Classic Monsters Unleashed (Unleashed Series Book 1) by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crystal Lake Publishing
Published: 2022-07-12T00:00:00+00:00

16

Moonlight Serenade

GABY TRIANA

And now, ladies and gentlemen, the National Broadcasting Company invites you to listen to the dulcet sounds of “Moonlight Serenade” by Captain Glenn Miller…

Meryl closed her eyes for one last minute of bath time. She imagined the last of the lye soap washing away with the words Dr. Lanchester had told her last night. Down the drain, where they belonged. Infertility is a mental issue, not a physical one, Mrs. McDonnell. Train your mind to remember its purpose, and you will soon be in the family way.

It had taken every ounce of courage to approach him after her late shift, to ask if there was anything she could do to improve her chances of becoming with child. He’d stared down the lengths of her stockings for a moment before adding:

We appreciate your diligence in the ward, but the war is over. Women needn’t hold down the fort anymore. Go back to being a wife. Look fondly upon your husband. Think motherly thoughts. It’s as simple as that, really.

Then he’d scribbled on his notepad, like the matter was over.

She’d stared at his matter-of-fact expression, bespectacled nose, and thin lips in disbelief, all the while her heart shattered. Dismissed by the flick of a fountain pen.

If Dr. Lanchester only knew of Henry’s spiral into despair, his night screams, claims of air fire, intense dual nature, the stink of whiskey pervading his clothing, his unwillingness to find employment, the blame over small matters that he flung upon her from day to day…he would never tell her to look fondly upon her husband.

I’m sorry to have wasted your time.

Embarrassed, she’d fled St. Andrew’s Hospital under the waxing moon, walking, not to the bus station, as she had every night for the last three years, but into the forest. Recalling the voices of patients confiding in her, whispers of herbal work and healing women in the woods, Meryl had slipped into the outskirts of Mooresville, where chimes, kissed by the cold lakeside wind, tinkled from the eaves of fortune-teller carts.

She never considered such a thing before. She was a woman of science. But desperate times called for desperate measures. Her body was ticking—she knew the signs—a twinge of pain from her left abdomen one month; right side the next. She’d selected the wisest-looking woman with the smartest, least deteriorated cart, an old gypsy who’d been kind enough to let her sample the oil, for a sum Meryl would take to her grave.

When the water drained, she stepped from the tub onto cracked tile and dried herself. Naked before the warped mirror, Meryl nervously removed a thin glass vial from its hiding spot under the sink. Trembling, she uncorked the stopper of her first full dosage. Ear to door to make sure Henry remained asleep down the hall, she covered the bottle’s opening with her thumb and shook it. She recited the words she’d been instructed to use.

“By the light of the full moon, I will be with child soon,” she whispered.

With a fingertip,

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