When Ellen Harris discovered she was pregnant, her first instinct was to go for a drink. She walked home from the doctor's office with her hands fisted helplessly in the pockets of her worn pink coat, head down against the merciless bite of New York's winter wind. The apartment she shared with her husband was small and cramped, but the embrace of its threshold was never so much a relief as it was then. Amidst the clutter of boxes and already worn furniture, the harsh winter sunlight lay in a square of illumination, like some fairy's trap door. Still in her coat and lopsided scarf, Ellen sat within its boarders, legs folded as she watched the dust motes move in their peculiar, lazy patterns. Like crop circles or the lay lines of Nazca, their trajectory was alien; their paths formed words she could not- dare not- speak. An echo came to her mind- herself, but much younger.

A short, hysterical laugh bounced off the faded floral falls, slid down the ancient windows with their slowly melting glass. Clamping her hands to her mouth, Ellen put a stop to it. Her breath hitched, the movement whipping along her small body; she sniffled, looking down at her hands, which were cupped to hold all the sounds she could not make.

Upstairs, she could hear Mrs. Finnigan washing dishes, humming off-tune. There were loud footsteps in the hall, children running, the rubber vibration of a bouncing ball.

Slowly, Ellen climbed to her feet, shedding her coat in a movement full of both innate shyness and coltish youth. She folded it almost tenderly over the back of the sofa, removed her scarf and the drooping, woolen cap that covered her short bob of hair. Mechanically, she turned, and went into the kitchen to have that drink.

She poured the vodka from its tumbler with a practiced hand. The clear liquid lapped in it shot glass, highlighting the golden rose set into the thick bottom. Ellen smiled slightly, then took a regular glass from the cupboard and filled that, too. Sitting at the chipped hospital-green table, she downed the shot. The first dose burned slightly, as it always did; she felt that, if she parted her lips at just that moment, a lick of dragon's fire might curl out. Vodka was her pick of poisons.

The moments prior- the sunlight and her own tremulous laughter- lingered in her mind like a vague image conjured by incense, or a coma patient's dream. Then it was gone, tucked firmly between the brittle pages of a place in her mind reserved for such things; for the beach, the vampire, and the yawning sensation of facing the unknown.

Slowly, Ellen brought her small hands down to rest over her gently, vaguely rounded belly. It was not so curved that she could not still feel the ribs there, the muscles- walls protecting a treasure. A little, warm ball of matter, floating in the void, expanding, refining to bones and eyes and flesh. Her arms ached with a sudden, terrible emptiness; her body cradled this baby, this baby was her own.

Yes, she thought wildly, unwrite a play, dismantle a symphony- it's done, and it can not be undone. The kitchen, with its green formica countertops and yellowing tiles, seemed suddenly oppressive.

You did it, she thought, steel claws ravaging her insides. You gave your word, and you can't take it back. Burying her face in her hands, Ellen looked at the world through the prison of her fingers and the veil of her ebony hair. There had been fangs, and blue eyes shifting to a gold so intense that she still sometimes woke and felt as though she was squirming under their gaze. Voice like desert smoke; having no echo, and also no end. She remembered, also the curve of his pale hand, his elegant fingers cupped to protect the lighter's steady flame. There had been the barest hint of a half-kind smile on his face- distant, removed- as he'd watched her smoke her first cigarette. They'd stood there on the cool night sands, and he'd told her that it was his birthday.

"Vampire," she said; her voice was soft and yet painfully, unbearably loud and real, so that it filled the tiny kitchen and made her wince.

No, Ellen thought presently, it was understanding. Whether the vampire had been capable of those other emotions, she did not know; they were not for someone like her. Stupid, fragile little girl on a beach, agreeing to terms not yet set.

'What is something- someone- like that for?' she wondered wildly. It was a strange, one that drew lines of Bible verse to the forefront of her mind, rising like terrible inkblots. Childhood spills. The hushed, reedy voice of her Sunday School teacher- "and on the sixth day, God made..." Ellen reached quickly for the tall glass of vodka and took a deep swallow. Even the memory of the church sanctuary- with its high, vaulted ceilings, it's carnival colored windows, and thick pillars- was suffocating. She could no more survive there than the vampire could.

Drawing her knees up to her chest, the young mother-to-be looped her arms around them and began to rock, just a little, in her chair.

"I'm so sorry," she murmured, head down. "Oh, little one, I really am. I just didn't know..."

"what to do. I was afraid to die"

"even though, and I'll say it right off, this life is the hardest thing"

"that was ever asked of anyone. I'm a fool..."

"Poor baby, I'll do-" she laughed suddenly, and it hurt, "I'll do with what I have now. Do what I can, for you."

A cross. Even boys wore crosses, didn't they? Thick, spartan silver ones with clean angles, all straight lines. On a leather band, round her baby's neck. Any touch will burn, burn. Sunlight through his nursery window- on the corner of the house, yes, sun from both sides. Garlic hidden in his cradle mobile, and he'll never talk to strangers, oh no.

Hey, sweetie- as long as you're going for self delusion, try this one. Maybe you dreamed it! A vampire? No dice, honey. No soap. A dream, that's all, and this is anxiety, this is a symptom, just when you'll be able to tell its morning by the fact you're leaning over the john.

"That's enough. That's just fuh-fucking," she forced the obscenity out of her mouth, "enough!" She came to herself, seemed to snap back into her body like something jerked by a cord. There she was, early in her pregnancy, arms and legs akimbo as she sprawled on the kitchen chair. A sad little doll in a shapeless brown jumper and blue turtleneck, weeping, drinking.

"I know what I saw."

For the next few minutes, Ellen Mae LaVelle- lately Mrs. Tony Harris- sat, quietly finishing her drink. Then she crossed calmly to the counter, took the heavy bottle of Vodka by the neck, and began to pour it down the drain. She moved as if she could see herself from the outside, with the eerie serenity of someone who knows the battle is lost, but also that sure defeat is not reason to stop fighting. She took two more bottles from the cupboard and poured them into the sink, as well, then went into the bedroom and removed one more from it's hiding place behind her rack of shoes. When that, too, had spiraled down the perfect, circle-mouth of the unforgiving drain, she took off her shoes, laid herself down on the spotty, blue china-pattern of the bedspread, and slept.

For the next nine months, not one drop of alcohol touched her lips.

That evening, after Tony's drunken, half-broken mutters had at last eased into complacent snores, Ellen gingerly arose from bed and returned to the living room. The square of sunlight- her circle of protection- was gone now, having weakened and lengthened into a pool of silver beams. Instead, Ellen sat down on the narrow window seat, her body soaking up the warmth from the radiator. She hugged her pink, baby-doll nightgown close, and breathed. Her bruises ached with the ghosts of Tony's fists, his voice amplified in the theater of her mind. Yelling, screaming- what had she been thinking, going and getting herself pregnant

when he was struggling to put food on the table

and they were moving to California, soon. Didn't she know he had enough on his shoulder's already?

"I'm sorry," she'd said, dizzy from the way he took hold of her shoulders and shook her small frame. Voice low, calm

speaking not so much to him as to her life as a whole. "What's done is done."

He'd hit her, again and then some, until she cried fat, defenseless tears, and he'd embraced her. Thick arms around her, petting her hair with a big, meaty hand. She was such a little girl when she cried, he'd said, he didn't like to cause her pretty tears, but she was asking for it. His arms had tightened until she squeaked- he'd pushed her to the bed, then, taken her roughly with her panties still dangling from one ankle. They were making up, he whispered, making it better. She'd lain there, uninvolved in the whole matter, pushed by gravity and carried by inertia. She'd thought about the baby, about the demon on the beach, seeing once more the panicked, lanky boy fleeing over the sand. So afraid, that boy, ready to just drop from it- only this time the terrified face belonged not to Robby, but to Tony.

Presently, Ellen ran her fingers along the thick paint of the window sill, laying her cheek against the cool glass. Her free hand came to rest over her abdomen. Within her slowly rounding flesh, she carried something that she had promised away, something that was no longer hers. She could fight, maybe- life was a crap shoot, after all, there was always that slim chance. But she somehow felt

(knew. bone deep.)

that she was entering a struggle already decided. She stared out the window, gaze on the pregnant, imperial moon. Bruises ached, stretched skin protested. Half-circles of pain clutched her back.

A still voice came to her: