2: 2

I stared at that photo, cold sweat breaking out across my palms in an instant.

My roommates were already tearing into her:

"Camille, are you sick in the head!"

"Priscilla's pregnant, and you send a picture like that? Are you trying to freak her out on purpose!"

"If you're sick, go get treated. Stop with this creepy nonsense and delete it, now!"

But Camille acted like she hadn't seen any of it, and asked again:

"Your mother-in-law... she makes you eat a goose egg every single day, doesn't she?"

My stomach clenched. How did she know that too?

"What would you know?" I shot back before I could stop myself.

"My mother-in-law says goose eggs clear the toxins from a pregnancy. My morning sickness was bad, she was afraid I wasn't getting enough nutrition, that's the only reason she..."

And then it hit me. My appetite had exploded, and it seemed to have started right around when she'd begun feeding me goose eggs.

At first the morning sickness was constant. I had no appetite at all, and I dropped more than ten pounds almost overnight.

She was beside herself with worry and rushed me to the doctor.

The doctor said morning sickness in early pregnancy was perfectly normal, but she couldn't let it go. She was afraid my body couldn't take it.

Later, she heard somewhere that goose eggs could clear the toxins and add nutrition on top of it.

So she rode a bus for hours out to the countryside, going village by village to buy up goose eggs.

When she came back, both her hands had raw red marks pressed into them.

But she just smiled at me and said,

"Priscilla, I don't trust the eggs they sell in stores. These are all from farm geese raised free out in the country. Best nutrition there is."

From that day on, she made me a goose-egg dish every single day.

Boiled goose eggs, goose-egg custard, pan-fried goose eggs, goose eggs scrambled with tomato... at nearly every meal.

I got so sick of them that I balked, and her whole face fell.

"Priscilla, these weren't easy for me to get."

"You're carrying a baby. If you won't eat, how is your body supposed to hold up? If you don't get enough nutrition, it'll break my heart."

Looking at all that worry in her eyes, I gave in, the way I always did.

After that, I made a point of eating one goose egg every day.

Just then, another message came through from Camille.

"Think about it carefully. Those marks on your belly, didn't they only start showing up after you began eating the goose eggs?"

My breath caught.

I looked down at my swollen belly without thinking.

That vine-like red mark had spread across a wide stretch of skin at some point I hadn't even noticed.

And it... it really did seem to have appeared after I started eating the goose eggs.

At first it was just a small, faint red patch.

Then the lines grew denser, the color deeper.

And at the same time, my appetite kept growing.

I'd thought the pattern was strange, but the doctor and my mother-in-law both said it was only stretch marks.

She'd even gone out and bought me a whole pile of imported stretch-mark cream, telling me to rub it on every day.

"You're six months along now. If I'm not wrong, those marks have almost reached your chest by now, haven't they?"

I froze where I sat.

My own husband didn't even know about this. So how did she?

I forced down the unease clawing at me and gritted out a reply:

"Quit putting on this spooky act! They're just normal stretch marks!"

Camille wrote back: "You can talk tough all you want, but it won't help, because you..."

She never finished. She was kicked out of the group chat mid-sentence.

"Priscilla, ignore her, she's a lunatic!"

"Sending a corpse photo was bad enough, and now she's making up all this garbage to scare a pregnant woman. Honestly disgusting."

While everyone was piling on Camille, Zoe, who had stayed quiet the whole time, suddenly spoke up.

"But... do you all remember Deidre Gilbert?"

"Back then Camille said there was something unclean on Deidre, said she wouldn't live out the month. Deidre didn't believe her. And not long after, she hanged herself in a classroom at school..."

The words were barely out before someone pushed back.

"That's nonsense! Deidre clearly had depression after a breakup. What did that have to do with Camille?"

"She just got lucky with a wild guess, that's all!"

I watched the messages scroll past, and the cold in my chest kept deepening.

After turning it over and over, I decided to call Camille and get a straight answer.

The call had barely connected when my mother-in-law walked in beaming, carrying a plate of scrambled goose eggs.

"Priscilla, here, eat this. A little extra between meals!"

I looked at that steaming bowl of eggs, remembered what Camille had said, and my stomach suddenly turned.

I glanced up and met the hope in my mother-in-law's eyes.

Thinking of how she'd worn herself ragged for these eggs, guilt washed over me.

But the moment I lifted the egg to my mouth, Camille's frantic shout came bursting down the line:

"Don't eat it!"

"Priscilla Simmons, do you have any idea? What you're eating isn't goose eggs at all!"

3: 3

I froze.

I looked down at the eggs in the bowl. If these weren't goose eggs, what were they?

More of her fear-mongering nonsense.

Anger flared. I snapped a photo and sent it back, demanding an answer.

"Take a good look. If these aren't goose eggs, what are they?"

Camille replied almost instantly.

"Priscilla, I'm not lying to you. You really can't eat any more of them..."

"Once that blood-red line on your belly climbs to your heart, not even a god could save you!"

"If you don't believe me, give the eggs to your mother-in-law or your husband. See if they dare eat them!"

Then she hung up.

My mind churned. After what she'd said, I couldn't swallow the egg in my mouth no matter how I tried.

I hesitated a moment, then carried the bowl out to the living room.

My mother-in-law was clearing away the dishes. When she saw the leftovers in my bowl, the smile froze on her face.

"Priscilla, why didn't you finish?"

"I don't have much of an appetite today. I don't want it..."

Before I could finish, she suddenly raised her voice and cried out.

"No appetite!"

"How could you have no appetite! The thing in your belly—"

Her face went red, her expression almost monstrous.

Then, as if catching herself, she cut off the words. In an instant she forced a smile back onto her face.

"Priscilla, Mom isn't scolding you. Mom just worries about you."

"You eat and throw up, throw up and eat, all day long. You finally get a little nutrition in you. If you don't eat, how is your body supposed to hold up?"

"These goose eggs, I went through several towns just to collect them. If you don't eat them, isn't it all wasted?"

As she spoke, she pushed the bowl toward me again.

My husband chimed in beside her. "That's right, Priscilla. Mom means well. Just eat them!"

They were both smiling, but their eyes were fixed hard on the eggs in the bowl.

Camille's words came back to me. My heart lurched, and instinct told me to pull away.

But they kept staring at me, a pressure in it that would not be refused. "Go on, eat!"

Without thinking, I picked up the plate and held it up to my husband's mouth.

"If they're so good for you, then you eat them, honey!"

The moment I held it out, my mother-in-law screamed behind me.

"He can't eat those!"

Smack. She knocked the plate out of my hand, and it shattered across the floor.

My heart shook. I turned to look at her.

That face, so kind and gentle a moment ago, was now so dark it looked ready to drip.

She glared at me for a few seconds. Then, all at once, her mouth curved into a gentle smile again.

"You're just not hungry enough yet, aren't you? It's all right. When you get hungry later, Mom will make you some more."

Her smile was tender, but a chill ran down my back.

I quickly made an excuse about being sleepy and hurried back to my room, bolted the door, and called Camille.

"Cami, what exactly has my mother-in-law been feeding me? What does it have to do with the red marks on my belly?"

Even as I asked, part of me still refused to believe she would hurt me.

I was an orphan, with no power and no connections.

After I married Darren, both he and his mother had been unbelievably good to me.

Now I was carrying the Gilbert bloodline. If they meant to harm me, what could they possibly gain?

"Have you ever heard of... the fetal-feeding curse?" Camille said quietly.

"There's a forbidden folk ritual that raises something inside a pregnant woman, something that can never be full. The reason you feel hungry is that the thing that truly wants to eat was never you."

"Once it's devoured every drop of lifeblood from you and the child in your womb, it will come back to life through your body!"

My scalp crawled as I listened, sure she was making up a story to scare me.

"If I'm right, that thing's soul won't stray more than thirty feet from your home. It must have something to anchor itself to."

"Go and look. Isn't there a memorial tablet enshrined somewhere in your house?"

Her words sent cold sweat pouring down my back.

My father-in-law had died of esophageal cancer, and we kept his memorial tablet in the house...

4: 4

I couldn't stop shaking.

But I did what Camille told me. That night, once the whole house was asleep, I crept over to the memorial tablet and started searching.

In under a minute, I found it — my own birth chart, tucked underneath.

The shock hit me like a physical blow.

I thought back to the matchmaking event six months ago, how Darren Harding had been polite but distant with everyone.

Until he heard my birth date. Then his eyes lit up.

After that he chased me relentlessly, fussing over me, giving me everything I wanted.

Under all that romance and devotion, I married him almost before I knew it.

I used to wonder, dazed with luck, how I'd ever stumbled onto such a wonderful family.

So it had all been planned from the start.

But there was no time to grieve. I messaged Camille at once:

"What do I do? If I run right now, is it too late?"

She answered almost instantly. "No."

"The fetal-feeding curse is already bound to the blood of your child. Leave now and you're dead for certain."

"If you want to live, you have to break the ritual. If you trust me, I can help you."

Like a drowning woman grabbing the last straw, I nodded, my head a mess.

What choice did I have but to believe her?

Following Camille's instructions, I swapped my birth chart for Deidre Gilbert's,

then went back to bed as if nothing had happened.

The next day my mother-in-law brought me another bowl of goose-egg custard. "Priscilla, eat it while it's hot."

When my fingers touched the bottom of the bowl, I ran them over it without thinking, and sure enough, I felt a raised ridge.

I forced myself to stay calm, and while she turned to ladle out soup, I quietly lifted the bowl.

One glance, and my heart clenched hard.

Carved into the bottom of the bowl was the exact same pattern as the one on my belly.

This was the fetal-feeding mark Camille had told me about.

Cold sweat soaked through my back in an instant. I no longer doubted a single word she'd said.

But I didn't dare show any of my terror.

I crushed the fear down and, under her watchful eyes, made myself scoop up a bite of the steamed egg.

Before it reached my mouth, her face changed and she shot to her feet.

"Priscilla Simmons, what did you do!"

I flinched. Had she found out?

"Mom, what — what's wrong? I didn't do anything!"

Her face was dark, her eyes fixed on me and refusing to let go.

She pulled out her phone and called my husband on the spot.

"Come home, now. She knows!"

My legs went weak. I backed away, again and again, and fled into my room.

Right then Camille called.

"Deidre's soul lost to the fetal-feeding curse. It's furious now, and it's going to strike back!"

Panic seized me. "Then what do I do?"

Camille dropped her voice low. "It's come to this. Let me borrow your body and face it myself!"

While I hesitated, bang, bang, bang — my mother-in-law was outside, pounding on the door like a woman possessed.

"Priscilla Simmons, open up! Open the door!"

Terror swallowed me whole.

Without a second thought I did exactly as Camille had said, cut open my finger and drew the charm, chanting:

"By my blood I make the pact, enter and take your place!"

I said it over and over, and a violent, wrenching pain tore through my belly.

Something was thrashing inside me, wild, until cold sweat streamed down my skin.

Just as my mind was going dark, Darren's voice came from outside the door, frantic, almost a scream.

"Priscilla! Stop! One more time and you really will die!"