Mrs. God by Peter Straub

as slowly as if the baby were underwater. It was a new baby, red-faced, only a few days old. It wore coarse woolen baby clothes of the same material as the prisoners’ pajamas. The baby seemed to gasp for air. Standish took a step forward, and the baby’s arms jerked spasmodically toward its head. Puffy, swollen-looking pads of flesh covered the baby’s eyes.
    One of the guards shouted at Standish, who stopped moving and pointed at the baby. “I want to pick it up. What can be wrong with that?”
    The man behind the desk carefully placed the paper in his hand down on a neutral space on his desk and uttered a short series of monosyllables that caused the soldier to lower his rifle and retreat to the wall. Standish swallowed.
    The official turned his head to look at Standish. His eyes were the color of rainwater in a barrel. “This not your baby,” the official said in a slow, heavily accented voice. “Possible you understand? This baby not your baby.”
    And then Standish understood that he had lost everything. He was to be beheaded in this ugly country, and the baby gasping on the table was not his baby. Black steam filled his veins. He groaned, at the end of his life, and woke up in a sunny bedroom at Esswood.

six
    â€œG ot it wrong again,” said Robert Wall. It was half an hour later. Carrying two pencils, a legal pad, and his copy of Crack, Whack, and Wheel , Standish closed the door from the servants’ corridor and came near the table. Two places had been set. Golden domes with handles covered the plates. “You are indeed a fellow who prefers the less-traveled road, Mr. Standish.”
    â€œI guess I am,” Standish said.
    â€œAs your tastes in literature would indicate. Let us see what is beneath these covers, shall we?”
    They raised the golden domes. On Standish’s plate lay an entire dried-out fish with bulging eyes.
    â€œAh, kippers,” Wall said. “You’re a lucky fellow, Mr. Standish. We’re a bit shorthanded here just now, in fact I’m off to Sleaford in an hour or so to interview some prospective help, and you can never be sure what they’ll serve up at breakfast. Last week I had porridge four days running.”
    Standish waited until Wall had separated a section of brown flesh from the kipper’s side, exposing a row of neat tiny bones like the bars of a marimba, and inserted it in his mouth. When he tried to do the same, bristling bones stabbed his tongue and the inside of his cheeks. The fish tasted like burned mud. He chewed, glumly tried to swallow, and could not. His throat refused to accept the horrible wad of stuff in his mouth. Standish raised his napkin to his mouth and spat out the bony mess.
    â€œAnd now,” Wall was saying, lifting the cover from a dish that stood between them. Standish prayed for real food—scrambled eggs, toast, bacon.
    â€œThis is good luck,” Wall said, exposing a pasty yellow-white partially liquefied substance. “Kedgeree.” He began loading it enthusiastically onto his plate. “An aquatic morning, this. Do help yourself.”
    â€œDo you suppose there’s any toast around here?” Standish said.
    â€œBeside your plate.” Wall gave him a surprised look. “Under the toast cover.”
    He had not even seen the second, more elongated golden lid next to his plate. He lifted it off and uncovered a double row of brown toast in a metal rack. Between the rows of toast stood a pot of orange marmalade and another of what looked like strawberry jam, each with a golden spoon. Standish ladled marmalade onto a wedge of toast.
    â€œSomething amiss with your kipper?”
    â€œWonderful, great,” Standish said.
    â€œI hope you had a comfortable night?”
    â€œFine.”
    â€œNo trouble sleeping? No discomfort of any kind?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œVery good.” Wall paused, and Standish looked up from smearing jam on another