adam was asking his mom to do. I didn’t like how Adam had described the situation or his mom’s reaction.

The tears I had successfully held back a minute or so ago were threatening to break free.

He quickly came over and gave me a swift hug before running off down the hall and down the stairwell to escape out the front door. I took a few steps out into the hall and leaned back against the wall, careful of the portraits, and waited.

Only Helen was available to tell me what was going on, and I didn’t want to disturb her while she dressed.

When she came out, her outfit confused me for the kind of weather we had. She had on tight black shorts, but a grey hoodie. I didn’t know what she was wearing beneath the hoodie, but I knew she had an extra layer under there.

She was just tapping her foot down onto a white sneaker as she hopped out of her room. I guess she had only finished fitting her feet into her sneakers.

She smiled at me and threw a thumb in the direction down the hall. “Alright, ready to book it?” Uncertain of what was going on still, I only nodded. “Kay, let’s go.”

Those green flip-flops were still kinda wet. Still, I slipped them on and trailed after Helen out the front door.

She picked up the morning paper and checked her mailbox for any goodies. I followed her, but became confused when she led me to the back of the house.

I saw why, and the way Adam’s house was structured made sense.

There was a garage, but it was built in back of the house to face a back alley behind the line of homes on the block. The elevation was why the house had that double-basement feel. If anything, it would appear the garage was a basement with a wide bay dock door for the vehicle to back down a ramp and merge onto the backyard drive.

We hopped into a luxuriously well-maintained black Taurus. The very instant she kicked the start on in the car and blasted the AC, all thoughts of asking her what was happening vanished.

My mindless excuse was that I leaned in to blissfully be cooled in the steady stream of cold fresh air. My feverishly burning skin was delighted to the point that I practically moaned into the vent.

“Heh, that good?” She leaned a little close to me with a palm feeling my forehead. “Jesus, yeah, you’re hot. You two weren’t joking about not feeling well.”

Then I felt her thumb catch and brush aside my hair to view one of my ears. I didn’t mean to be rude, but I jerked away from her touch instantly when the tip of her thumb touched the length of my ear. I watched her pull her hand away from me and grip the steering wheel, but she stared back at me.

Then smiled.

“You have a little Giske in you?” I tilted my head, confused, and glanced around in wonder where or if I’d heard who or what a Giske was. “Hey, dun’ worry. Very rare bloodline. I think they are Irish?” She shrugged and I felt the car pull out of the garage down to the alley. “They have abnormal features. I was interested in ‘em. Sometimes they have ears like yours. Others are born with thick tails, black eyes, vamp teeth… ah, and stuff. Sounds like a disorder, dunnit?”

I thought about the description for a moment. Aside from the fangs, she had described one feature that reminded me of a Hellish women I had encountered. The only one that had black eyes. The dark one and her had tails, but the woman who evoked lightning had a long whipping tail. Not to mention she had a row of sharp teeth.

But Helen’s description had missed a feature or two for this to fit the bill.

The AC helped, and this distraction all the more for me to regain my voice. I asked, “What about horns?”

“I’ve read about one case, but that was ah--” She paused a moment, reached down into her seat.

Out from the depths she pulled up to present her cellphone.

Handing the phone to me, she told me, “Look up the name Giske.” Then she resumed concentrating on escaping the alley to get on the main road, and turned when she succeeded. Then she casually continued the subject. “Okay, where was I, oh, ah, before photographs.” With a shake of her head, she added: “No real evidence that she was born devilishly hot and horny.”

“What?” I wondered what she meant by that description.

“Myths and legends, look it up and you’ll get the picture. No, really, there are pretty drawings of her.” I took her word for it. “What I read said she had horns, a tail, and more. The part that I don’t believe is the funny business: her beauty created rifts between nations and started conflict. A real bonafide bewitcher of men.”

I rolled my eyes and asked: “But she could have been?” Helen shrugged in response. I envisioned both the dark and lightning lady before admitting they both were beyond what beauty described. Those demonic traits would only add an exotic appeal to their appearances. “What about split tongues?”

Meanwhile, I typed up the search word ‘Giske’ and saw quite a few locations rather than fairytale people. Apparently Giske was an island named after a royal family somewhere in Norway.

That made me wonder why those born with the condition originated from Ireland.

In another way, I searched up the condition ‘Giske’ by adding ‘syndrome’ after and received better results. Like she’d said, some photos had people with black eyes. Their eyes impressed me with having large pupils with no colorful iris.

The ears on these people were more doglike rather than elfin. Mine were pointing up at a slight angle -- luckily, that made it easy for my hair to conceal them -- but these photographs showed their ears growing out and away to droop.

Some had teeth that were fanged only because the incisors never materialized. These photographed cases were like actual documented medical deformities. It was sad; I felt they had impurities or were failed experiments in comparison to me.

Those thoughts made me cringe because of how thoughtlessly disrespectfully I saw them. Maybe if they were closer to the source… No, they were better off not looking like either of them.

It was one thing to be loathed and misunderstood, but it was an entirely other subject for the ones that left people drenched in terror. Just the presence of the dark lady was enough, and the animalistic mania of the lightning lady was fearsome to behold.

Swallowing hard, I hoped, prayed, and wished I would not transform anymore into anything like that maniacal lightning-crazed demon. She was more monstrous than the dark lady. And if she had anything wrong with her, it was mental. I shuddered at the nightmarish image of her licking her teeth as if the sight of me gave her an appetite.

At least the name ‘Giske’ gave me something to call that Hellspawn.

Now all I needed was to label the frost giant and the terrifying mother… Or father? Now that I thought about it, she’d only confirmed being the parent, but never which role.

I then began to wonder, ’Who is the other parent?’

Pressing a gentle palm to my abdomen, I wondered more. About last night and the daughter I’d seen with those ice blue eyes, who reminded me of another with those same shiny blues. The fiery daughter had pulled me from the pit of ashes, and then the frost giant had extracted us and shielded her from the obscene tower of limbs.

They both had a brazen attitude. I thought, ’Maybe they are --’

“Rest.” The voice...

As my heart skipped a beat, I blinked rapidly and checked my eyes with a gently quick swipe of my knuckles.

Snapping out of it, shaking my head, I handed the phone back, apologized for spacing out, and asked her to repeat the whole -- or halved -- tongue thing again.

“Ah, hehe, it’s cool. You’re sick. Anyways, that was how I discovered Giske. Split tongues was why I looked into it. Controlling those halves looked... Uh, I was kinda seeing if I really wanted to go a little wild and do some surgery on myself. I didn’t, but the idea was extremely rad.” I caught her bite down gently on her lower lip as she sheepishly grinned at me. “I mean, ahmm… Okay, can you imagine his face when you go down on him? It’d be like giving him... ah fu-- I’m sorry.” She cringed and whistled a short little innocent tune.

Shaking my head, restraining a laugh, I leaned into the AC once more and said, “No problem.”

I had thought Adam might have gained his awkwardness from his father, but it looked like Helen was the culprit. I guessed that Adam was closer to her and maybe Denis had the older of the two sons to be impressed.

My thoughts returned to Adam, which had me question Helen on our destination. “Where are we going?”

“Over to the pharmacy for a map.” I was confused even more by what she’d just said.

I needed this clarified. “A map?”

“Morning-after pill.” And I got the message. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got ya covered.” I caught her shrug as she mentioned: “It took me and Denis… wait, I told you how long it took us to get Andrew, right? Anyways, it was a lot longer for Adam.” As she turned the steering wheel, hand over hand, she grinned at me. “Taking the pill early in the morn is just to be sure.”

It took me a little bit to process what she’d said before I felt like my lungs were being crushed. I leaned into the AC more and stared at the vent.

Securing an arm around my waist, I clutched at my chest as if it would make the pain there go away. What I didn’t understand was the reason I was feeling this oppressive pain. Then again, all I had to do was I remember he wasn’t included in on what I was going through. But I wondered, ’Why didn’t Adam talk with me about it first?’

I knew the answer. He had. 

Lowering my head, I closed my eyes to concentrate on how he’d mentioned prevention time and again. He didn’t want children so soon. There’d been nothing I could do! I’d tried to struggle against the supernatural temptation and protested against his possessed assault.

Even had I succeeded, eventually I would return to that Hell, and perhaps when that infernal daughter perished, I’d be imprisoned in that world for good or something worse in retaliation for my constant resistance.

In wonder, I thought, ’What do I do?’ I did what she told me to do! I could have fought Adam off of me, just one little hiss would’ve done it, but I didn’t. ’Will she ever understand that? If I took a pill, will I be forgiven for killing her daughter before she had a chance to live?’ I knew the answer and the horrifying consequences if I didn’t take the deal to full term.

And my dad wouldn’t have a chance, either.

”Refuse. You’re stubbornly good at that.” There was her voice again...

“-- entine? Clementine, look at me.” I glanced up at a Helen.

She looked at me worriedly. The hold around my waist tightened as I sat back upright in the passenger seat. Looking around, I saw we had parked alongside the road.

Helen startled me when she asked: “What happened?”

With wide-open eyes, I stared at her, wondering what she meant by that.

So I asked. “What do you mean?” I swallowed immediately when I heard how my voice trembled.

Then I felt how out of breath I was. I wondered whether the constriction in my chest was giving me trouble or if I had been hyperventilating.

Helen blinked her eyes shut and inhaled deeply. In my head, I counted and knew she was calming herself down. Now I was worried about what she had meant.

When she spoke, it was in a calmly incredulous manner, and I could detect the edge in her voice aimed either at the absent Adam, myself, or both of us. “In his sleep? Really?”

Technically, that was true for Adam. I glanced away and thought about how else I could explain that to be the truth. I just nodded.

“Clem…” She shook her head, looking away from me to survey everything else around her in what I could guess would be a fit of passive anger.

Believing she was getting the wrong idea, I spoke out in Adam’s defense. “He didn’t know -- I mean, Adam didn’t rape me, if that’s what you are thinking.”

Her eyes were in front while clarifying the story. “Didn’t know? Accidental rape? That’s still fucking rape.” I flinched and shook my head.

“That’s not what happened.” I shook my head again in loss for words. I didn’t know how to tell anyone what truly was going on. With a sigh, I sorta lied. “In his sleep, I played with him and -- and he did the rest. He wasn’t aware. I started it.” I nodded my head as I thought the last addition to the story was absolutely the truth. “This is all my fault.”

Watching and waiting, I hoped she would let last night’s event drop.

“And that’s why Adam was in a rush to leave ya alone with me?” My head and shoulders dropped when she mentioned that. She barked a single laugh as she shook her head more and cursed: “Fucking Christ.”

In anguish, I told Helen again: “It’s not his fault.”

She yelled: “That’s not what pisses me off!” She slammed her balled-up fist into the wheel hard enough to evoke a honk. “Him running away and leaving me with you...” Leaning back in her seat, she sat silently for a minute or more. In a softer tone, she turned to address the issue. “I understand he had school, that he had to go. You -- ah, you didn’t look worried. I... Clem, ya need to understand how much this hurts me. What he did, that’s not the boy I brought up --”

“I know! I’m telling you, he didn’t rape me.” Shielding my sight with a palm across my eyes, I leaned in and held my head up as I spoke reasonably in my perspective. “We shared a bed. Naked, together, tired from a day’s worth of bullshit. My house burned down and...” The breaths I took quavered. It was taking everything I had not to break down and cry. “Adam. Adam comforted me. I didn’t tell him everything that happened, but he knew I was hurting. When we went to bed, he -- I wanted this.” I continued covering my eyes, or else I wouldn’t be able to explain to her the bitter tears trying to stream down my face.

“Clem, if you’re tryin’ to convince me, you’re not putting on a good show.” After she made that observation, I heard her sigh: “Give it a rest, ya told me he didn’t, I believe ya. It’s him running off -- Look here, I’m not going to kick my son’s ass. I’ll talk his ears off --”

I choked and pleaded. “Please don’t. He’s all -- Right now, he’s all I’ve got.” He was, until I could regain my dad… If I could.

“Ah, ya know… Clem, get out for a moment.” That caused me to remove my hand and look up at her.

Confused, I began to unreasonably have thoughts that she was going to kick me out of the car. I didn’t worry, I just hadn’t understood.

“Come on, out.” Then she opened her door to step out. Following her order and example, I stood off to the side and watched her come around to approach me.

I stiffened in surprise as she hugged me tightly, then loosened her grip to simply hold me. The warmth of her embrace shattered what little I had left holding back my pain. I hid my face in her hoodie to muffle what was coming.

Once again, now in this world too, everything that had happened up until now had me crying hoarsely. She kept me secure and comforted until her shoulder was soaked in my tears. 

Helen’s hand came up behind my head to streak through my hair for the sole purpose to unveil my covered elfin ears. “You shouldn’t hide who ya are.”

A little smile was what she gave me.

She probably thought I really was one of those Giske born with a physical defect. That was kind of right, but I wasn’t born this way and I certainly wasn’t like anyone else.

Only if I could tell her how much my life was being ruined, then she would have had understood why I had hidden so much from her, Adam, and others. Why I was also afraid of how much more I might need to hide if I changed more.

After a few minutes of being held, I turned onto my cheek to see where we were exactly. I saw the old highway -- the only one that went through our town -- with its cracked black asphalt entirely riddled with green life doing all it could to grow through the neglected manmade foundation.

Across from the highway was the strip mall with a variety of restaurants, saloons, smoke shacks, a furniture warehouse, and a dual sports store and gym. Mostly people went to the mall for items or services that were difficult or unobtainable online.

Rolling my face over her shoulder, I looked past Helen to see what was on our side of the highway. A large grocery outlet for what I’d thought was a rundown establishment. I had been in the store before and it was pristine inside, but the parking lot was a disaster. I wasn’t sure if it fell to the outlet’s owners or the state or who to fill in the potholes that occupied more parking spots than the cars.

That might explain why Helen had parked alongside the road.

“Feeling any better?” After she gave me the opportunity to cry and calm down, I nodded. “Ready?” I tightened my hug around her in response. “What’s wrong?”

Taking a deep breath, I exhaled slowly and worked up the courage to tell her I couldn’t do this. “I can’t take that pill.”

It was possible I could’ve put on a performance and later dropped the pill down the toilet. But the reasoning behind why I told her, instead of pretending to take it and secretly throwing it away, was because she would know in a few months anyways.

Right now, I felt that the time to be honest was before we went into the grocery store for the pharmacy inside.

She lightly laughed for a moment. “It’s jus’ for assurance. I doubt you got knocked up in --”

I blurted out: “I know I’ll be -- I’m ovulating.” The quick thought popped in my head. I hoped that the message was clear enough to Helen that I had a very high chance of being knocked up. “I don’t want to lose Adam, but if he feels tied down because of me… I’ll figure something out. If push comes to shove, maybe adoption --”

“Hell nah!” She managed to push me a step back, her hands firmly on my shoulders, and gave me a serious face-to-face stare. “You plan on having a kid and your immediate thought is adoption? My grandkid, going off to some foster stranger and never seen again.” Shaking her head, she told me the fact: “That’s not happening.” Her gaze went over my shoulder to the grocery store, then back to me. “Are you sure? I’m not gonna force ya, but ah, this is a big decision and Adam will get tagged along.”

Being surprised by her reaction, I had to recover first. With a nod, I said, “Yes. I want this.”

“That being the case, we need to talk and Adam will hear a lot more from me about responsibility.” Wincing, I relented with a nod to Helen’s compromise.

To be clear, I honestly thought she was going to push me to prevent the pregnancy, being that naturally all I had in me right now was a diminutive cluster of cells. All it would take to flush me out was one disturbing little pill to upset me and trigger a bloody false alarm that the blastocyte in me wouldn’t be capable of clinging on for dear life.

If I had not known who was in me, I would still be subjected to the probability of miscarriage if my body detected something going wrong with the life in me, such as being deformed, but I was beginning to suspect another reason why I was transforming; To trick or adapt my body.

This little girl in me wasn’t human. For me to go through a full pregnancy, I had to either deceive those warning signs or become something akin to my daughter.

Groaning, I realized I could have a very intimidating toothy smile in the near future.

“Since we are here, want to pick up something to eat?” Helen’s suggestion inadvertently boggled my mind.

But it was a good question. And I had no clue when was the last time I ate.

“You read my mind.” I did want to pick up groceries.

Last night’s dinner fiasco had to be put right and I intended to do that by making dinner with a personal touch. Being much calmer, I thought about what to make as I nodded to Helen.

“I want to cook. To make up for last night.” While I thought about it, I also knew we should pick up any supplies I might need to repair the roof gutter. “Also, do you have a ladder?”

She shook her head in bewilderment. “Ya lost me. Cooking on a ladder?”

“Sorry, my mind is being a little hyper right now.” We took a break and started to walk towards the grocery store together. “Your downspout. It was thrown loose from the roof’s gutter and needs to be secured. Otherwise, the rainfall will keep eroding the soil under it until a natural flow sends the water either across the yard or in your home.”

With an audible slap, her palm boldly smacked her own forehead. I stared at her in wonder over what that was about.

Shaking her head, she told me: “I already told Denis, Drew, and even Adam... Ya’ know, I’ll do it. Clem, you’re not well enough to be climbing up ladders.” I was about to protest, but she revealed her red forehead and pointed a finger up at me to hold in what I was about to say. “You are a hot mamma. If ya run a fever and get dizzy up a ladder, ah, well, the rainy mud won’t soften the landing by much.”

“Point taken.” Smiling at how Helen had said that, I asked: “With your permission, am I fit to cook?”

One light shrug later, she grinned at me and gestured at the grocery store. “I’ll make that call once I see whatcha plan for dinner.”

Before we took another step, I had her arm barring me from going further. I asked: “Something wrong?”

“I know what I said earlier, and ya have every right to call me a hypocrite, but --,” she pulled out from the front of her hoodie’s pouch a pair of sunglasses. I was handed them for an obvious reason. “The ears are cool, though.”

With them on, I faced her and gestured up at myself for any indication on how I looked. But I had to ask, “How are my ears okay?”

She gave me a knowing smile. “Ever been to a Ren Faire?”

Shaking my head no, I said as much. “No.”

There was a brief moment of her pouting at me. Then she went on and said, “Aside from the actors amd reenactors, most of the crowd wear costumes to fit in. A few folks try the fantasy genre and slip on cute elf ears.”

I had to ask, “But not contacts?”

With a smile on her face, she stated: “Trust me, those red peeps are gonna give kids nightmares.”

Unable to help myself, I blinked. “They’re that bad?”

She immediately shook her head. “No, but -- Trust me on this, okay? Think of the wee ones.”

Once I shrugged the topic off, we resumed our walk.

A minute later, we headed into the grocery store. Considering what I’d had to go through, this experience was strange. I was shopping, which wasn’t odd, but picking things out with Helen felt out of place. With my dad, a stop at the store was to directly pick out what we needed that night.

In and out, lickety-split.

Helen, on the other hand, was a pleasure in the store. We didn’t rush past aisles for the items we needed, but instead weaved gradually through each to see what we might want to stock up on. Nothing was really a necessity, just a desirable potential for later like the herbs and sauces that could spice up our meals.

Bent and relaxed on the shopping cart’s handle, she explained to me a valuable lesson I knew all too well. “Believe me when I say this: Men only have two priorities to fulfill and a big one is his stomach.” She pointed out the freezer aisle. “That’s why I tend tah get the Hungryman TV dinners in case I’m not around. They stick it in and let the microwave do the rest.” I cringed and shook my head. “Ah, hah, Adam won’t eat that. Unlike my hungry men, Denis and Andrew, Adam prefers to know what all he’s being stuffed with.”

“I thought you and Denis, the whole family, ate and did things --” I paused a moment and thought about it; ’Do I really want to say healthy?’Putting it that way sounded rude. “You know, try new things that revolutionize dieting and exercise?”

Helen laughed and nodded. “Ah, yeah, I do.” Then she lifted two fingers up for me and said, “Adam is a dieting participant and Denis will eat anything. He’s my bear that will dispose of anything.” Dropping her fingers, she added: “As for Drew, he likes to work out. That’s about the closest I can get ’im. He’ll eat what I put on his plate, but then he’s out of the house.” I got the picture that meant Drew indulged himself -- without restraint -- when he went on his own. He looked big in the portrait photos.

“Well, I guess if he’s into working out, he’ll still be fit, right?” Helen stopped in her tracks in front of an open freezer door and stared down at the floor with wide open eyes. There was a little titter in her sigh.

“Wanna see?” She pulled out her cell and began to flip through it. A few seconds later, she handed me the phone and I got a load of the new and improved eldest son. He was larger than Helen’s husband with enough bulging muscle to make the Hulk greener with envy. “You will never guess his gym name.”

I lifted a brow. “Gym name?”

She beamed happily at me in amusement. “Yep!”

Looking back down at the cell, at Drew, I wondered what everyone would call someone like him. He was excessively burly and hadn’t a hair on his naked torso on display for whoever took this photo. With a shiny dome, he was bald enough to reflect the camera’s flash. Even his perfectly smooth, rounded and perspiring pecs had sparkled when the picture was taken. The cheesiest smile he had on his face made me want to laugh, but I wanted to reserve that comical moment for whenever I met him in person.

I handed the cell back and told her: “I don’t know… Mister Clean?”

“Pfft! Ha! That’s a good one. I’ll see if he wants to bleach his eyebrows for that name.” I snapped my fingers in regretful response for not checking his brow. “Nah, he’s called the Gym Barbie.” I tilted my head to show I didn’t get it. “Like barbarian, but like a Barbie doll.” I squinted in confusion. “Ya know, Ken was bald and all. That sorta git.” Glancing away for a moment, I just gave her a thumbs up and changed subjects by pulling out one of the varieties of Hungryman for her to judge. “Nah -- Ah, throw it in.” She pointed at the quantity deal sticker on the flat carton. “It’s on sale. Grab a few more.”

Smiling, I obeyed and took a few more of the on-sale selections. “Do we have all we want?”

“Dunno, do you?” I caught her eyes roaming over the ingredients we’d picked up in the previous aisles. “Whatcha making anyways?”

“Lasagna good?” She perked a brown brow up at me and smirked in response. “I mean, do you and Adam feel okay with that? I guess Denis doesn’t mind?”

“You cook what ya want. I’ll supervise.” She shrugged and added: “Might learn a new dish, eh?”

“Well, yeah, I think you might. I planned to copy a Rosalie lasagna.” I tapped at the six different cheeses for her to inspect. “Very cheesy… and noodly.” Then flicked a thumb at the large, flat, frilly dehydrated noodle box to indicate the two main items that were going into the dish tonight.

“Cheesy and noodly. Only one way to find out if it’s any good, and that’s by trying it.” Helen lifted up the cheeses, I guess out of curiosity, and inspected each of their Nutrition Facts tables on the back of their packages. “Ah, hmm… Yep, c’mon, let’s go.”

With her half-paid attention, she pushed the cart back around to the front of the grocery store for the checkout lanes. I kept an eye out for anything else we might want to pick up on our way to the checkout, but I didn’t catch anything else.

Helen, on the other hand, yoinked a pregnancy test right off the in-store pharmacy features display -- the shelves set next to the consultation and pick-up windows for customers awaiting their prescriptions to look at in the meantime.

“Just wanna be makin’ your announcement a sure thing.” With a grin, she dangled the pink test kit over my head before she set it in the cart. “Don’t go taking this right away. Wait a -- hold on...” She sounded uncertain for a moment as she picked the test back up and read the instructions. “Huh, whaddayaknow. Normally it takes two weeks… wait two weeks? Anyways, to be certain, maybe I should set up an appointment. ‘Kay?”

Cringing again, I knew I was pregnant, but I relaxed and nodded in acceptance. “An appointment… yeah.” That was a big event I would have to figure out for later.

As far as the world knew, Clementine didn’t exist.

”Worry about that some other time. Rest.” And once more, her voice intruded into my thoughts...

Once we reached the checkout; Helen bought the goods, we strolled out, packed up, and hit the road again.

It was in the car that I wondered when we were going to have that important talk. Not the one between me and Adam, but Helen’s and mine. I hoped it wouldn’t be when Adam returned. I would have preferred to hear what needed to be said in privacy, because I knew how I’d respond, but I wasn’t sure how Adam would react. If Helen heard my true feelings, then she would keep that in mind when Adam returned from school for his mom’s talk.

Then again, maybe she intended to kill two birds with one stone and talk to us at the same time. That would save time and effort, maybe a headache for her too, but I was afraid of the heartache if Adam didn’t have the same answers as me -- whatever the questions may be.

So I asked her to start before we headed back to the house. “Helen? What did you want to talk with me about?”

Helen glanced at me, then back at the road with a grin on her face. “Let me ask you this. Pretty general, if ya ask me. Do you know what yer doing?”

In part, I did know what I would be doing, but that wasn’t what she’d asked. “I’m making it up as I go along.”

“Heh, that’ll work. Listen, and do listen well, plan ahead. Dream up all the wonderful possibilities you would want and fit having a kid in that picture.” I frowned when I thought about that.

My focus had been on the future, but not that far into my life. Next year was the furthest I got. There wouldn’t be a whole lot for me to do in that year either.

More school. Maybe I would go to college... If I could avoid the authorities. The way my school year had gone, I would be lucky if I ended up behind bars.

All of my woes started with last year; now this year had literally gone to Hell, and next year was entirely thrown off and out onto its keister. I thought, ’Why try getting on top of everything when it takes only a single push to have it all come crashing down?’

I shook my head and said, “I can’t.”

She sounded confused and asked: “You can’t see your kid in the big picture?”

A little laugh escaped me because that had been the complete opposite of what I could envision. I knew what my daughter would look like. “No, sorry. I don’t know what to do with my life anymore. Whenever I’ve thought about what to do, I’ve committed, but then someone or something would come around to take the carpet right out from under me.”

It was kind of amazing when I thought about the one true thing that was assured in my future. Especially if I had a demonic mama constantly hovering over every single one of my thoughts.

Settling a hand over my abdomen, I told her: “This one, my future, I know can’t be taken from me.”