My family locked me in the basement to give birth. Days later, they returned to find a dark red liquid seeping from the door. As my mother screamed, a voice whispered behind her, “Looking for me?”

throat. I breathed through the rolling waves of nausea, pressing my bruised hands against my abdomen. I have to stay tethered to reality, I told myself repeatedly. The baby requires a vessel of stone, not a vessel of panic.

I refused to submit without a war. I dragged a heavy antique trunk over to the wall, stacking a crippled dining chair on top of continue reading …