Women in Horror Month: Housing Arachne
Housing Arachne
Content Warning: Miscarriage
The Pouch of Douglas isn't a secret beach on the Isle of Man. Back then it was a destination heavy on my mind. A location in my anatomical geography where much of my scarring, webs and debris from previous settlers had occurred. I am familiar with my body in a way I’m sure most people are not.
This was the second loss I was aware of. There’s a chance it was the third, but I’ll never know if that was a miscarriage or a bad period. Endometriosis gets you that way, gaslighting the body you are in. My period pains are on the same scale as being near fully dilated during labour.
We were trying for a second child again. Prior to my first, I’d had parts of me zapped and plucked away twice, before being able to get, and to stay, pregnant. I was greedy and wanted another baby; a sibling for my first child. Coming from a two-child family, I wanted to create the easy even-numbered life of them vs us. The doctors said I should be fine. All my webs lasered away and a new baby to prove it. But it took me three years to feel ready to do it all again. Not only the physical strain, giving in to the parasitic relationship, but the actual giving up of oneself that happens with a newborn.
After two and a half years of my periods being back, the threads of a spider's web had silently begun to weave within me again. Separate parts of my internal anatomy were woven and bound together -- hidden within.
I was surprised to find I was pregnant and wondered if my first child had cured me. I had an early scan because that's what they did when you had a history of miscarriage. I felt sorry for the sonographer because I had been so very certain things were okay. She had to tell me otherwise. No heartbeat. She checked and rechecked, not wanting to be right.
The bleeding started later at home. Then the cramping and pain. Was my body attempting to purge or hold on? I couldn't tell the difference. Soon I felt something pressing down from inside. The shape pushing out of me. It felt stuck. I visited the toilet, again and again, expecting each time to feel it pass and then hear a plop as it landed in the water. It didn't happen. I became so frustrated with my body’s inability to do its job, that I got a small mirror and had a look at the nest between my legs. Holding myself open I could feel -- and then see -- something protruding. I was only a few weeks pregnant, perhaps eight or nine. There shouldn’t be anything resembling a fetus yet, not of the size I was feeling.
I went to check online and diagnosed myself with uterine prolapse. My body had obviously had enough of all the messing about and had given up. I became an immediate expert in crisis management, delegating my husband to have a look down below. He confirmed he could see something too. Off we went, back to the hospital.
I sat in the emergency room with my husband and my three-year-old daughter. We watched Strictly Come Dancing on the small television in the waiting area, much to her delight. She cuddled her teddy and I held all the things in. I told the nurse I was having a miscarriage and they said there was nothing they could do. They had someone examine me, but as I lay on the hospital bed, I could feel the shape between my legs shrink back. The pull of gravity no longer a problem, it slipped back, hiding within. The doctor did not see anything because the trickster shape had retreated. I tried to explain but he looked at me like I was mad. Maybe I was. He said to let my body do its job and have lots of rest. He gave me a number to call if I could still feel it after twenty-four hours.
We went home and I went to bed. Crashing out with the exhaustion that only comes with emotional trauma and blood loss. The morning arrived and everything was the same. The pain was still there. The thing was still there. I grew frightened to go to the toilet in case my undercarriage fell out. I was pale. Lethargic. Time passed and finally reached twenty-four hours. I called the number I’d been given in the ballroom dancing emergency department. They called me in immediately.
I arrived in a hall of mirrors with different versions of my own reflection all around. The other women there, like me. Tear-stained cheeks, tired eyes, and weak, slow bodies. Maybe some of them had something peeking out between their legs too. It felt further out by then, less afraid. Not receding when I lay down, a presence between my thighs like an alien body part growing there.
A nurse called me through, and I assumed the position I had occupied so many times before. STI's, endometriosis, abnormal cervical screenings, speedy childbirth; so many reasons for so many people to want to look.
I lay there looking at medical posters on her wall, trying to remove myself from the situation. It didn't work because I was crying and things were blurring, but she told me she could see the shape. Part of me was ecstatic, I knew it wasn't my imagination. She said she’d need to pull the shape out; it was trapped in my cervix. There was no prolapse. My body didn't want to let it go. She tugged the creature from me, and my pain doubled. She told me to relax but I couldn't, my cervix like a vice. I felt like it was my organs being pulled out, not a shape that was a silent mass, something so separate from me. After a mini lifetime, it slid out. I was open, consumed by a sense of internal space where something had once resided. Vacant and available but not ready.
My one regret; I didn't ask to see it. My Rouge Noir spiderling finally disconnected, ejected from my web.
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Since 2010, Susan wrote for a variety of media outlets, until the call of the strange and unusual grew irresistible. Now she mixes words like potions at her laptop in Cheshire, UK. She procrastinates by writing shorter, and weirder, stuff. Her first novel, eco-horror Earthly Bodies, is out now and recently made it to number 30 in Reedsy's top indie books of all time. Dark Is The Water & other wyrd tales, Susan's short horror collection is out April 2022.
@susanearlam on Twitter and Instagram
Website https://susanearlam.com/
