Spectacle (Menagerie #2)(85)

The sight of her there, next to the padded table already prepared for me, struck me with a startling sense of déjà vu.

We’ve been here before. Together. Was that during my initial pregnancy test?

“Delilah,” the doctor said by way of a greeting. “Lie down.”

As I settled onto the table, he pulled a wheeled tray of instruments closer, then rolled an ultrasound machine toward the head of the table. He didn’t look me in the eye or tell me what he was doing, but not because he was scared. In fact, he didn’t seem nervous at all. Somehow, the Vandekamps had actually managed to keep his colleague’s condition from him.

Tabitha rounded the table to stand on my other side, where she had a much better view of the machinery than I had.

“Because she’s not yet in her second trimester, it’s too early to safely use amniocentesis, so we’re going to try chorionic villus sampling instead,” Dr. Grantham said to Tabitha, without even glancing at me. “Rather than sampling the amniotic fluid, which isn’t present in large amounts at this stage, we’re going to take a sample of the placenta.”

“Is that safe for the baby?” Tabitha asked, while I tried to swallow my rage over the fact that neither of them seemed to think I belonged in the discussion about what was about to happen to my body.

“There are risks with CVS, but they’re much fewer than with amniocentesis.” Dr. Grantham pulled on a pair of latex gloves, then ducked to take something from beneath the table.

Fear obliterated all logic when I saw the padded restraint, and when he took my arm, I jerked it free. “That won’t be necessary, Doctor.”

He looked across the table at Tabitha. “I can’t paralyze her without affecting the procedure. If she won’t cooperate, we’ll have to sedate her again.”

Again? When had I been sedated?

Tabitha leaned forward until her face appeared over mine. “Delilah. It’s in your best interest to cooperate...”

But her words faded into indistinct syllables as her familiar posture and tone triggered a buried memory.

Tabitha Vandekamp wears a light blue dress, tailored to her shape. Her hair is pulled back in an artful bun, and her eyes are alight with hope. But I can hardly keep her face in focus. I can hardly make sense of her words.

My eyes close, and it’s an effort to force them open again. That’s the sedation. I can’t fight it.

“This is fate, Dr. Grantham,” she says. “What else could it be?”

She believes everything she is saying. I am so tired, but I can see that. I can hear it.

“She won’t remember this, will she, Doctor?”

“No. The sedation is retroactive. But if this takes, she’ll figure it out eventually.”

“I’ll deal with that when the time comes. These next nine months are going to fly by!”

My sudden wave of nausea had nothing to do with pregnancy. “What happened in this lab?” I demanded, staring up at her. “What did you do?” The resemblance between my present reality and the hazy memory were startling, but there was one clear difference.

There’d been no reluctance or hesitation in Tabitha’s words, in my recovered memory. There’d been no doubt on her face. She hadn’t been preparing herself for the chance that my baby might be human. She’d been convinced that would be the case.

How could she be so certain, after what she knew about Gallagher?

“Delilah, you asked for this test,” Tabitha said, ignoring my question. “We’re giving you what you want, but the doctor has to take basic safety precautions. Let him use the cuffs so we can get on with this.”

I hardly heard her, because my mind was still mired in the hazily remembered past. In a time when Tabitha Vandekamp knew my baby would be human. When she’d looked forward to the next nine months.

But it takes a minimum of two or three weeks to notice pregnancy symptoms, and I definitely would not have reported any even once I’d noticed them, because Tabitha had a history of forcing abortions. So she shouldn’t have known about my pregnancy until I could no longer hide the symptoms.

She still shouldn’t know, even eight weeks in. Especially considering that the first two weeks of the nine-month pregnancy calendar are actually preimplantation of the fertilized egg. Even in most cryptids, according to my college classes. So how had she known from the very beginning? From before implantation?

She couldn’t have. And she certainly couldn’t have been sure that the baby was human.

Unless...

“What the hell did you do?” I sat up on the table, and Dr. Grantham backed away from me, startled. “I’ve been here before, but it wasn’t for an ultrasound, was it?”

“You’ve been here twice, for your initial exam, then the ultrasound. If you hadn’t lost your memory, you’d remember,” Tabitha insisted calmly.

“But I wouldn’t remember the very first time, would I?” I demanded, as pieces of the puzzle began to slide into place, forming a horrifying picture. “You made sure I wouldn’t.”

“Mrs. Vandekamp?” Dr. Grantham backed farther from the table, reaching for a preloaded syringe lying on the rolling tray to his left. “Calm her down, or I’m going to have to use this. But that’s not ideal.”

“Tabitha?” I demanded, boldly using her first name. “What did you do?”