Justin Cronin - The Twelve

Sara remembered Wilkes’s orders. “I think you’re supposed to eat, actually.”

“So I’m told. Believe me, I’ve heard that before.” She placed her hands on her hips, scrunched up her face, and dropped her voice an octave. “Lila, you’re too skinny. Lila, you’ve got to put some meat on those bones. Lila this, Lila that. Blah, blah, blah.” Then, her eyes widening with sudden panic: “Oh my goodness, what time is it?”

“I guess it’s… about noon?”

“Oh my goodness!” The woman began to dart around the room, snatching up various belongings and putting them down again in a manner that seemed arbitrary. “Don’t just stand there,” she implored, grabbing a pile of books and shoving them into the bookcase.

“What would you like me to do?”

“Just… I don’t know. Anything . Here—” She filled Sara’s hands with pillows. “Put these over there. On the whooziwhatzis.”

“Um, you mean the sofa?”

“Of course I mean the sofa!”

And just like that, a light seemed to switch on in the woman’s face. A wondrous, happy, shining light. She was staring over Sara’s shoulder, toward the door.

“Sweetheart!”

She dropped to a crouch as a young child, a girl in a plain smock, blond ringlets bouncing, dashed past Sara into the woman’s outstretched arms. “My angel! My sweet, sweet girl!”

The child, who was holding a sheet of colored paper, pointed at the woman’s turbaned head. “Did you take a bath, Mummy?”

“Why, yes! You know how Mummy likes her baths. What a clever little girl you are! So, tell me,” she continued, “how were your lessons? Did Jenny read to you?”

“We read Peter Rabbit .”

“Wonderful!” the woman beamed. “Was it funny? Did you like it? I’m sure I’ve told you how much I adored him when I was your age.” She turned her attention to the paper. “And what do we have here?”

The little girl held it up. “It’s a picture.”

“Is that me? Is it a picture of the two of us?”

“They’re birds. That one is named Martha, the other one is Bill. They’re building a nest.”

A flicker of disappointment; then she smiled again. “Why, of course they are. Anyone could see that. It’s as plain as the nose on your pretty little face.”

And on and on. Sara barely ingested any of it. An intense new sensation had come over her, a feeling of biological alarm. Something deep and atavistic, tidal in its weight and movement, accompanied by a focusing of her senses on the back of the little girl’s blond head. Those curls. The precise and singular dimensions that the little girl’s body occupied in space. Sara already knew without knowing, a fact she also knew, the paradox building a kind of hallway inside her, like images reflected infinitely in two opposing mirrors.

“But how awful of me,” the woman, Lila, was saying, her voice at some impossible remove from reality, a transmission from a distant planet. “I’ve totally forgotten my manners. Eva, I need to introduce you to someone. This is our new friend …” She paused, drawing a blank.

“Dani,” Sara managed.

“Our wonderful new friend Dani. Eva, say how do you do.”

The child turned. Time collapsed as Sara beheld her face. A unique amalgamation of form and features that was the only one in all the universe. There was no doubt in Sara’s mind.

The little girl sent her a shining, closed-lip smile. “How do you do, Dani?”

Sara was looking at her daughter.

But in the next second something changed. A shadow fell, a dark presence descending. It jolted Sara back to the world.

“Lila.”

Sara turned. He was standing behind her. His face was a man’s, ordinary, forgettable, one of thousands like it, but from it radiated an invisible force of menace as incontrovertible as gravity. To behold him was to feel oneself plunging.

He looked Sara contemptuously in the eye, piercing her utterly. “Do you know who I am?”

Sara swallowed. Her throat was as tight as a reed. For the first time, her mind darted to the foil package secreted in the deep folds of her robe; it would not be the last.

“Yes, sir. You’re Director Guilder.”

His mouth curled downward with distaste. “Put down your veil, for God’s sake. Just the sight of you makes me sick.”

With trembling fingers, she did so. Now the shadow became a shadow literally, his features mercifully blurred behind the blush of fabric, as if in mist. Guilder strode past her, to where Lila still crouched with Sara’s daughter. If his presence meant anything to the little girl, Sara couldn’t see it, but Lila was a different story. Every part of her tightened. Clutching the child in front of her like a shield, she rose to her feet.

“David—”

“Just stop it.” His eyes flicked disagreeably over her. “You look like hell, you know that?” Then, turning to face Sara once more: “Where is it?”

He was, she understood, speaking of the tray. Sara pointed.

“Bring it here.”

Her hands, somehow, managed this.

“Get rid of them,” Guilder said to Lila.

“Eva, sweetie, why doesn’t Dani take you outside?” She looked quickly at Sara, her eyes beseeching. “It’s such a beautiful day. A little fresh air, what do you say?”

“I want you to take me,” the girl protested. “You never go outside.”

Lila’s voice was like a song she was being made to sing. “I know, sweetheart, but you know how sensitive Mummy is to the sun. And Mummy has to take her medicine now. You know how Mummy gets when she takes her medicine.”

Reluctantly, the child complied. Breaking away from Lila, she moved to where Sara was standing beside the door.

With excruciating miraculousness, she took Sara by the hand.

Flesh meeting flesh. The unbearable corporeal smallness of it, its discrete power, its infusion of memory. All of Sara’s senses molded around the exquisite sensation of her child’s tiny hand in her own. It was the first time their bodies had touched since one was inside the other, though now it was the opposite: Sara was the one inside.

“Run along, you two,” Lila croaked. She gave a wave of absolute misery toward the door. “Have fun.”

Without a word, Kate—Eva—led Sara from the room. Sara was floating; she weighed a million pounds. Eva, she thought. I have to remember to call her Eva. A short hallway and then a flight of stairs: a pair of doors at the bottom pushed into a small, fenced yard with a teeter-totter and a rusted swing set. The sky looked down with a solemn, snow-filled light.

“Come on,” the child said. And broke away.

She climbed aboard a swing. Sara took her place behind her.

“Push me.”

Sara drew back the chains, suddenly nervous. How much was safe? This precious and beloved being. This holy, miraculous, human person. Surely three feet was more than enough. She released the chains, and the girl arced away, vigorously pumping her legs.

“Higher,” she commanded.

“Are you sure?”

“Higher, higher!”

Each sensation a piercing. Each a painless engraving in the heart. Sara caught her daughter at the small of her back and thrust her away. Up and out she rose, into the December air. With each arc her hair volleyed backward, suffusing the air behind her with the sweet scent of her person. The girl swung silently; her happiness was bound into a pure occupation of the act itself. A little girl, swinging in winter.

My darling Kate , thought Sara. My baby, my one . She pushed, and pushed again; the girl flew away, always returning to her hands. I knew, I knew, I always knew. You are the ember of life I blew on, a thousand lonely nights. Never could I let you die .