I come back from that place. There is a sound like mice running in the walls. The pen nib is buried deep in my palm. The sound is not mouse feet but blood, trickling in patterns onto the pale rug. The bug man stares. His face is empty and white. As I watch, it begins to fill with horror. My own face is not making the correct shapes for pain and it’s too late, now, to pretend that I feel it. The bug man has seen something of who truly I am at last. I pull the pen gently from where it is embedded in my palm. It comes out with a gentle sucking sound, like a lollipop between firm lips. I staunch the wound with Kleenex from his desk.

“Thank you,” I say, taking the piece of paper from his fingers. He tries not to, but he shrinks away from me. I know it well: that withdrawal, as if the flesh of his hand is trying to creep away from mine. It is how my mother touched me.

I stumble out of the office, slamming the door behind me and fall into the plastic waiting room, with its reek of synthetic blossom. That did not go well. But at least I have a name for it, now. I stop long enough to write it down. Dissociative identity disorder. I hear the office door opening behind me and I run again, stumbling against empty plastic blue chairs. Why is there never anyone else waiting here? It doesn’t matter now, I won’t be coming back.

OLIVIA

I am beginning to wonder if Ted has thrown the knife in the trash. Or maybe he carries it with him, wherever he goes on those long nights, when he comes home smelling of earth and old bone.

We considered other approaches. But it must be the knife, because it is sharp and fast. Lauren’s body is not strong. There is nothing to eat in the house, poisonous or otherwise. Ted has learned his lesson.

I don’t want to tell Lauren this, but I think Ted is up to something. He brought home some new books, today. The titles make my whiskers ache. But I think they are about us. I try and mask these thoughts, keep them from her. She can’t hear if I sink them deep enough. Once again I thank the LORD for keeping me here. Lauren needs me.

“Maybe I can make a knife,” Lauren says, doubtful. “Like they do on TV, in jail. I wish there was some food. It might help me think.”

I can feel her hunger. It adds to my own, deepening the ache in our stomach. Night-time growls and shakes himself in the deep places of us like the beating of black wings. I force him down again. He’s hungry like the rest of us.

It’s not your time, I tell him.