My Pretties, by K.C. Mead-Brewer
Deirdre has no idea how to stop this. Could just say ‘stop’, she reminds herself, but no, look: Lisa’s already dimming the lights and everyone’s already setting aside their yellow squares of cake, preparing to summon the dead. The group of five women gather about Heather’s round, glass-top table, clearing it of balled wrapping paper and plastic champagne coups, bedazzled dick-shaped water guns and stray giftbags.
Deirdre wasn’t at all surprised to learn the séance was Lisa’s idea.
“Think of the narrative circle of it all,” Lisa had said at the party-planning brunch, nearly spilling her bellini in her excitement. “While we celebrate and look forward to new life”—she’d gestured at her own flat middle, implying Deirdre’s rounded one—“lets also take time to celebrate and honor the dead. Dee will love that. I mean, her mom just died.”
It’s true: Deirdre’s mother Sandy—it’d become much easier to call her Sandy than Mom—died a mere three months ago. Endometrial cancer; the tumor had stretched her gut wide, tight, and bulbous. “It’s like you and me all over again,” Sandy had told her daughter, petting her swollen belly.
Sandy died at home under Deirdre’s care, tucked into the hospital bed the hospice team had set up. A clanking, adjustable contraption encased in shit-brown plastic. Deirdre had tried not to think of what having a baby would be like as she changed her mother’s diapers and woke up hourly to give her medication, wiped disturbing liquids from her nostrils and collected the toenails that crumbled like scabs from their beds. She tried not to think about what kind of mother she might be as she cared for the example who’d raised her. The woman who’d found it easier to hit than to argue. Who’d gotten her daughter a puppy for no other reason than to threaten to put him down. Who’d insisted until the day she could no longer speak that she wasn’t going to die, she couldn’t, she wouldn’t, not without meeting “her new baby.”
Sandy’s last words were gasped and whispered, her chest gurgling with some viscous fluid: “The baby—I want to see the baby.”
She finally died after three days of unconsciousness. Her body had been restless against the transition, and so Deirdre spoke the incantation the hospice nurse had taught her: “Don’t fight it, Mom. It’s all right. You can go.” Fly, my pretties, fly, fly.
When it was done, Sandy’s left eye rolled upward but the right one stared straight ahead.
Only Deirdre was there to see these details, of course, which perhaps explains why her friends are so surprised when she doesn’t suggest her mother’s name for the summoning.
“Judy Garland?” Nicole snorts into her bubbly. “I mean, sure, Dee, why not? If she doesn’t answer, we can always try Angela Lansbury.”
“Sondheim’s dead, right?” says Charme. “We could try him, too. Do you think ghosts can sing?”
“Isn’t that what whale-song is?” says Heather.
“Oh my god”—Nicole again—“ghosts would one-hundred-percent sound like whales.”
“No, no, no.” Lisa makes a chopping motion with her hands. “We’re supposed to try contacting people we have some relationship with, not random celebrities. This is about connection.”
“Who says I don’t have a connection with Judy Garland?” (Deirdre doesn’t even believe in ghosts, really, but sometimes Lisa is just so Lisa.) “Judy was my mom’s favorite singer-actress-person. When I think of my mom, I think of Judy.” The sudden heat of tears startles her, and Deirdre hastily blinks it back. She can still hear her mother singing, clang clang clang went the trolley, ding ding ding went the bell… The way her mother’s voice floated. It was her one undeniable, unruinable beauty; a voice gleaming and light as a soap bubble. “Besides,” Deirdre says, clearing her throat, “Mom’s still getting acclimated to The Other Side. I don’t want to hinder her progress.”
Deirdre touches her growing middle and thinks of the little life waiting on a different kind of Other Side. Kick for me, she thinks to it, but no. He or she or they only ever tiptoe around in there, it seems. None of the gymnastics that Nicole experienced with her baby or the bruised ribs that Charme endured from hers. Deirdre knows she ought to be grateful for the reprieve, but she can’t stop hoping for some movement, big or small, painful or ticklish. Something.
Her mother’s death had been so gruesomely visceral. It isn’t fair that her pregnancy should be maddeningly ethereal by comparison.
She can’t explain to the others why she doesn’t want to talk with her mother right now, why the mere idea makes her cold with dread. How it felt to watch her mother die. (Seasick. Relieved. Seasick. Relieved.) How her mother’s final breath had smelled. (Like decay. Like she’d been decaying while she was still alive.) How Deirdre had scrubbed her face raw trying to get the feeling of that breath off her skin, terrified that it might somehow affect the baby. Terrified that some part of her mother might tunnel down and take the baby for herself.
The baby, that breath had said. I want to see the baby.
“If Deirdre wants Judy, then I do too,” Charme says, combing her candy-pink nails through damp, Utah-blond hair. “I mean, we were literally just squirting each other with glittery dicks. It’s a game, so let’s have fun.”
Heather sticks up her hand like an eager student. “I want to ask Judy if it’s true about that Munchkin actor killing themselves on camera.”
“Jesus, Heather,” says Nicole, “I mean…inappropes? But also, let’s do it? It is Dee’s party, after all.”
“It’s Dee’s party,” Lisa agrees, “but this isn’t just another game.” She unpacks the Ouija board. 2 – 4 Players, the box reads. Ages 8 and Up. “This is serious.”
Deirdre squeezes her eyes against a blooming headache. “Fine, fine. Don’t want to offend the spirits.” A deep breath. A Stepford smile. “Who are y’all thinking about then? Are dead pets off-limits?”
But as they light the candles and greet the spirits and lend their fingertips to the planchette, the only face Deirdre pictures is Judy’s.
Judy’s five marriages by the age of forty-seven. (Would she have matched Sandy’s six if she’d lived as long?) Judy’s death by drug overdose. (How much more morphine had Deidre been forced to give Sandy because of her addiction-warped tolerance?) Judy’s constant pressures from her mother to achieve perfection. (How violently Sandy trembled during one hallucinatory moment toward the end, confusing Deirdre for her own mother, frightened she was in trouble for lazing around in bed.) Judy who was beloved and troubled and dead. Judy who’d fallen from the crest of a rainbow and known that she’d been pushed.
#
There’s some inching around the board and a few dramatic flickers of light. (“There’s no weather tonight, right? The storm’s skipping us?” “Yeah, no, just some wind, I think.”)
At one point Charme gasps—“There in the mirror.” She points to the silver oval hung on the opposite wall. “Something moved, I swear to god.” But the truly memorable moment is when Nicole snaps her hands away from the table, mumbling about the feeling of moth wings on her cheek.
The only thing that visits Deirdre is a headache. No Judy, no Sondheim, and—despite Lisa’s infuriating whisper, “Mrs. Graysmark? Dee’s mom? Are you there?”—no visitations from any family members, either.
As they say their goodbyes to the spirits, though, and pack the board back up, Deirdre itches against the idea that she can smell her mother’s breath. She touches her middle, holding the curve protectively. It’s my baby, she thinks to that rotted breath. Mine.
#
The party’s over now and the women take turns thanking Heather for hosting. They hug with their bodies angled toward the door and say all the usual things—see you then and let’s have lunch and give my love to—and then Deirdre is home again.
The house is dark and quiet. No pets, no partner. Deirdre used to like it this way, found the solitude a relief after living under Sandy’s thumb for so long, but now that her mother is gone, when she thought she’d finally feel free— Dead is the opposite of gone, Deirdre realizes. Dead is everywhere. And now Mom is too.
“Nope, nope, nope.” Deirdre locks the front door behind her. “You’re tired, lady. Go to bed.”
She pops her neck as a punctuation mark and leaves her massive giftbags at the door. The headache has narrowed to a single, iron screw squeaking tighter behind her left eye; she keeps the lights low as she moves through the house. She pours herself a glass of water (Heather’s cake was way too sweet, sickly and somehow a little sour too, the kind that leaves you feeling dry as powder), and she has exactly one second to think what a joy it is to feel the coolness of water spread out inside one’s body before her cellphone starts blaring.
An emergency system alert. “Just some wind” Charme had said of the forecast, but Deirdre hadn’t noticed any on the drive home. Probably an Amber Alert, she thinks, and wonders if she’s already a bad mother for knowing she’ll simply delete it. She frowns at her phone.
“Tornado warning?” But that has to be a mistake. There’s no storm, for one thing, and she’s in Baltimore, for another. “A weird glitch, I guess?” She clicks off the alert and abruptly the world is far too quiet. A heavy, smothering silence. “Clang clang clang went the trolley,” she sings softly, against the quiet, and goes back for the giftbags. “Ding ding ding went the bell, zing zing zing went my—”
BANG BANG BANG. The door rattles in its frame.
Deirdre stands rigid in the dark hall. She waits. But there’s nothing more.
“Chill out,” she whispers to herself. It could be Olga from next door, maybe she needs help. Or maybe Alex’s cat has gotten loose again and they want help searching. Or, or, or.
She looks through the peephole: no one’s there.
“Nope,” she says again. “Nope, nope. No way.”
She checks the lock and moves back from the door more quickly than necessary. Takes the bags into the kitchen. Everything’s fine. Everything’s normal. Her head hurts, though. She switches off the overhead light; she’ll just use the stove and under-cabinet lights instead. Heather insisted she take the entire three-quarters of a yellow sheet cake home, and Deirdre hadn’t had the strength to tell her it would only be three-quarters of a yellow sheet cake directly into her trash. She opens the fridge, another handy nightlight, and starts making room for Nicole’s leftover vegan meatballs and Charme’s artichoke dip. She can get rid of this old lasagna, free up some space. She heaves out the heavy glass pan, and it slips from her hands at the sight of a face in the dark, shattering at her feet.
“Oh dear!” says the girl standing in her kitchen. It’s hard to see her at first, the shadows sharp and triangular on her face. But then there she is: Her eyes are as blue as her blue gingham dress. Her shining brown hair is tied in two perfect pigtails. She smiles with all her teeth. “I hope I didn’t scare you. I had to use the kitchen door. No one answered at the front.”
The lasagna looks like so much peeled skin and chunked blood splattered along the floor. The old tomato sauce smells sharp and sour as rust. Distantly, Deirdre’s glad she kept her shoes on. All this broken glass.
“You’re Judy Garland,” she says.
“Who, me?” The girl sticks a finger into the cake’s icing and takes a taste. “Why, no, I’m Dorothy Gale, from Kansas.”
That technicolor face; that round, full voice. The child who’d been slapped across the cheek for laughing at too many of the Cowardly Lion’s jokes on-set. The child who’d been hit for being a child at all.
“Oh my god,” Deirdre whispers. “You really are Judy Garland.”
“I AM NOT JUDY GARLAND,” the desperate child and mother and person and dream all shriek. Then she smiles again. A mere girl once more. “Judy Garland’s dead, after all. And she was a bad witch. (Drugs and divorces and drunkenness, you know.) I’m Dorothy Gale. I was just caught up in a twister. Now I’m following the yellow brick road.” She gestures with another fingerful of yellow cake. “And you? Are you a good witch or a bad witch?”
“I’m not a witch.” Deirdre suddenly feels quite numb. “I’m Deirdre Graysmark.”
“Deirdre Graysmark?” says Dorothy. “But that can’t be.”
“It can’t?” Deirdre gropes the empty air behind herself until she finds the kitchen island. She clutches the butcherblock for balance.
Dorothy leans in conspiratorially, whispering, “She was crushed by a house. I saw it. I saw her severed feet poking out from the rubble.”
“Oh, well, no.” Deirdre manages a tiny step back and it squelches in the mess. The island’s edge digs into her spine. “I’m fine. I’m right here.”
“It’s the strangest thing,” Dorothy says, creeping closer, and Deirdre hears herself say, “Oh, be careful of the glass—” but of course the girl’s safe; she’s wearing the ruby slippers.
“You are Deirdre Graysmark, aren’t you? The house didn’t crush you at all.” Dorothy touches the lightest, barest fingertip to Deirdre’s middle. “It landed right here.”
Don’t touch me, Deirdre wants to say, but she can’t move her lips to speak. She can’t move at all.
Dorothy smooths her palm over Deirdre’s stomach. She whispers, “I had a baby once…”
“Three, actually,” Deirdre says. “Or no, that was Judy.”
“They were mine,” Dorothy snaps, her grip tightening painfully on Deirdre’s flesh, her face flashing abruptly older. Lined and worn and thin and forty-seven. “My rainbow…oh!” Dorothy smiles up at her, the full face of a child once again, her teeth so white, but her eyes—they aren’t blue anymore. They’re pink. An endless, glowing pink. “She’s kicking.”
Deirdre rushes to feel for herself, but her hands can’t make contact; they hover above the swell as if stopped by some invisible barrier. She feels like a witch with a crystal ball. She can’t feel anything; it’s all cold and solid as glass.
Her cellphone starts yowling again, another tornado warning.
Dorothy presses her cheek against Deirdre’s belly, nuzzling like a kitten. “Oh, Deirdre.” She looks up at her with those pink orb eyes. “It’s Oz in there.”
“Stop,” Deirdre says, shaking with the need to run. “Stay away from my baby.”
“The baby!” Dorothy says, delighted. “I want to see the baby.”
Deirdre feels gray and fragile as a skin of ice. She whispers, “Mom? Is that you?”
“I’m not your mother, silly.” Dorothy’s smile is madness itself. Those pink eyes glowing. Her breath—her breath— “I told you: I’m Dorothy Gale. From Kansas.” She lifts the pointed cake server from nowhere. “And I want to see the baby.”
The house begins to rock and groan as if lifted from the ground, and Dorothy plunges the cake server into her belly.
Oh, Deirdre thinks, laughing into her scream, it’s like one of those TikTok videos. I was made of cake all along.
Just look: Dorothy’s devouring a moist, red slice of her right now.
“Here she is,” Dorothy says through a crumbling mouthful. Her pink eyes widen on Deirdre’s split womb. A horrible green light needles outward to illuminate her cheeks. “Here she is, right here.”
Deirdre gasps, jerking awake in Lisa’s arms. “Here she is!” Lisa says. “Here she is, thank god.”
The other women surround her, cooing gentle phrases. She’s on the floor beneath Heather’s round table.
“What happened?” She wants water; her throat feels glued together. “What—” She reaches for her baby but hits herself instead, her arms weak and uncoordinated.
I’m not cake, she thinks. I’m whole. I’m alive.
“You’re okay,” Nicole’s saying, touching her forehead.
“You’re safe,” Lisa agrees. “You just fainted, honey. Gave us a real scare.”
Heather fetches her a glass of water and Charme squeezes one of her hands.
“One hell of a baby shower,” Nicole teases, sitting back with relief.
“But I went home?” Deirdre pats herself over, still convinced she’ll find a cake server sticking out somewhere.
“We’re getting you home right now, hon, before the storm hits,” says Heather, “don’t worry.”
“I,” but Deirdre can’t think of what to say. She can’t think. “Yes, I want to go home.” Though she isn’t sure she wants that at all.
There’s the commotion of moving chairs and picking up bags, I’ll call you and drive safe, and Deirdre finds herself tucked into the passenger seat of Lisa’s car. She stretches the seatbelt over her belly, making sure once again that no pieces have been cut out of her. There’s a pain sharpening itself behind her left eye. Did she hit it against the table when she fell? Or on the floor? She flips the visor to check herself in the mirror—except she isn’t there.
Mom? No—no, it isn’t her mother. It’s her. It’s her own left eye that’s rolling upward while the right stares dead ahead.
Deirdre slams the mirror back up. She blinks and blinks and blinks and blinks. See? Her eyes are fine. They’re fine. Fine.
“Everything okay, hon?” Lisa asks, climbing into the driver’s seat, and of course Deirdre says,
“Fine. I’m fine. Just tired, I think. I’ve never fainted before.” Deirdre smiles; a brittle, jagged line. “Thank you so much for the ride, Leese,” and Lisa demurs and reassures and starts the car, and Deirdre says, “Guess I ruined the séance, huh?”
“Are you kidding? It was nuts talking to your mom like that! Did you see Heather’s face? I thought she was gonna faint, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, she looked like a jizz stain, her face went so white.”
A laugh bubbles out of Deirdre even as dread sleets through her, the same way pee might leak out of you while you’re choking. “No, I mean—I don’t remember that. Making contact.”
“Are you for real right now?” Lisa asks, and Deirdre truly wonders at the answer. Am I real? Am I real right now? “That was one of the wildest moments of my life. When she said she could see the baby? I about lost it, I really did.”
Deirdre touches her middle again, but the baby’s calm as ever. She can’t feel a thing.
“I don’t feel well,” she whispers.
“Want me to stay the night with you?” Lisa corrects the car as it sways in the lane; Charme was right about the heavy winds. “That’d be no problem, really.”
“No,” Deirdre says, though she wishes she was saying yes. Just change her mind and say yes. “No, that’s all right. I appreciate it, though. I just want to go home.”
“There’s no place like home, right?” Lisa laughs, and Deirdre wishes she wouldn’t.
The wind shakes the car. She clutches her belly against the storm.
Kick, she pleads with the baby. Please kick. Show me you’re there, sweetheart. Show me you’re okay.
When the wind picks the car up from the road, there’s a moment where Deirdre feels weightless as a soap bubble. As a child in the womb.
Kick, she prays. Kick for me, love. Please, if you’re there. Tap your heels together three times.
K.C. Mead-Brewer is an author living in beautiful Baltimore, MD. Her fiction appears in Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, Strange Horizons, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. For more info, check out her website: kcmeadbrewer.com.