Page 5 of Daughter of Rot

Olivia steps away from the tree. She stays quiet for a minute. Do you hear the house speak? I hear it at night. I hear it in my dreams. I can feel it under my feet. The bed shakes. The lights flicker. I close my eyes because I don’t know what to say. I don’t understand what the house is trying to tell me.

The tree thinks for a moment, shaking out its leaves, and then explains that the trembling may happen for a multitude of reasons. It could be fear. It could be anger. It could be sadness. It could be love. The earth may flitter with glee if there’s salacious gossip. Olivia giggles at the thought of the earth yearning for chisme.

What is the house trying to say to us? Olivia runs up to the house and holds her ear to the wall by the front door.

What are you trying to tell me?

The house is giving birth to something new.

What do you mean? A baby?

You’ll see soon enough.

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

The house has an itch. A phantom scab. The air is heavy. Something is holding its breath. The last time the house felt this unsettling sentiment, it was haunted momentarily by the ghost of a wandering girl. Even though she was a ghost, she snuck in through the roof, climbing up the side of the house, crawling above, causing bumps in the night. From the ceiling, she launched herself into the hallway, landing on all fours like a tiny kitten. The ghost girl was temporary. She was a visitor. The house witnessed her departure up a shining spiral staircase. A gigantic gray and glowing humanoid with thousands of blinking eyes lined up its spine led her toward a light and she was gone in mere seconds. The itch was back. An ache. As though the house caught an illness. It was a sunny morning when the house convulsed into a three-bedroom home. Pain fluctuated through the walls of the house like contractions. Wallpaper peeled. Linoleum tiles came undone and curled at the corners in the bathrooms. The house wanted to moan in dismay but had no way to do so. It shivered and shook the garden and the oaks swayed from side to side. Creatures scurried away. Dust clouds blossomed and the sun shone down on the particles, making a halo. The roof tingled with a prickling pain. This new eruption, this new room, was writhing with immense roots of ancient trees and patches of electric green moss. Thick emerald vines and multiple varieties of flowers bloomed and decayed within minutes. Dancing lady orchids. Yellow trumpet lilies. Gold flame honeysuckle. Mountain hydrangeas. The new room filled with flora as though all the room needed to do was think about what it wanted inside and then, poof, there it was. The house sensed as the room reached further and deeper with its own roots, entangling with the roots in the surrounding area. The house was an umbilical connection to this entity. The house wanted to understand such an invasion, but the pain spoke as violence. As barbarity. The house dreamed of fire. It dreamed of meteors hitting the earth and landing on this new room, destroying everything growing and dying inside. It took three months of sleepless nights for the house to accept the fate of Mother. A fever dream mother. A holy mother. A house capable of unending sorrow. A house capable of immaculate conception. She named her child, The Inflorescence.

THE INFLORESCENCE

Something is whispering into Isela’s ear at night. The sounds are frenzied. They are fragments of static and resounding deep groans. The words slip into her dreams and then vanish as soon as Isela opens her eyes to the darkness of her room. The only words she can make out are her own name and the word “womb.” Isela dreams about infinite doors. A voice leads her toward each one. They take her into different rooms from her life. Sometimes, she’s in a doctor’s office or at the dentist looking at the inside of her mouth on an x-ray. Other doors lead her to the beach with her old friends from high school. Sometimes, the doors lead her nowhere, just pitch black and a vibrating hum.

One night, as Isela wandered in the shadows around the little house, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed it. A brand-new door. She assumed it was a linen closet. The door was small with a round top and a long wooden handle. As Isela walked closer, she noticed fuzzy moss and teensy yellow mushrooms sprouting from the door. She stuck her nose close to it. It smelled like a memory.

It brought Isela to the Pacific Northwest. She went there with Alfonso on one of their first dates. The sun was going down and they were lost in the forest. Isela saw swarms of shadowy faces in the trees. Their mouths agape as though they were screaming in silence. Warped voices and laughter followed behind her. Whispers surrounded her. A stillness took over. She couldn't move. Alfonso grabbed her by the wrist and they ran toward the muffled sound of water. Isela felt like her heart could explode. She nestled her head on Alfonso's chest and listened in on his heartbeat. His pulse was steady. Isela grabbed a hold of her flashlight and beamed up at the sky and then illuminated the stones in the clear river water down below. The stones looked like small translucent creatures inside of a birth caul, almost like newborn puppies or kittens. The forest morphed into horror. It morphed into an eerie silence, as though they were completely alone on the planet.

It took Isela three sleepless nights to find the courage to open the door. When she finally gave in, it led to a brand-new room. The Inflorescence. Isela mouthed these words as a whisper. This was the name given to the room.

As she stepped inside with caution, a gargantuan crimson placenta plopped from the high rounded ceiling onto the floor, which was cushioned with glittering wood moss and scarlet waxcap mushrooms. Isela looked up at the placenta which was shining and dewy. It was taller than her by three feet or so. It was perfectly round with dark purple capillaries percolating blood. Isela was smothered in blood and mucus from the drop. She took her nightgown off and wiped her face clean with the dry side. The walls of the room were covered in purple vines and morning glories with their petals closed off to the scene. The walls of the placenta were speckled with gold. The golden flecks gave off light which illuminated parts of the walls and ceiling. The placenta gurgled and thrummed. A shining umbilical cord hung from the ceiling, growing poppies and red azaleas on the outer tissue. Through the translucent membrane of the organ, Isela made out a shape inside of the placenta as bile built up in her throat. It was a creature she could not recognize at this stage of its life, but it was growing rapidly inside. Isela held onto the wall of the placenta to watch the growing specimen, until it dawned on her. The specimen was a human fetus. It was growing inside of the organ at an alarming pace. It transformed from newborn to infant to child. The child opened her eyes and looked straight at Isela as if piercing into her thoughts.

Isela slammed the door behind her, crashed into the hallway wall, and flailed to the bathroom to throw up. The evidence of this new reality, this new room, was in her hair and on the soles of her feet. She rinsed her face off, took off her panties, let her hair down and when she went back a second time the walls of this new room were warped and cracked like flaking bark from a sycamore. Yellow honeysuckle vines twisted their way onto the walls and leopard slugs swarmed the floor. Ribbed bog moss and unfurled ferns reached down from the rounded ceiling, dripping flecks onto Isela’s head.

The placenta was gone and instead, the stump of a redwood settled into the center of the room. Isela touched the bark of the chopped down giant and she smelled her hands. She saw herself as a child, chasing her little sister, Letty, in the dark. It was joyous for them to run. They giggled and squealed and pinky promised not to say a word of where they ran. They loved running away during the summer, even if it meant they were going to be punished. Sometimes, they ended up at the edge of a forest trail, tempted to go inside and live there forever. Isela licked her hands. She knelt on her knees and licked at the bark of the stump. It tasted like she’d imagined. Organic. Untouched. Raw. Sharp. She stood up and took her teeth to the upper edge of the stump. She gnawed and laughed. Theoretically, she could chew through the stump, plug her stomach and intestines up until she burst.

She craved destruction. She wanted nothing more than to let The Inflorescence drag her underneath the house. She slumped down against the stump and stared at her hands. The urge to bash her head against the remains of the tree brought her a moment of ease. She pictured her head splattered all over the room with banana slugs swarming her body.

Then, a moment of clarity. She forced a big smile by lifting the corners of her mouth with her hands. Tears fell down her sticky face. The stump decayed behind her, leaving a single sunflower behind.

She was placed on this earth to live her dream life, whether by god or by the devil. She was put on this earth to feel free. To feel everything. To feel nothing. It was a dream. Her dream. To imagine herself as more than she was. A life that would be worth it by the time she died.

OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND

The puppy showed up in the early morning. A tri-colored mutt with stained paws from red dirt and a face dusted with bright yellow pollen from the flowers it had sniffed in apprehension and then attempted to eat. The puppy whined and stumbled into the garden. He chased frogs and crickets that flailed into the air in spastic zigzags to find camouflage and peace.

Olivia noticed the puppy right away. She wanted to catch him. Lure him, then keep him. She paced back and forth, back and forth, while keeping an eye on the wall at the end of the hall. The cracks in the wall emitted yellow light and then green, and then an orange glow radiated out like golden hour into the hall.

Isela told her never to go in. She warned Olivia that nothing good was in that room. Olivia didn’t want to deal with the physical repercussions of going against her mother. A shiver started at the top of her head and worked its way down to her toes. Olivia witnessed her mother walking into the room every night, and then coming out of it drenched in sweat. Sometimes, she didn’t come out at all.

The puppy could be lured with snacks. Olivia went through the cabinets and into the fridge. She took out a block of cheese and cut rectangular slices with a butter knife. She ran to her room, emptied out one of her old backpacks and threw the cheese inside. She placed the backpack on the ground and made kissing sounds toward the puppy. The puppy beelined toward Olivia. Quick on her feet, Olivia picked it up to give it a bath in the backyard. The puppy playfully bit at her hands and wrists. He licked her face. It smelled heavenly. Like only a newborn being could smell.

After the bath, Olivia let the puppy roam. He sprinted and bumbled toward the oak trees. Olivia was a giant in comparison and caught up. She scooped the puppy up and instantly felt a warmth in her chest. She kissed his forehead. She put him down and rubbed his chubby belly. The puppy had green eyes and two markings on his head which made him look like he had eyebrows. Olivia held him in a towel. She rocked him back and forth. She sang to him. She kissed him again. She smelled his paws and his head and his breath. It was all intoxicating.

She imagined herself growing up with this dog. She decided to name him Goyangi, which means cat in Korean, but she liked how it sounded for a dog. His nickname would be Go-Go for short. Go-Go could be her new best friend. At school, friends were scarce. Not for a lack of trying. Even when she wanted to, Olivia was not allowed to go to any birthday parties, sleepovers, or after-school clubs. Her main opportunity to socialize was during lunch, but she would often spend that time in the library alone reading a new book. Olivia thanked the saints, as she was convinced that Go-Go was sent to her to make her feel less alone. She thanked her ancestors. She thanked the earth. She thanked the puppy for being there. She kissed his paws and let him bite her braids and her fingers with his tiny sharp teeth.

Olivia fed Go-Go carrots and cucumber and followed behind him to clean up after any waste he left behind. He wandered toward the river and Olivia went along with him, ready to show Go-Go her trinket collection. Go-Go led her to a trash can near a popular trail entrance. Something had scavenged and littered empty granola bar wrappers all over the ground. Olivia thought this must be like treasure to the pup. She picked up the trash, and they walked along the trail which Olivia knew by heart. Go-Go seemed to be a wanderer. This made Olivia suspicious for a moment.

What if he was some kind of trickster?

Did fae use puppies as lures?