Sleeping Wildflowers

4. Unfamiliar Homes

Syshla, Eonvhé, Coéndoré. Twenty-fourth day, twelfth month, 1170.

Sona couldn't remember when her sister had begun to exist. Surely before that day, when she had gone from a curious lump in their mother's belly to a wretched little thing Sona found in the bathtub on the second floor of a house that did not belong to them.

The baby was crying. That was how Sona found it. Sona was supposed to be sleeping; her mother had put her to bed. It was so she didn't cause a disruption. Sona never slept. She knew what went on outside the door. She could hear it. It was always too loud.

That afternoon, it had sounded the same. Sona hadn't thought anything was different. But when the sounds stopped, Sona heard something else. The crying.

She waited for it to pass, bundled up beneath the covers. It was cold in Syshla, a dry cold. The wind beat the windows. Crying.

Sona got out of bed and crept over to the door. It was a tall door, not meant for stunted seven-year-olds like her. She listened. Still, the sound. Then, footsteps. Sona tensed as she heard her mother's familiar gait pass by the door. Behind her, crying.

Making as little sound as possible, Sona crept outside. She peered down the unfamiliar hall, in the direction of the crying. It was starting to die. Sona followed it.

She and her mother had been in this house for two weeks. They usually left on the third or fourth. Sometimes it was easier to leave in the middle of the day, when the Man was not there. There was always a man in every house. They never came back to a house they had already been, but to Sona, there was only one Man. Sometimes there was a woman, but there were two women: First Woman and Second Woman. First Woman was the kind that Sona liked, because she would give Sona hugs and treats. But she usually made Sona's mother cry. Second Woman was the kind that was loud and barked at Sona and was always around the house, peering into their things. But sometimes Sona liked Second Woman, because she would help Sona's mother leave more quickly.

This house was a nicer house than most. There was no woman in this house, and the Man was nice. He said little, and when he did it was soft. He let Sona sit on his lap to eat meals and he gave her the fattest bits of meat. Sona's mother was comfortable. Sona liked that part the best. The last place they had been was the Big House, which was stuffy and crowded and had hard beds that made Sona's mother wake in the middle of the night and cry. They usually had to go to the Big House in between the Man's houses.

But it was uncomfortably big, this house. Sona thought she could hear everything echo. The crying echoed.

Sona stopped in front of the bathroom. The door was cracked open. Sona pushed it open a little more.

There was liquid on the floor, hastily wiped. The rag was still on the counter, wet and spotty. It smelled off, the bathroom. And the crying. It was coming from the bathtub. Sona saw blurry red fingerprints from where someone had clutched the edge of the tub.

Sona crept inside. She went over the bathtub, avoiding the liquid on the floor. She peered inside.

The baby was in the middle of the tub, still wet and bloody. Something round and flat and bloody like a deflated blood sausage pancake was next to it, and the two were connected by a thick tube. Sona stared at the baby.

She was shocked, and she was not. Because the baby had existed before then, she knew. Her mother had never said anything to Sona about it. Sona supposed she had just been meant to guess about why her mother's stomach was swelling, or why they got extra food at the Big House, or why it was harder to find the Man whose house they could stay at.

Sona looked down at the baby and disliked it, then. Sona knew it was the reason she'd had to get used to her mother crying so often. She wondered what she ought to do with it. Maybe get mother didn't want it, which was why she had left it here. Maybe they were going to leave it with the Man. But that made Sona a little jealous too, because she liked staying with the Man.