Red Lily

finger to her cheek, stifled a laugh. Quiet as a mouse.
    Quiet as a ghost.
    She walked to the other wing, easing doors open if they were closed. Peeking inside.
    She knew—it was her mother’s heart speaking, she thought—as her trembling hand reached for the latch on the next door. She knew her James slept inside.
    A low light burned, and with it she could see the shelves of toys and books, the rocking chair, the small bureaus and the chests.
    And there, the crib.
    Tears spilled out of her eyes as she crossed to it. There he lay sleeping, her precious son, his dark hair clean and sweet, his plump cheeks rosy with health.
    Never had there been a more beautiful baby than her James. So pretty and soft in his crib. He needed to be tended, and rocked, and sung to. Sweet songs for her sweet son.
    She’d forgotten his blanket! How could she have forgotten his blanket? Now she would have to use what another had bought him when it came time to carry him off with her.
    Gently, so gently, she brushed her fingers over his soft hair and sang his lullaby.

    “We’ll be together always, James. Nothing will ever part us again.”
    Sitting on the floor, she went to work.
    She used the blade to hack through the rope. It was difficult to form the noose, but she thought she did well. Well enough. Discarding the sickle, she carried a chair, positioned it under the ceiling lamp. And sang softly as she tied the rope to the arms of the lamp.
    It held on a strong, testing pull and made her smile.
    She pulled out the gris-gris she had in a bag looped around her neck by a ribbon. She’d memorized the chant the voodoo queen had sold her, but she struggled with the words now as she sprinkled the gris-gris in a circle around the chair.
    She used the blade to slice open her own palm. And let the blood from her hand drip over the gris-gris, to bind the work.
    Her blood. Amelia Ellen Connor. The same blood that ran in her child. A mother’s blood, potent magic.
    Her hands shook, but she continued to croon as she went to the crib. For the first time since he’d been born, she lifted her child into her arms.
    Bloodied his blanket, and his rosy cheek.
    Ah, so warm, so sweet! Weeping with joy she cuddled the child against her damp and filthy gown. When he stirred and whimpered, she hugged him only closer.
    Hush, hush, my precious. Mama is here now. Mama will never leave you again. His head moved, his mouth sucking as if in search of a nipple. But when with a sob of joy, she tugged her gown below her breast, pressed him there, he arched and let out a cry.
    Hush, hush, hush. Don’t cry, don’t fret. Sweet, sweet baby boy. Sawing her arms back and forth to rock him, she moved to the chair. Mama has you now. She’ll never, never let yougo. Come with Mama, my darling James. Come with Mama now where you will never know pain or grief. Where we will waltz in the ballroom, have tea and cake in the garden.
    She climbed, awkward with his weight, with his wiggles, onto the chair. Even as he wailed, she smiled down at him, and slipped the noose around her neck. Softly singing, she slipped the smaller noose around his.
    Now, we’re together.
    The connecting door opened, a spill of light that had her turning her head, baring her teeth like a tiger protecting her cub.
    The sleepy-eyed nursemaid shrieked, her hands flying to her face at the sight of the woman in the filthy white gown, and the baby in her arms, screaming with fear and angry hunger, with a rope around his neck.
    “He’s mine!”
    As she kicked the chair away, the nursemaid sprang forward.
    Screams gave way to the cold, and the dark.
    Hayley sat on the floor of what had been the nursery, weeping in Harper’s arms.
    S HE WAS STILL icy, even in the parlor with a blanket over her legs, and the unseasonable fire Mitch had set to blaze in the hearth.
    “She was going to kill him,” she told them. “She was going to kill the baby. My God, my God, she meant to hang her own child.”
    “To keep him.” Roz stood, staring at the fire. “That’s more than madness.”
    “If the nurse hadn’t come in when she did. If she hadn’t heard him crying and come in quickly, she would’ve done it.”

    “Selfish woman.”
    “I know, I know.” Hayley lifted her hands, rubbed her shoulders. “But she didn’t do it to hurt him. She believed they’d be together, and happy, and, oh Jesus. She was broken, in every possible way. Then at the end, when she lost again . . .” Hayley shook her head.