Motherhood

Motherhood

by Shannon Kostyal 


Clack. Clack. Clack.

Carefully manucured nails tapped rhythmically on the edge of the cheaply made desk. The faux-wood veneer had peeled away in places, showing the rough compressed texture beneath. Laetitia stared blankly at the drawn curtains, continuing to tap mindlessly on the desk. 

Despite being blackout curtains, she could practically feel the daylight emanating outside. Nothing to do but wait. Still, it wasn’t as bad as it had been in times past. She remembered with vivid detail how tedious unlife had been prior to modern technology. Mouth curling up in a wry smile, she drew her hands back from the desk. 

Modern technology. What a phrase. Every generation thought it had the cornerstone on the most amazing inventions. She remembered when sewing machines started trending. Not the tidy, white plastic shelled things that hobbyists picked up at their local craft store. She remembered the original sewing machines. Clunky miracles of metal and efficiency. At least, by the standards of their era.

All things considered, even being dead wasn’t so bad in this current generation. Most people seemed to edge towards the recluse side, with interaction met via social media. A hundred years ago she’d have been looked upon with suspicion. If she were keeping score, she’d even had a house or two burned down. The 1700s had been such a hatefully untrusting time to exist. 

Today? She fit right in. No one gave a second thought to her strictly night-life persona. And no one batted an eye when she told them she had no children. Even fifty years ago, that would have earned her strange looks. Not that she had anything against children. She rather adored them, honestly. That was probably the one single thing she despised about her vampiric existence. No children. Ever. The one thing she’d always longed for was the warmth and love of motherhood. And always she’d been denied that one desire. Except it looked like she’d finally found a loophole.

Certainly human children would be difficult to manage. Getting approved as a foster parent was not something she was in a position to do. And what human authority would hand over children to a single parent with an active night life and unwillingness to do interviews during the day? Child Protective Service might be underwhelmingly ineffective at times, but even they weren’t that outrightly incompetent. Plus, even if she had found a way around all of that, getting children to school would have been problematic. She hadn’t heard of an elementary school that ran at night. 

Pushing back from the desk, Laetitia stood up and stretched her sore back before heading to the kitchen in search of a snack. In just another hour, despite all the obstacles that had been in her way for centuries, she was about to meet her new children.

That loophole? It was so remarkably simple, she felt an utter idiot for not thinking of it before. Humans weren’t the only ones with children. And tonight she was about to meet three little were-children. After four hundred long years, she was finally going to be a mother. 

The guardian seemed excessively eager to bring them by, and had graciously offered to  leave them with her for a trial period. Supervised, of course. The guardian would be checking in each night for the next month to ensure the children were healthy, and Laetitia was clicking with them.

Anticipation hummed through her. She checked the grandfather clock as she passed through the hallway. What would they be like? She hoped they liked her. Poor dears, orphaned so young. She couldn’t wait to let them know how loved and adored they would be with her as their new mother.

~~~

Two weeks later.

Laetitia winced as she stared at her nails. The broken, ragged edges, and chipped remnants of a paint job mocked her. Even through the closed door, she could hear the godawful shrieks, and what sounded like another glass shattering. She spasmodically clutched a plastic Big Gulp cup in her other hand, sloshing the drink in an uncontrolled jerk. Vodka and cranberry juice spattered across her wrist and puddled haphazardly across the surface of the desk.

She didn’t know how much more of this she could take. Why had she ever thought motherhood was the answer to her centuries of solitude? Why had she thought she had so much love to give? Right now the only thing she wanted to give was a silver bullet to each of those horrid little monsters.

Aged three, five, and eight, the trio of were-children were an unholy evil beyond anything she’d ever witnessed. And at four hundred and seventy eight years of age, she’d seen some shit.

The guardian, when talking up these monstrosities to her had mentioned they were were-children. She had assumed they were run of the mill were-wolves, or maybe one of the were-panther cubs. Admittedly less common in the last two centuries, but still a possibility.

But no.  Nothing so harmless and cuddly as a wolf or a panther.

That harridan of a CPS agent had literally done a drive by. The doorbell had rung, the guardian only stayed long enough to confirm that she would open the door, and then was gone before she could blink. Which is saying something. As a vampire she had extremely quick reflexes.

What she was left with were three abandoned were-badgers. But not just any kind of were-badger. Oh no. They had to be honey badgers. Sweet lord above, and all his sainted angels. 

Despite that, Laetitia had tried. She really had. The first week she was still determined to prove to them that she would love them no matter what. Even after they dumped her iPad in the toilet, unplugged her fridge, and shredded her sofa.

By the middle of the second week, she had taken to hiding in her home office. She’d also taken the liberty of relocating all of her booze to the broken down desk drawer. During one particularly harrowing evening, she’d managed to sneak out the window of her office and raid a 7-eleven. In her bathrobe. Because the horrid beasts had shredded her wardrobe by day three. That was how she’d come by the tacky plastic cup. Laetitia was fairly certain it was the only cup left in the house.

And now? She stared at the half empty bottle of vodka on the desk, and then at her cup. Downing the rest of the contents of the cup, she contemplated the insanity of what she was about to do. There was no other option. The horrid badger children wouldn’t leave, the guardian wouldn’t take them back, and she was trapped in her office and swiftly running out of supplies. 

Defeated, she shoved the bottle of vodka over and watched as the liquid glugged out slowly. Too slowly. She grabbed the bottle, upended it, and spiraled it out across the desk. 

Digging in the pocket of her bathrobe, she pulled out a lighter, flicked it a couple of times until a bright flame burst from the top, and then flung it at the pool of vodka.

Glorious, blessed flames fanned out along the path of the liquid. She edged to the window and with a determined yank, ripped the curtains down and dipped them into the flames before dragging them off to set fire to various things throughout the room.

When she felt relatively sure that the whole house would eventually be condemned from the fire, she made her escape through the window, bathrobe flapping heroically behind her. Screw this house, screw this city, screw this country. And most of all - those little honey badger cubs could fuck right off and be someone else’s nightmare. 

News articles that followed over the coming weeks would talk of eyewitness accounts. Neighbors would conjecture on the whereabouts of the elegant lady who once lived there. No one had seen her since the fire.

Local crime increased tenfold, with security cameras catching shadowed glimpses of what looked like children. Locals on the street spoke in horrified whispers about monsters, and animal control released a warning about rabid honey badgers in the area.