Chapter IX

IX.

MIRA WAS GRATEFUL for the comfort of her bed. She sighed from the feeling of the cool sheets hitting her skin. It had been a long time since she’d enjoyed a simple luxury like this. Her apartment did not have central air and the box air conditioner was constantly on the fritz. She was always hot. By now she’d hoped to have adapted, but she never got used to the damp feeling of the mattress wet from her sweat. She needed a new one; every morning she woke to a persisting ache in her lower back. In this bed her back didn’t ache. The cool air was a welcome reprieve. This, to her, felt decadent, and she relished it. Her muscles relaxed as she settled in and closed her eyes.

It was not instant, not a sudden pulsating rush of remembering, but instead a dull hum, a gnawing that grew as pieces of her evening with Jesse replayed themselves for her in the dark. How he looked. How he’d been.

When he’d hugged her, she’d caught a subtle hint of cologne and was surprised he would wear it. She tried to conjure the smell of it again, tried to remember the feel of his body when they’d embraced before separating for the night. His hand had only grazed her waist, but the memory was enough to get her started. She thought of how he’d grabbed the railing surrounding the slave cabins, how his fists had tightened against the rail, and the muscles in his forearms had tensed. All that was left was her ache from longing. She pulled the covers up and over the rest of her body, pressed her head against the pillows.

Mira dreamed. She dreamed of a knife being lightly dragged across her skin. The blade was dull, not sharp enough to do any harm, but the feel of it made her itch. In her sleep, she reached for the places the knife touched, scratching so hard that unbeknownst to her she drew blood, the drops of it getting underneath her fingernails and smearing the sheets. Soon, it was not the knife but something else, insects—blowflies circling her mouth before

landing, the feathery hairs of their antennae brushing against her skin, then ants that crawled around her, slowly moving their way onto her body, on her legs, moving up her thighs as they found their way into the depths of her.

They were along her stomach, circling her belly button, moving around the slopes of her breasts, crawling on the most vulnerable parts of her. Then the flesh flies came. They were all over her, multiplying along with the others as her body began to bloat, their legs moving rapidly against her skin, going up her neck, tracing the line of her jaw, crawling across her chin and pausing at the curve of her lips, slightly damp from the lick of saliva. They rested atop her eyelids. They stood before the cavern of her nostril, tempting the path inward, the tickling itch of them hovering near her breath.

It wasn’t enough to swipe them away. She batted one and another took its place. They multiplied, growing to cover every inch of her body. She swatted and shook in her terror, and finally woke to find herself wildly thrashing her arms in the dark.

Mira’s heartbeat thrummed in her ears. She was alone in the quiet of the cottage. The only sound was the humming of the air conditioner. The temperature was colder than she’d meant to set it to. The clock on the nightstand showed a few minutes after three. Mira had not been sleeping for long.

It was only a dream that had bothered Mira so. A bad one, but still, a dream. She looked at her arm and saw the marks from her scratching. Her fingertips glided lightly along the broken skin. She hoped tomorrow no one would notice what she’d done to herself.

Even awake, Mira could not shake the feeling something was after her, whether hiding amidst the folds of her sheets or caught in the tangles of her hair.

A pinprick. A blip of pain in the contour of her neck. Mira reached and felt for the mark. She pressed her fingers together, sat up in the bed to see.

The smeared remnants of an insect lay between her thumbprint and forefinger. Mira flicked the fragments onto the floor.