I THOUGHT I SAW A PAIR of eyes staring at me through the oven door. I was standing in a corner of S’s kitchen, trying to make small talk for the sake of her party, so I ignored the eyes, which might have belonged to some whole roasted fish. I left the man I’d been chatting with about the snow and made my escape to the living room.

The fireplace, soft as children’s snoring. Fire breathing as it eats.

I didn’t like the living room because. I didn’t like the living room.

My old friends stood mingling with the friends of my children and grandchildren. I could hardly breathe since the room was so stuffy from the crowd and the smoke from the fireplace.

“Where were you when it happened?” a woman asked me. I recognized her as a child.

“Asleep,” I said.

“When did you get the call?”

“I don’t remember,” I said.

“What did your daughter tell you?”

I looked away. “S was scared. She didn’t tell me everything.”

“Is there any proof?”

“It was too long ago for proof.”

The woman stepped closer to me. She wore a costume with pigtail braids like a milkmaid. “Not here,” she said. “Right now, it’s happening here.”

“Not possible. I wasn’t here the night it happened,” I said.

“Nights melt together like chocolate drops,” she said.

I turned away. S’s husband was feeding the fire breadcrumbs. I went over to him and put my hand on his shoulder. “Where is S?” I said.

He stared at the fire like it was his enemy. “Upstairs.”

“But the party. She’s hosting.”

“It’s at our house, but we didn’t do it,” he said.

“Of course,” I said.

He cleared his throat and walked away, headed for the kitchen.

I had to find S before someone else did. Too many people at the party wanted to talk about that one night, out of all the nights we lived. If someone asked her the wrong question, she might have a come-apart, which would embarrass us all.

If all nights are the same, melted together, then the child is always alive. There is a girl, and there is a boy.

I might have loved one a bit more than the other. If I were to lose one…but no one asked what I wanted.

Guests were crowded on the stairs to the bedrooms. I clung to the rail as I pushed past them.

“I’m S’s mother. Who are you?” I said to each one I passed.

I met the girl’s flute tutor, her librarian, and the woman at the animal shelter who let the girl adopt a tabby cat. I got the feeling they’d been talking about me.

At the top of the stairs, I looked in the girl’s room first to see if S was there reminiscing.

Ribbons and dolls. S wasn’t there, but the room was full of people touching all her things. People are always curious. Well, it wasn’t my house or my party, so I let them be.

Then I tried the boy’s room. People hid in the closet, under the bed, behind the curtains, just like the boy did when the children played hide-and-seek. I listened for his laughter.

“What are you doing?” I asked them.

One woman rolled out from under the bed and told me her theory about what happened that night, which is also happening now. I’d heard the theory many times from other lips.

“Maybe that night is here alongside every night. But if so, it’s diluted by every other night,” I said. “That’s my theory.”

“Did you notice if the children got along?” the woman asked me. It was important to her theory.

“As much as anyone, I think.” I wasn’t sure what was normal. Not by then.

I left before I could hear more. I didn’t want to listen to recitations of the facts like creeds. I didn’t want to imagine. Where was the boy? Where was the girl?

Who was in the oven?

I found S in the guest bathroom. Her eye makeup was running down her cheeks.

“I’ve been looking all over for you,” I said.

“You found me.”

“You shouldn’t have had this party, but since you did, you have to be a host. Isn’t that what I taught you? Didn’t I teach you anything?” I shook her, or at least I wanted to.

“I had no choice,” she said.

“Maybe this is hell. After all, what’s the difference between hell and this party?” I said.

“Fire?” she said.

“There’s fire here,” I said.

“Repentance?”

“That’s here too.”

“Then what is it?”

“There aren’t any children at this party. They either grew up or went somewhere else. To hide, maybe.”

S looked guilty.

“Did you do something to them?” I said.

She looked at me so earnestly. I realized she was born with fish eyes. Did she get them from me or from her father’s side? •



Ivy Grimes is originally from Birmingham, Alabama and currently lives in Virginia. Her stories have appeared in The Baffler, Vastarien, hex, Maudlin House, ergot., Potomac Review, and elsewhere. She is the author of the collection Glass Stories (Grimscribe Press) and The Ghosts of Blaubart Mansion (Cemetery Gates). Her novella The Cellar Below the Cellar is forthcoming from Violet Lichen.