Influenced by Eva Robinson (best free ebook reader TXT) 📗

She’d be earning plenty of money from testing.

A little speck of movement caught her eye, and her gaze drifted over to an ant on her nice wood floor, carrying a large white crumb.

“Ant! Mama, ant!” Nora shouted. Then, as if wanting to bring the small drama to a climax, she pointed to the ant and shouted, “Spider!”

Hannah had been going to war with the ants, and they were winning. There’d been a time when she and the ants had been at peace, natural beings cohabiting in spaces on this earth. But since Nora arrived, the idea of dirt and infestations made Hannah feel insane. She had to keep this place clean, and Nora trailed crumbs everywhere she went.

Hannah couldn’t raise a toddler in a house swarming with bugs.

She pushed out her chair, leaned down, and plucked the ant off the ground, then rushed it over to the bathroom. She dropped it into the toilet and flushed, feeling a sense of vindication. “You lost that battle.”

Nora shouted, “Ant!” again from the other room.

When Hannah turned back around, she was sure for a moment that the ground around her was swarming with ants, zipping around her feet in every direction. Her hands were balled into fists, and she snatched at the toilet paper to crush them. But then they were gone.

She pinched the bridge of her nose. It had been another night of two hours of sleep, and she was losing her mind. And moreover, she was starting to worry that she wouldn’t be functioning well enough to look after Nora. The thought surfaced again that someone was robbing her of sleep on purpose to drive her mad, but it made no sense.

She crossed back into the kitchen. Gritting her teeth, she pulled out her phone again to look at Rowan’s photos.

The most enchanting photos were the ones with Marc. Rowan had recorded little snippets of their conversations, and it was like watching a romance novel play out before her eyes in real life.

After our third date, Marc told me he had some music he wanted to play for me—a jazz band. As we sat out on his balcony, sipping Bordeaux from vineyards once owned by Eleanor of Aquitaine, nothing seemed more perfect than that moment with his music filling the air around us. The setting sun sparked in his eyes when he toasted to me. He said he was fighting the urge to tell me everything about himself, because magic meant keeping things hidden.

But I want to uncover every single thing.

I want to devour him until there’s nothing left but the bones.

A bit creepy at the end. It had gone from a romantic balcony and sparkling eyes to cannibalism. And she sounded slightly out of touch with normal life. Bordeaux from the vineyards of Eleanor of Aquitaine? Who talked like that?

But Hannah drank it up. She wanted some of that for herself. And moreover, she wanted to be the kind of person handsome men toasted to with pretty quotes about magic while she threatened to eat them alive. Because right now, she was nothing but the death goddess of the ant world.

Another flicker of movement across the floor turned her head, but it was only a speck of dust.

Holy moly, she needed sleep more than anything. When she turned her head, she saw trails moving in the corners of her eyes. Maybe if she had some magic in her life, some excitement, she’d rest easier. It had been two years of cleaning milk and soggy crackers and ants off the floor, and it was hard to dream when you hadn’t gotten any joy out of the day.

“Mama! Hungry!” Nora’s voice pulled her out of her haze. “Cookie, please? Please?”

Wasn’t Hannah making Nora dinner? She’d forgotten.

She turned to the countertop. Already, she’d laid out several carrot sticks, and she’d started cutting them into thin strips so Nora wouldn’t choke, but then partway through she’d apparently just drifted off to some other thought.

“Sorry, Nora.” She handed Nora a few carrot sticks, but obviously she needed something more.

Hannah’s phone buzzed on her table, and she snatched it up. Her jaw dropped as she looked at the time. Was it already seven? She had no idea what had happened to the past four hours. In fact, she could hardly remember them. And she hadn’t even managed to make Nora a full dinner.

“Dada’s here.”

“Jacket on!” chirped Nora. “Dada here.” Nora launched into a cheerful song of her own making about maple syrup.

Lucky that Nora actually wanted to see Luke today. On other weekends, she’d cling to her mom’s leg, tears streaming down her face, and the guilt twisted Hannah’s heart.

She pulled Nora into her lap to wiggle her feet into Velcro sneakers.

“Shoes on!” said Nora.

While her phone buzzed, Hannah rushed around, grabbing things to stuff into Nora’s bag. She should have done all this earlier, but she’d been busy doing something…

An ant caught her eye. This one on the counter. She hadn’t seen them on the counter before. This was a new behavior. She smushed it with her thumb, then felt slightly horrified. She wiped the little bug off with a paper towel.

The setting sun sparked in his eyes when he toasted to me.

“Dada here!” shrieked Nora.

Hannah whirled. What was she supposed to be doing? She kept getting interrupted. Every time she tried to do something, there was an interruption, which was why she never got anything done.

Right, Nora’s bag. She ran to the bathroom, stuffing the backpack to the brim with diapers, wipes. What had she forgotten…

Nothing seemed more perfect than that moment with his music filling the air around us.

If she closed her eyes, she could hear the music, a piano—

“Hungry!”

Hannah’s eyes snapped open, and when she looked down at her phone, she saw five text messages from Luke.

She was losing her mind. The phone rang with his picture lighting up the screen, and she answered. “Sorry, Luke,” she said. “I’m just a bit behind. I forgot…” She stopped herself. She didn’t want to