The Eldritch Trials

Chapter 4: The Switch

Nel

Mac calls me midday to tell me that he'll be late tonight. He's going home with Gale to keep him company. Of course. I am glad in that I'm worried about my boy. I'm worried about both my boys. There should be some jealousy some preference but no they are both just mine now.
It wasn't always like that.
I was terrified when I realized I was pregnant. I couldn't keep curse breaking so I had to quit. Shane Soren was long gone, a vampire nest in South America, later I would learn he was captured and that was why he fell out of contact. At the time I assumed he was dead or worse, turned.
I had my job at the hospital already, so I simply quit working for the Sorens with no explanation. I had almost no money of course and I had no way to afford my apartment and the baby. But I had nothing to do but go forward. I hid the pregnancy at the hospital for fear of getting fired, then by the time I was six months gone I couldn't hide my belly anymore and they did fire me. They weren't supposed to, but it's what they did then, still do I suppose.
It was an easy pregnancy, I was hardly ill, in fact in the beginning I'd hardly known I was pregnant. I felt fine. I was fine, except now I had no job, was about to be homeless, and nearing seven months pregnant. I'd only had the job a few months. I was barely out of school. Stupid timing. And I cursed myself for the ill advised affair.
The handsome, clever, much more polite younger Soren brother. Messy red brown hair and an easy smile, green eyes that were easy to get lost in. He would wait to talk with me in the stairs as I left, offer to walk me home. I didn't think he meant ill by it. I still don't. He was barely a year my senior, he was only being a young man. And men don't think of things like babies coming about. To be fair I did, but I liked him. Nobody had ever noticed me. I'm small, and plain, and quiet. I don't know why I caught his eye. He was tall and handsome and strong, the adventurer, he could have had any girl, any witch that his brother was contracting. But he choose me. And walking me home turned into coming inside. And warm summer nights that never seemed to end as I fell asleep in his arms, and watched moonlight throw shadows on his face as he'd cradle me in the dark of my tiny flat.
But summer always must come to an end. And he was gone again. And by autumn, my belly had begun to swell, and when the first snow came I could no longer deny that I was carrying his child.
While I had insurance, the check ups went well. and I spent the last of my savings on vitamins and one final doctor's check when I was eight months. I had to pay out of pocket and I still went. A perfectly healthy little boy growing in me. I would sing to him, talk to him. I promise him I'd make sure everything was all right and he'd have a good life. I loved my baby. He was tough, he'd kick me, poke my belly like he wanted attention, just as I was going to sleep. And I'd stroke my stomach and whisper to him all the good things that would come to him in the world. And he'd let me sleep again.
And that was when Alec Soren summoned me. His brother had written to him, not long before disappearing. Turns out he'd confessed our affair, well more begged that his brother not sack any girl he may have been sleeping with because yes possibly he was sleeping with the girl more than likely but really leave it the virgin witch thing is a myth anyway. Anyway, took him a while or perhaps took him a while to care. But Alec put my disappearance together with his brother's confessed indiscretion, and lo and behold he found me heavily pregnant.
I didn't even deny carrying his brother's bastard child. I didn't care anymore.
"My wife will give birth in a few short weeks. However the curse remains, unbroken. The child will die within a few days," he said, and I almost felt sorry for him.
"I can't do you any good," I said, a hand on my belly. We both knew I couldn't curse break while carrying a child.
"My point is you can. You see, for a variety of reasons, I need a son. A healthy, son. And there should be no curse on my—unfortunate brother's illegitimate offspring," he said, a bit disdainfully.
"What?"
"You have no job. You're about to be evicted. My brother isn't coming back to save you. I haven't heard from him in six months he's likely dead. You and the child will be out on the street," he said, with little sympathy, "I don't even care about the ridiculous trials anymore, that is over. The curse has worked— my line is done. Perhaps I deserve that. But my wife does not. She's carried six pregnancies to term only to have the child die in her arms. Imagine how you feel now with that one you didn't even plan for. And then six times, she's had to bury her infants. She needs a child. And this one you carry is—my family like it or not. It's the least I can do for my brother. Raise his son as my own."
"The least you could do would be to not steal my child," I said, my voice shaking. "Your brother loved me."
"My brother doesn't know how to love anything but himself. You think you were the first? You think he limited it to women? Far from it. That's probably not even the first child he fathered. Grow up. You were a game, nothing more. If he had loved you he would have married you before bedding you and leaving you destitute and carrying his baby," he spit, with obvious disgust, "I've spent ten years longing for a child and he—,"
I said nothing, tears running down my face.
"I'm sorry. It isn't your fault you're young I'm sure he was charming to you. He can be. But he is likely dead. And you have no home, no place to go. Within a few weeks of that child's birth you will be homeless. Is that what you want for it?"
I wiped my face with one hand. My baby kicked in me, as if knowing my turmoil. Because his words were true. And I had never known it more.
"My wife longs for a child. Let her have this one. We are its family."
"It's a boy," I say, quietly, hand on my belly.
"He'll want for nothing. Nothing at all, the best schools, the best of everything money can buy. And I promise you my wife will love him with every fiber of her being. She needs to be a mother, she needs her baby. I can't give her one—this is the only way I can give her one and I'm man enough to realize that now. You're young, you'll find someone who really does love you, who will stand by you while you have his children—and this child will be given the best of care. I'll swear to you on, whatever you want—we'd protect him till our dying breaths," tears were in his eyes as well, "I can't force you. I can just beg you, please. What do you have to offer him compared to us?"
I shook my head, tears running down my face.
"An empty apartment with no heat in the winter? Would Protective Services even let you take the child home when you're unemployed with no family?"
"No," I whispered.
I knew it was true. And in my heart, I loved my child too much to say no. I could offer him little to nothing. Just my love, but that doesn't put food in his belly. And this was his father's family. Perhaps if his father lived and went home then he'd meet his boy someday.
So I agreed.
I did the hardest thing of my life and I agreed.
I went home and cried. I cried and tried to scheme ways out of it. There were none. I talked to my baby all the time. Told him how much I loved him and that I would always always love him. And that no matter what I'd always think of him. But that maybe this was better. He'd have a better life.
They woke me up in the middle of the night. It was two weeks from my due date. Soren's guards, they came and fetched me.
"No, no, I'm not due yet, he's not ready," I get two more weeks, don't I? Two more weeks of loving my baby while he's safe inside me?
No. Anita Soren had given birth in the early hours of the morning. So I was to give birth as soon as possible so that I could take her dying or already dead baby home, and she my healthy one.
They took me to a private hospital.
And they cut me open. My baby, tiny, and covered in my own slick blood. He sobbed and gasped.
"No, let me hold him—shh—I love you, I love you, I love you," I sobbed, whispering, my face pressed against his. "Let me take him to her—please let me do that—please."
In the end they relented.
Anita Soren looked worse than I felt. I had to be in a chair but they let me cradle my baby in his soft blue blanket. She was lying in the bed, weak, pale, an IV in, no baby in sight. She began to sob when she saw me. I expected something else.
But all she whispered was, "Thank you."
I gently lay my son in her arms, strong, healthy, with chubby legs and arms, the start of red brown hair like his father's. He looked at her inquisitively, whimpering for me.
"I'll love him forever," she whispered, staring down in wonder at my precious baby.  "I promise. I'll take such good care of him." Her husband held her hand.
I couldn't do anything but nod and cry. They wheeled me out. I was crying so hard I didn't think of their baby.
"He'll die in a few hours, he can't breath," a nurse was holding a limp bundle in a white blanket. "If you'd like to just go home that's fine."
"Can I hold him?" I whispered.
She gently placed the weak little baby in my arms. So thin, with dark hair and barely breathing. The horrible, welting spot of a curse mark already on his shoulder, oozing puss and red with blood. He was breathing so shallowly I feared each breath would be his last.
"You can fill out the birth certificate later if you like. It'll be with your papers. If you'd like they can keep him on the machines while you go rest."
"No, no, don't leave him to die on machines. I'll take him home," I said, clutching this baby when I so sorely needed one in my arms.
And I took Mac home.
I named him for someone on TV, it wasn't the name I'd picked out for my baby. I thought he should have his own name. Even if he was only going to live for a few days. I vowed not to put him down. To make his little life as sweet as possible. I sang to him, just like I had his cousin in my belly, I danced around the kitchen. I slept sitting up with him against my warm skin so I could feel him breathing. I would drip milk into his mouth because he was too weak to nurse. I pressed poultices on the curse marks, and kissed his little face. I cast spell after spell to make him more comfortable.
Within a few days, he was strong enough to nurse.
Within another few I could get a smile out of him. And I found myself smiling down at him.
To keep his lungs going, I cast Mother's Love.
Since every single day I feel like I'm suffocating.
But he lives. He got stronger, and stronger. Strong enough to nurse on his own, to reach out his arms to me. To smile. My sweet Mac, he'd grin for me, never fussy or crying despite his ill health, no matter how I had to wash the awful curse wounds he would babble and grin at me and let me do it.
Of course I was out of work. My landlord took one look at the sickly baby and offered to give me another month. I didn't know what that would do but I agreed. I had to do something. Mac couldn't live without me casting spells or putting potions on the cures marks every few hours. There was little to do. I didn't know what I was going to.
Then the deadbeat father limped back.
That's cruel to say, but I'd been to hell and back since I last saw that man and he left me carrying his baby, with just a kiss on the cheek. Him off gods knew where with gods knew whom doing gods knew what while I was bearing his bastard child.
Anyway, I slightly forgave him when he also looked like he'd also been to hell and back, black and blue, an arm in a sling, generally looking like a person who's been hit by a train. Bless his idiot heart, he showed up at my door before going to his family. Thank the gods I hadn't moved the man would have scared some innocent person half to death. He was wearing his damn sword.
"Nellie? I missed you—I—," leaning in the doorway, half dead, eyes mostly closed.
"Are you cursed?" I asked, smelling it on him.
"You have a child?" He asked, slowly, eyes focusing on Mac in my arms.
"Yes, get in, congratulations you're a father, hold him, I can probably lift that curse that is why you came?" I asked, tugging him and pushing him down on the bed to lay Mac in his arms. Mac coughed and sort of glared at him.
"What—you—this is your baby?"
"Yours as well," I hated the lie. But I had two options, one have him go tell his brother to give his damn son back, and in turn that would either get Shane killed, and probably Mac since I was keeping him alive, or keep the status quo. It only mattered to me in the end. Anita had her baby. I didn't have the baby I gave birth to, but Mac is my son, and Shane was a father, just not exactly of this child. But him knowing that did no one any good. And I was still angry with him as I said it. I was angry he'd left me and I had to give up our child. So I lied.
"What?" Shane wasn't doing well, just staring at the child in his arms.
"Eat this, here I've got him," I pushed the herbs in his mouth and took Mac back. He pawed at my chest.
"What—gods that tastes terrible—you had a child?" Shane asked, innocently.
"Yes."
"How long have I been gone???"
"Long enough for me to be pregnant," I said, nursing the baby.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered, staring up at us. And with that I forgave him it all.
Shane's the youngest brother but he has some money, he paid for the flat for five years, after which I could go back to work, and Mac could go to school if he lived. Shane also has paid for all Mac's schooling, which is fair I think. And he's met his real son, who he believes is his nephew. Of course I have not. I don't dare show my face around there again, it's bad enough Mac is around. I'm terrified his parents will take him back. Take both my boys. I get one don't I? I carried one, raised the other. Yet I know in a heartbeat they'd snatch both.
And this is the anniversary of that awful night. Mac spent the first day of his life struggling to breath, not knowing I'd come. Gale was tugged early from my womb then placed in the foreign mother's arms. I know Mac is older now. He wouldn't leave me. But for my own peace of mind I do just want him home tonight of all nights.