An owl clock ticked away on the wall directly across from the door, its eyes slowly closing and flicking open abruptly, as if trying to stay awake.

Who am I? she thought.

Have I become my mother?

She slipped into the bathroom and closed the door. With barely a moment to spare, she raised the fuzzy blue toilet lid and puked. Chunks of half-digested breakfast splattered up the sides of the bowl, the color of Helen Birch's tea.

The old bitch poisoned me.

She staggered to her feet and stood at the sink. There was no mirror, just the flat wood surface of a medicine chest.

The toilet gurgled as she turned on the tap. Splashing her face with water cooled the flush in her cheeks and neck. She still felt woozy and nauseous but it was more likely an allergic reaction than poison.

The toilet gurgled again, bubbling like a cauldron. She hesitated to peer into the bowl, not eager to see what she'd thrown up, let alone if sewage was sloshing up from below.

A splash in the bowl. A high-pitched mewl.

She stumbled back against the door, banging her head painfully on a towel hook.

The mewling grew louder, the splashing more frantic.

There's a kitten in there. The crazy old bitch tried to flush a cat.

She stepped closer, hesitantly peering over the lip of the bowl.

When she saw what lay in the putrid water, her mind course-corrected. It wasn't a kitten. It was a baby, a tiny purple thing trashing in the bottom of the toilet, the water pink with blood. A fetal girl, the umbilical cord trailing into the drain.

"That's not real," she said aloud, trying to convince herself. "She drugged me and I'm hallucinating."

The baby cried louder.

"Shh! Shh!"

The last thing she wanted was Geraldine checking up on her. Someone who would drug a person without their knowledge was liable to do just about anything.

But what could she do? The baby was crying and she couldn't just leave it in the toilet, couldn't just let it go on screaming like that, she had to make it stop or it would drive her crazy, make her hysterical just like her sister's crying made her mother—

She reached out and flushed.

Because it wasn't real. She knew it wasn't real. But she couldn't go on listening to it scream.

Only once the toilet gurgled and the tank had started refilling did she dare another look into the bowl. The water was clear. The bowl clean, aside from some streaks and flecks of vomit, which she quickly wiped away with a scrap of toilet paper, more out of embarrassment than conscientiousness.

She washed her hands hurriedly, dried them on a towel and stepped out into the hall, eager to leave. Paranoia made her anxious. If the woman was crazy enough to drug her, would she let her leave so easily?

The cracked door creaked open slowly.

Anxious, Sheila peered inside.

Geraldine lay in bed, her gloved hands folded across her chest. She appeared to be sleeping, her breath even, her eyelids fluttering. Near the bed stood a chest of drawers littered with owl figurines, owl stuffies, owl-shaped jewelry. More on the bedside table, on the floor, paintings and photographs of them hung haphazardly all over the walls.