Eldritch Isabelle

Teagan awoke to piercing eldritch screaming from the baby room. Isabelle was awake.

She rolled toward the clock in her too-small bed, squinting through gummy eyes: 4:54am. Not bad.

She rose with a stretch and staggered to Isabelle’s room, and the screeching settled at Mama’s appearance. She clicked off the sound machine’s rain and distant thunder and rolled the dimmer lights on and up. Isabelle clung to the crib’s bars as if it were the side of Devil’s Tower, squeezing her eyestalks through the slit like a periscope. Teagan raised the blinds and pulled back the blackout curtains to let the arclight sun in, but the light eased as it touched them. 

Finding the best spot between the myriad tentacles, Teagan lifted her sweet little girl and changed her on the guest bed. She’d outgrown the changing station months ago. The sleep sack with extra cut holes fell aside. A fresh diaper swapped for soiled.

The tentacles and their suckers, the deep purple skin, the baby hair, the eye stalks, the mouth stalk with pointy teeth, the vaguely childlike torso beneath that gordian knot: Teagan loved them all now.

“Look at this pretty new dress I got you, Isabelle. For our special day.” The mother glowed. With a tired jester’s flourish, she pulled out the custom green-and-purple dress: proper holes for the countless tentacle arms, more space in the skirt’s drape for the plentiful legs, and shoulder-straps to accentuate Isabelle’s beautiful indigo eye stalks. 

Isabelle’s favorite breakfast of rare steak and golden beets vanished from the silicone octopus plate. Teagan bought it because it was quite funny to lean in to what Isabelle was. No sense in denying it. Her daughter liked the shape too, caressing tentacle tips around it before tenderly picking up morsels and dropping them into the toothy mouth stalk. Yum.

Pulling out her phone, she tried not to envision the next grocery bill at the sight of her disappointing bank balance. It was time.

She typed in her least favorite number in the world. The ringing tone pulsed like funeral bells. At least he couldn’t comment on the grimness of her frown.

He answered the call—hesitated. A woman’s whispers punctuated the silence.

“Teagan. Didn’t we agree less is more with the phone calls?” he said.

“Micah, you know why I’m calling.” She spoke slowly to give a wide berth to his cold-blooded temper. In front of her, Isabelle invented architecture with her playblocks. 

He said nothing. She sighed heavily and turned to the window and the cloudless white sky. Isabelle played in a shaded spot. “You’ll make me say it again? I told you I was going to call my lawyer if Isabelle’s deposit doesn’t arrive.”

“Supposing that impossibility is my child. Now that I have you, however: have you thought about my offer? ”

“I’m not even entertaining that slap-in-the-face. I’m taking Isabelle to the park today. I’m not going to go there like a lit bomb waiting to go off because of what you say to me.”

“Father Richter says you’d be welcome back in the church.”

“When the moon slaps the earth again.”

“We can find a way to reconcile your demon with God, and I can find a way to reconcile my checkbook with you.”

“That’s not what the judge says.”

“The one who goes to this church? He’s a man of the law, and a man of God like me.”

“Yes, like I’ve seen. Well, you’ll never see my face alive in that church again after how you all treated me. Lepers saw more mercy.”

“Lepers! You’ve wrung more scorn from the Lord than any leper could. Like an inverted Mother Mary.”

She inhaled sharply. “Oh, you put her there. She’s just different. If you’d spent any time with her, you’d see it too. My god, she’s not evil.”

Another bout of silence. Teagan glanced back at her daughter, now investigating their black cat, Noir. 

“Is all this pausing some power move? I’m done trying to convince you of anything except to follow your friend judge’s orders. How could you hate your own daughter? Make her own mother beg?”

“Hate? I can’t love or hate a thing the way I could, say, love or hate you. That thing is just a cursed, damned creature, garnering the same level of pity and disgust as a smear of fur-and-flesh in the tread of a tire.”

Teagan swallowed. Every time she heard it, it hurt a little less.

“I can see you’re still the defiant little sinner I remember.” He seemed to think, then sighed. “No, I suppose I don’t want an awkward conversation with Joel. I’ll double-check where your Mammon is, but remember that it’s still the Lord paying your bills, so you pay what’s due as well. Email me next time.”

She ended the call, gave herself a moment, and turned smoothly back to Isabelle with a smile on her face. She pulled the cat by the tail out of Isabelle’s mouth.

“Time for Isabelle in the park,” she sang. “Time to see Auntie Livian and little Damien.” A giggle emanated from Isabelle’s fleshy recesses.

Teagan packed the diaper backpack: crispy crickets, beef and beet puree pouches, diapers, wipes, hand sanitizer, her stuffy Octo the Octopus, and her underwater-themed water bottle. BPA free.

“Pak.” Isabelle was precocious and the words came early. “Stares.”

A half hour later, a rusted minivan pulled into the park. Teagan pulled her stroller to the side of the minivan; it was for an older child to fit the extra limbs. Her hair was a rapid bun on her head, strands tickling her forehead, with sweatpants and a hoody for the cool moist spring. She wanted sunglasses but Isabelle loved to look into her eyes, so no.

Door open, bent over.

Like a thousand times before, she brushed away the curious tentacles at just the right angle, just the right smoothness to clear the buckles. Click click, and a moment later Isabelle was nestled nicely in the stroller.

The sky darkened like always when Isabelle turned to face it, and mammatus clouds crowded the sun. 

Maybe it was the lack of sleep—her daughter had been colicky lately. Maybe it was the stressful phone call—her husband only knew one way to speak to her, but it didn’t work anymore after she gave birth. Maybe she simply needed a little extra help that day. However it happened, she could have sworn she heard a choir of angels, polyphonic and layered, sweet as a good night’s sleep, announcing her arrival down the wooded path. The overcast sky gave everything a subdued, shadowless palette; not happy, not grim. Disciplined. Waiting.

The stroller purred gently against the asphalt path, and Isabelle purred too. The angelic singing cut out; the practicing choir in the white gazebo faltered to glance at her. A sweating beast, or a jogger, coming her direction, passing pedestrians at a respectful few feet, veered off at a ninety degree angle into the woods as he approached Teagan and her child. A knight, or a cyclist, on an adjacent path clipped a bush as he craned his neck in their direction. Sparkling fairies buzzed the air around them—no, children’s drones. Parents dragged away kids clutching remote controls.

They can’t hurt us.

Around the corner, Teagan saw Livian pulling a sandy plastic spoon from her son’s mouth in the sandbox as she rolled up. 

Livian embraced her friend. “Teag, what’s wrong? Did you have to give him the call again?”

Teagan swallowed, nodded, blinked hard. 

Her friend sucked her teeth. “Fucking asshole”. She turned to Isabelle, and just like Teagan’s earlier, her face blossomed into happiness before Isabelle’s eyestalks.

“Hiiii Baby Belle, remember me?”

A coo and a quiver followed her eyestalks vibrating in delight. Her tentacles floated gently in all directions with the closest ones tracing Livian’s jawline. 

“Baby Belle? It’s Isabelle.”

“But it’s so cute,” Livian chirped.

“It just doesn’t fit her.”

Isabelle and the older boy played in the sand together. The tentacle girl waddled across its great expanse as a ball of giggles and wonder, collecting toy shovels and buckets, lining up all the construction vehicles by color, and carving a few letters into the sand: ‘I’ - ‘S - ‘A’ – 

Damien watched slackjawed.

“Have you taken another look at St. John’s Prep yet? I’m keeping Damien there at least another year. Isabelle loved their Imagination Room from the open house, remember?”

Teagan knew most of Livian’s budget from bartending was rent and Damien’s private school. She bristled, lips twisting, hating herself for dropping her career for Micah. “Expensive.”

“You’re telling me. I know it’s called St. John’s but I promise you the religious stuff is pretty light, and overall it would give you some flexibility with Isabelle, you know? Smaller class sizes, individual attention. Ironically, a stronger science education.” A flat chuckle escaped her.

Teagan made a sound like she just bought moldy berries, drawing her knees up on the bench and wrapping her arms around them.

“Sometimes I just want to cut this crap out. Private school? In my dreams, but what about even all the basics? How will she play soccer with friends with those… feet? Will she have friends?” She could let her voice shake here.

Livian leaned in close to her friend. “Micah will pay for private school, one way or another. She’s running circles around Damien currently.” 

She glanced at her daughter; Livian wasn’t wrong. 

“And other people…” Livan sighed. “I don’t talk about it much because it still makes me so sad, but I had a cousin when I was young, named Brody, and he was born with a lung condition and carried around a breathing machine everywhere he went. And sometimes kids were dicks to him, but he still made a few friends, and those friends were some of the kindest and strongest kids I’ve ever seen. Brody passed at thirteen but he really was like a saint inspiring other people to be their best.” She tried to hide the pity in her eyes as she looked back at Teagan.

“That’s all I got, Teag. I’m sorry.”

Teagan winced, thinking of how Isabelle would always be the Other. Always different, unique, strange. She knew what that could look like and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop it.

Could she inspire people? Sometimes and maybe. Too bad it was never her own father.

Time to head back: lunch and naptime called. They split; Livian used the far-side parking lot.

A familiar face peered behind a tree. Ronald.

Teagan sighed and ignored him, pace quickening toward the minivan.

“Ms. Muller,” his voice echoed.

Don’t look back. In an instant, he was matching her pace next to her. The people like him wore simple black clothing. It wasn’t supposed to be an evil and darkness thing, but more of minimalism.

“Excuse me, Ms. Muller.”

“I use my maiden name now.” Keep walking, no point in engaging.

“I apologize, Ms. Francoise. May I have a moment of your time?”

“No.”

“Please Ms. Francoise, I believe there was a miscommunication last time we spoke—”

When Teagan screeched to a halt, Isabelle twisted and faced Ronald head-on. She gurgled and her tentacles undulated at the bespectacled, pale man. He looked at her in wonder and waved, beginning to bend at the knees to her level.

Teagan stepped in front of him, and he backed away slightly and to the side to see them both. 

“Your daughter, Isabelle, looks well. I can tell you’re doing a great job raising her. She’s beautiful.” He sounded boyish.

Teagan glared at him. Suddenly she didn’t feel like running away. He gave her a timid smile, clutched his hands together.

“I don’t want you to even look at her. I’ve told you people to leave us alone.”

He breathed out, exasperated. “Ms. Francoise, your mothering skills and instincts are unparalleled. We couldn’t have asked for a girl like Isabelle to have a greater mother. Please—wait! I appreciate that it’s unsettling to think about joining a new church group. It’s a big decision, but let’s look at the bigger picture here.”

Teagan scoffed, cheeks burning. “Church group? You’re cultists. Heathens. More pagan than anything.”

Ronald cocked his head slightly. “With due respect, Christianity has not appreciated the gift you’ve given the world. For that, they’re the heathens.”

“No one’s gift.”

“Perhaps we deny the trinity, reorient the gnosis, dispute the Nicean pact, but that makes us more authentic, not less. While they choose to gussy themselves up in ancient riddles, our Messiah is right here.”

“She’s not your Messiah.” Her voice’s edge sharpened. Passers’ eyes now conspicuously avoided them as if Isabelle made them invisible. 

“Ah, you’re right. That was rude. But we would love her, and you, at our humble establishment.”

She thought of the building–too sophisticated, too much smoked glass, too luxurious. “The Church of Baphomet.” She shook her head. “How dare you keep harassing a desperate woman like this.”

Desperate.

But Ronald and the Church of Baphomet agreed.

They were the only ones who ever saw the Baptists the way she did. She paused too long.

“Desperate.” He edged closer, nodding, no humor in his eyes. “You said it. We know you’re a good person, and what is making your life hell right now is money. That’s what’s holding you back. Please tell me if I’m wrong?”

She loomed over the smaller man but his words felt heavy. 

“A special girl needs special clothes, right? Special toys? Maybe a special school? Not one to be embarrassed about, no, but a good school that caters to individual potential. The cost of living nowadays could humble a proud man.” He smiled.

She thought of the bills, of counting everything out in the budget, of always wondering if she could give Isabelle enough.

“A girl like this,” he sounded like he was in a mausoleum, “deserves everything in the world. Should be taken care of. She deserves a support system. Financial, yes, but also emotional. A special school on weekdays while you work, maybe the best in town, St John’s? When was the last time you were able to relax and have fun on a weekend? Work less? See the girlfriends? We’ve people to babysit, loving people who would rather die than let anyone hurt her, who can watch her whenever school’s out.”

It was too much. Too fast. Too perfect.

“What are you going to do to her? Worship her? Put her in your rituals? Cast magic spells with her?”

“We’ve determined she is the physical representation of Baphomet’s seed, and a creation of German traditionalism and French paganism. She’s a pillar of our way of life, of how we see the world and worship its existence from Baphomet’s will. How lucky anyone would be to be born with so much meaning and purpose. Wow.”

Of course they knew of her young mistakes before she met Micah.

She thought of their clothes brand new, and Isabelle’s shiny school where the children only stare politely and never say an ill word toward, and of how her gifts and faults would be lovingly fixed and folded into a great, growing young woman. With more time away from work, she could interview for better hours, see her daughter more, plan more of their life without the cruel specter of math hanging over her.

She thought of her daughter around all those nutjobs in her formative years.

Baphomet.

She felt she could move her feet again. Ronald’s spell was broken. She pushed past him.

“Ms. Francoise, I thought we were coming to an understanding. It’s really the best for your daughter. What a beautiful opportunity for her.” He maneuvered himself back in front of her on the path.

Perhaps it was the movement, the quickening pace of her blood. Perhaps her own paganism reared its head.

“What part of ‘she is just a child’ don’t you understand? She’s not your trophy, she’s not an idol to worship. She’s not a thing to fight over. She’s a human being; she’s my baby Isabelle.” Her voice rose and rose, and other park visitors couldn’t resist but rubberneck yet again.

“You think you can buy us? That you can buy her innocence? You think money is worth the fucked-up childhood you offer?” 

Ronald backed up frantically as Teagan pressed him. 

“What would she even think of herself, growing up with a bunch of simpering, worshipping morons? Do royalty grow up well-adjusted? Do billionaires have normal kids or just whackos who’ve never heard the word ‘no’?” 

Her words dropped like fists on him. 

Thank God the van was in sight. 

The stroller hit his foot as he shuffled backwards in front of her, and he fell on his ass. In that split seething second, she rode over his legs with the stroller, gripping it like a demon to keep her daughter upright. Ronald yelped in pain to uncaring ears. Isabelle’s gentle flowing tentacles went rigid, pointing at the fallen man, vibrating at the tips. The eyes on their stalks narrowed at him. The mother pushed again and broke free of the splayed form calling out to her and clutching its shins.

Her head snapped back: “Stay the fuck away from us. I call the police next time.”

She blinked away boiling tears as her hands ran on autopilot: wheel up the stroller, lock the wheels, slide open the van door, baby out, baby in, click click click. 

A vision flashed across her mind’s eye: Isabelle in the middle of a pentagram painted into a basement floor, a hundred lazy candles lit around her and her worshippers in black robes, chants echoing high like the ceiling never ended. 

She banished it.

She was in the driver's seat, roughly wiping her arm across her eyes, sniffing hard. 

“Mama, mama,” Isabelle called from the back seat.

He was back again—Ronald leering toward the driver’s window, hand on the side-view mirror. He spoke louder to be heard through the glass: “We can make sure the police protect you.”

The battered van’s motor grumbled to life, and she jerked out of the parking space. 

A honk behind her—slammed the brake. 

She stopped inches in front of a black SUV. She put the vehicle in drive and peeled out.

She couldn’t remember the drive home. The overcast sky churned out a slight drizzle of rain like nature’s piss. 

No time for a cult: she had enough rituals.

Click click click, baby out, baby in, lock the door. Wash hands, give her toy, fridge open. Steak out, beets out, cut cut cut, feed feed feed.

She grimaced at the precious red meat. 

“Ron… Ronrald… thupid. Soopid,” her daughter said. Maybe Teagan had mumbled that under her breath on the way home. 

“Yeah, that’s right.” Spoken softly to a sleepy baby.

Nap time. She wrestled her daughter into a sleep sack, read her favorite board book “Octo and Me: My Octopus Friend,” and rocked her to sleep. She stepped out of the darkened, rumbling room, head swimming, and tried to catch a moment’s respite before the next piercing eldritch scream.

Thanks for reading!

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