The House (53 page)

I sat and
swirled my hot chocolate. I had needed something with sugar. I knew
I had to tell her, I just had to get up the nerve. After everything
that we had been through and everything that had happened I
couldn’t believe I was trying to back out of telling Stripes. I
took a deep breath and just said it. The relief of revealing the
last worry I had picked up was immense.

“I missed my
period,” I whispered to my drink. She heard me; superhuman hearing
is good for some things. I found myself wishing that I’d chosen a
more private place for this discussion, but I hadn’t wanted to have
it at the House. It was too risky. I couldn’t even look at her.

“How long by?”
she asked gently. I was glad that there was no pity or accusation
in her voice. I wouldn’t have been able to cope.

“A week.
There’s just... nothing,” I replied. She didn’t ask me if I was
sure, or if I might have miscounted. We were good at twenty-eight
day cycles, and I had never, ever been late. Sometimes I thought it
was due to being a shifter with our enhanced healing or whatever.
My body seemed to function perfectly all the time. Except my period
hadn’t come. And there was no indication that it was planning to
make an appearance any time soon.

“Have you
taken a test?” Stripes asked, her voice still below audible hearing
for a human. Nobody would overhear us. We would just look really
silly sitting at a table apparently both talking to ourselves. I
couldn’t bring myself to care. Let them think whatever they
wanted.

“No, I haven’t
left the House until today. I couldn’t exactly ask anyone to get me
one.” I looked up at her. Her face was passive; she pushed a lock
of hair behind her ear and rested her hands back on the table. I
could practically see the cogs turning in her head. I could also
feel the rush of happiness underneath her concern. She would wait
and see how I felt before deciding which face to show me, but a
pregnancy was always good news in our world.

“Ok, do you
want to do one now?” Modern pregnancy tests were wonderful things.
You could take one before you’d even missed a period and get a
reasonable answer. As it was, the test would be pretty much 100%
accurate.

“Yes, please.”
I sounded pathetic and needy. I had to pull myself together. I had
to get over the fear that washed through me every time I thought of
the tiny person that was most probably growing inside me.

We finished
the last of our drinks before we made our way to the pharmacy. I
wanted to drag my feet and shuffle along slowly, but Stripes took
my hand and practically dragged me along. She walked with
single-minded determination towards the shop. It was only a matter
of ten steps away from the coffee shop. I counted as we walked.
Anything to keep my mind off what we were doing.

Stripes was
the one who selected the test. It was a well known brand, not the
cheapest but not ridiculously expensive either. She got two. When
we got to the counter the pharmacist asked if we needed any help
with the tests and Stripes said no. The pharmacist, in the way of
all good medical professionals, didn’t judge me despite my obvious
fear. He asked if I needed help with anything else and let us on
our way. I liked it when they did that. I hated to think of the
kinds of things they saw. He had genuinely cared for my plight. I
had seen that before shutting myself away again. It was a
comfort.

We walked hand
in hand to the public toilets with the tests hidden in my bag. I
was worried about not being able to pee enough to even do the test
then. It just added to everything else in my head. I couldn’t
believe I had gotten myself into such a situation. I felt really,
really stupid.

There was no
queue since the whole shopping centre was nearly empty anyway. We
went into the disabled stall together. It was better than cramming
into one of the smaller ones and I didn’t want to leave Stripes
just then. I couldn’t stand it. I probably wouldn’t have been able
to leave her anyway, not out there on her own. We needed each other
right then.

“You’ll be
alright, Trix,” Stripes told me as I handed her the first test,
handle first. I kept the second one myself so that I could choose
whether to ask her or look at mine for the result. I wasn’t sure
what I wanted as we waited the full minute until the test could
give me an answer.

The light
flashed as the minute expired and I looked down automatically.
There was a tiny plus sign. I thought I might be sick but I sat
very still on the toilet seat until it passed; nerves rather than
the pregnancy. Stripes had put it down for me when I washed my
hands. I took very deep breaths and I looked up at Stripes. I knew
her test would say the same.

“What do I
do?” I asked her. I put my hand to my belly; there was nothing
there to show anything yet. Only a tiny ball of cells deep within
me, the only sign I’d had was my missing period. Everything else
would come later, at least in my understanding.

“What do you want to do?” Stripes asked. It was a good
question really, however much it infuriated me. I wanted answers. I
wanted to be
told
what I should do. Which answer was the best. I wanted more
than anything Marie’s arms around me.

I thought
about all of the times Marie had been pregnant – there were none in
my memory but she had told me about them. About how each time the
child had washed out of her body before it was ready. About the
little tiny faces and hands that didn’t move. Lungs that didn’t
work. About grotesquely shifted foetuses which strangled themselves
inside her. Yet I knew she would have smiled at my news. She would
have put her warm hand to my abdomen and told me that it was a
blessing.

“I didn’t think we got pregnant. I forgot, Stripes. How could
I be so stupid? How!? Of
course
we get pregnant, we’re super healthy all the
time, why wouldn’t we be healthy in this as well?” Stripes took the
test from my hands and put it with the other one on the little sink
before wrapping her arms around me. Pressing her heat against me to
still my shivers.

“Shh...shh...it’s going to be fine,” she whispered in my ear. It
reminded me so much of Marie that the tears came faster. “We all
make mistakes. And it’s so much easier to believe that fertility
itself is our problem, so much less painful.” I knew she was right.
I knew that it was easier to think that we just couldn’t get
pregnant rather than the alternative. We had no problem with
conception; our bodies just wouldn’t hold a foetus safely within
us.

“I wish I
could go back and smack myself,” I told Stripes and she laughed a
little. She pulled back so that she was leaning against the wall of
the stall. I couldn’t bring myself to stand up just then. My legs
didn’t feel like they would support me.

“But you
can’t,” she said. “Even if I would pay to see it.” She smiled at me
and it felt a bit better. I couldn’t yet smile myself but I could
dry my tears. “What do you want to do with it?” she asked again.
That was the vital question and one I had no idea how to answer.
Although I never really had any options.

“I always
looked at pregnant shifters with pity,” I finally replied. “Their
bodies just wouldn’t hold a child for long enough, or the child
would die in them before they had a chance to birth it.” I looked
up at Stripes and I knew that the sheen in her eyes was matched by
one in my own. We had a hard time accepting our lot when it came to
children. The edge of happiness that I had felt flicker in her at
first was being quickly squashed by the worry and fear that
statement elicited.

I remembered
hoping that Hannah would be one of the women who would never think
of children. Who would never miss their absence. I knew that I
would never be one of those women. I hadn’t thought of it directly,
of what I would do or how many I would want. I had always taken it
as a given that one day I would marry a witch and I would have a
family. It was the way of things, it felt right to me. I had even
accepted that my grandfather would choose my husband one day.
Possibly one day soon. Strange that I would trust him with
something so important after spending so many years railing against
him.

“I can’t stand
to watch my baby die in my body,” I said. “I can’t. All of them,
all of those women, they try again and again and again. I don’t
think that I can handle that kind of pain.” I felt the tears slip
from my eyes again. A part of me was joyful at the news. The part
that said I’d be fine, that I’d have a little baby to love and care
for. For the joy that it would bring in the face of so much pain.
The rest of me screamed that it wasn’t fair, that I wasn’t ready to
take that risk.

“I know,”
Stripes said. It was something we had spoken of once. Pregnancy and
its dangers to us. It wasn’t just the foetus that was in danger,
shifters died in pregnancy far too often and we couldn’t get proper
medical care half the time. It would be all too difficult to
explain a half-shifted foetus.

“You don’t
have to decide anything right now,” she told me. “There are plenty
of other things to occupy us all for the moment. You don’t have to
tell anyone and you don’t have to choose. Not yet.” She hugged me
again.

It was all
well and good to say that, but I knew that eventually I would have
to make up my mind. Eventually it would be too late. I also knew
something else; I couldn’t bear to think of my own child being
washed from my body in blood.

I didn’t think
I could cope with it even if it was the doctor who made it so. Even
if the child wasn’t enough to even be seen yet. I had watched too
many shifter women wander through life only half there, mourning
children they had almost had. I thought of Marie. I knew then, in
spite of everything else, in spite of the fact that I was young and
single, her face would have lit up if I’d told her. It was that
thought that started to ease my fears.

Stripes could
say that I didn’t have to make a decision right away but I had
known since I realised I would need a pregnancy test. I had known
that I didn’t really have a choice. There were some things that I
didn’t think I could ever get over and losing a child was one of
them. I just had to decide if what was growing inside me counted as
a child yet.

We didn’t stay
in the bathroom too long. I walked out under my own power and with
my head up. As Stripes had said, we had other problems to think
about. I had to leave for the High Council in the morning. I had to
face them and convince them not to kill me. It remained unspoken
between us that we wouldn’t tell anyone else just yet. I wasn’t
ready.

I wasn’t ready
for the High Council. I wasn’t ready to run the House. I wasn’t
ready to raise a child properly. I was scared and hurt and couldn’t
see past any of the things stretched out in front of me. Only
Stripes’ hand in mine kept the panic at bay.

The skyrail
was horribly imposing from the ground and it wasn’t much better
from the platform. My grandfather had gotten us second-class
tickets for which I was grateful. There was no point in travelling
first class, unless you had stupid amounts of money to burn, but
third was always dirty and overcrowded. I wanted the chance to sit
down and try to relax.

Our train came
into the station exactly on time, which must have been a miracle.
You always planned for the train to be at least ten minutes late. I
picked up my suitcase and the suitcase Jalas had brought along for
me and hustled it onto the right carriage. I always worried that it
would leave without me if I didn’t rush. The others came along at a
more sedate pace with only one suitcase and a day bag each. The
train didn’t rush off without anyone.

I found our
seats at the other end of the carriage then realised that I had to
take my suitcases back to the rack at the end I’d got on. At least
there was room on the rack. I pushed my baggage right down to the
back to reduce the chance of someone stealing it. Not that anyone
would try since the whole place was covered in cameras but I was
paranoid. I didn’t need anything else to go wrong.

Stripes smiled
and pulled me into a hug when I sat next to her. I was trying not
to let Jalas and Eddie know that there was anything more wrong than
‘just’ the trial. I suppose the thought of a death sentence was
enough to explain my behaviour. My mind was too full of the thought
of what was growing inside me. I still had no idea what to do. No
idea how to tell them. It felt like I had two death sentences
hanging over my head. In a way I did; pregnancy is that dangerous
for shifters.

I leaned
against Stripes for a while until I couldn’t face my own
patheticness. The House was still my responsibility. They might let
me off just for that. I had so many responsibilities that they
couldn’t just dismiss me. They would have to think about it.

Of course,
that also meant that I would have to make a decision about my
pregnancy. If they just put me to death it wouldn’t matter. It was
hard to think of the trip that way; that I might be going willingly
to the gallows. It didn’t sit right in my head. It felt more like a
road trip, albeit a very strange one. For now at least I was around
friends. We should be chatting and playing card games to pass the
time.

To my
surprise, Eddie had brought several of the board games from the TV
room. My head had been too full of other things. I would have left
without any food or water if Hercules hadn’t pressed a bag into my
hands before I left. I stared incredulously at Eddie for a moment
before I spread out the games to see them better. It really would
feel like a school trip.

“I didn’t know
what everyone would want to do,” he said. “I can just read if
nobody wants to play games.”