Savages

39: Rats

Sannah was up first. Judit could hear her moving around the blackhouse, and hoped she was making breakfast. Bread and eggs, eggs and bread. The clinking of a pan, the sloshing of water. It was a cosy sound, a comforting sound, and Judit's half-sleep felt like the inside of an egg; cosy, safe and soft.

Then, a sharp intake of breath, a pained cry, and reality dissolved Judit's eggshell.

It was Merle, not Sannah. Sannah wasn't there. Perhaps not anywhere. Judit's face puckered as she came round to the starkness of the morning; to that horrific, unavoidable fact.

Merle had stayed over last night, and it was almost like old times, the two of them friends again. It had been nice, having someone in the house. Kick out the ghosts. Maybe Merle would move in full time? Hegri was with Lintie now, wasn't he, thanks to Lulu and her prejudice? Merle didn't have to stay there too. It was stupid, three of them all squashed together.

And me and Brock alone, Judit thought. Maybe she didn't want Merle to stay, after all. Maybe he could move in with her.

But he wanted perfect Lintie, just like everyone else. He'd made his choice.

As if on cue, an angular point on Judit's stomach stretched and contracted, an alien inside her, trying to get out. Judit wished she had never woken up.

Another cry pierced the box-bed curtains, followed by the clatter of something hitting the ground, a pained skit.

"Merle!" Blinking herself into full consciousness, Judit pulled the curtain back and jumped out of bed. "What are you doing?"

"I'm fine," Merle snapped. She was crouching on the floor by an upturned pan, water dark in the dust. "I'm just..." She attempted to pick the pan up by the handle, using her wrists more than her fissured, seeping palms. The pan fell again, giving off a dull chime as it hit the ground.

Judit took the pan from Merle, refilled it, and placed it over the unlit fire. Glancing up as she arranged the wood, she caught Merle staring at her orbicular belly, prominent in her straining thermals. Embarrassed, Judit shifted her knees in her crouch, trying to hide it.

Things felt different, today. Judit couldn't put her finger on it, but in the brittle air of the morning, something was wrong.

Merle was different, and Judit didn't know why.

And last night she had told Merle about... about the terrible thing. About her problem.

Had she made a mistake? Judit remembered Gaen, in the woods, confronting her about Brock. That Merle had told him everything.

"It's done now," Judit said, forcing her voice to sound casual, though her tendons were tight as old leather. She gestured to the blue-fresh flicker of the fire. "Shall I make some breakfast?"

Merle didn't say anything. She was still kneeling on the floor, brow knotted, clawed hands in front of her, face dark as a storm-cloud.

Judit carried on talking, just to break the itchy silence. "I'll go to the store-room, see if there's any eggs."

"There won't be any eggs," Merle replied, voice sullen.

"I'll go see," Judit said, trying to push her uneasy thoughts as far back as she could. "And potatoes. I know we have potatoes. Do you want to come?" She glanced again at Merle's red, seeping hands, imagined how the soles of her feet must look. Pus, sticking to her socks, an extra layer of dirty woollen skin. Judit imagined peeling those socks away, and suppressed a shudder. "It's okay," she said quickly. "I'll go."

Merle's bottom lip protruded. "Skitting hands." Her voice was sour. "I'm a dead weight. Useless."

"You'll get better soon," Judit said. She wasn't sure she believed it. Merle's hands looked like they were getting worse.