The Széchenyi spa baths had always been a realm of magic for Elena, a place that transformed her mother from tyrant to soporific princess. During the summers of her childhood, while her mother lay relaxing in one of the hot pools, Elena would play in the shallows, her mind weaving stories of bath nymphs and fairies. She would sink under the water, eyes open, gazing at the hazy figures beneath. Legs loomed like sea monsters and the giants of legend while she fought battles, waiting for the reward from the Bath King who would let her sink down into the blue forever. These moments helped her to forget the packages passed in the changing rooms, and how her mother would duck into the toilets afterwards, her daughter forgotten. She would emerge smiling, rubbing her nose, her body riper somehow.

As Elena walked into the baths today, her body heavy with the false pregnancy stomach she wore, she thought back to those times and how so much had changed. The fairytale of earlier days had been but a dream before the nightmare of her real life had begun. But today, she hoped to escape.

As a child she had discovered that the goodwill from the baths only ever lasted for a short time and then Elena found herself backhanded into silence as she tried to tell her mother of the nymphs. After a while, she didn’t mention them anymore. When her breasts had begun to show just before her thirteenth birthday, it was her mother who noticed first.

“Come, Elena,” she had said. “We’re going shopping.”

Elena remembered how excited she had been, for her clothes had been the subject of ridicule at school, hand-me-downs that ill suited her. Now it seemed that her mother would dress her like one of the popular girls. Elena had been confused when the only shop they had entered sold swimwear and her mother had picked out a tiny bikini. Elena was embarrassed but her mother just adjusted it around her newly formed curves and whispered, “Good, you’ll do just fine.”

On the next trip to the baths, her mother had kept a tight grip on her hand, making sure that Elena changed into the bikini. In the changing cubicle, her mother had clutched her arm tight, fingernails digging into her arm.

“Now, Elena,” she had whispered, her eyes dull. “We need money and you have to earn it. You’ll go with someone today and you’ll do whatever they want. Don’t make a sound or you won’t be coming home with me. But be a good girl and there will be money for nice things.”

Elena had felt confused, but she would do anything to avoid the beatings her mother doled out. So when the attendant lady had come to fetch her, she had walked behind carefully, following her to the door of one of the private spa rooms.

“I’ll get you in thirty minutes,” the woman said, her eyes flicking over Elena, dismissing her with one glance. “Go in, then.” She pushed open the door and shooed the girl inside the darkened space.

Elena barely remembered what had happened that first time, she had been so terrified. But by the end, her new bikini lay discarded on the floor and her insides felt bruised. The baths had always been a place to get clean, so why did she now feel so dirty?

After the third time, Elena had spoken up, telling her mother she wouldn’t go again, that she wouldn’t let the men do what they did, that she would scream and tell the police. Her mother had twisted her arm in a Chinese burn, making her listen as she told her daughter that she was a whore, she was ruined and she was nothing. This was her only life choice, this or be sold to the sex trade, and even that would be too good for a little bitch like her. Elena still wondered why her mother hated her so much.

Then, one day, she had entered the spa room and there was a new man in there, his hair a gleaming black. He had wrapped her in a towel and said he only wanted to talk, that he would pay the same amount but he just wanted to speak with her. As he had asked about her school and what she enjoyed doing, Elena had been surprised, but after a few sessions, she began to trust the man and to look forward to time with him. Her mother was none the wiser. A few weeks ago, he had asked her if she wanted to escape the life she led, that if she did one thing for him, he would get her out. She would have money to leave Budapest, to change her life. Did she want that?

Elena wanted that very much, which was why now, nearing her sixteenth birthday, she found herself wearing a false pregnancy stomach, heading into the baths for an antenatal pool session. Earlier, she had gone to an address the man had provided and listened as he told her what to do. “You must wait, stay with the package until it’s collected,” he had told her. He had made up her face, giving her a wig so that no one would recognize her. It was kind of exciting, like the movies and Elena wanted to do a good job for him. As she left, he had kissed her forehead and she had felt his love. Perhaps he would look after her, rescue her like she had wished the King of the Baths would do in her childhood fairytale.

Wrapping her hands around the pendulous belly, Elena leaned back and looked up at the grand Neo-Baroque entrance. Its pillars and domes were so familiar and yet today, it was as if she saw them with new eyes. The daily stream of visitors was heading through the gates, into one of the largest spa complexes in Europe, with eighteen pools and myriad saunas, steam chambers and corners to relax in. She went through the ritual of entry, her feet following a well-trodden path. The mustard yellow walls dripped with condensation from the steam that billowed through the changing area and Elena felt sweat pool beneath the false stomach. She wondered again what was inside it, knowing not to ask, only hoping that its delivery would secure her freedom.

Inside the baths, she went to her locker and then to the spa room where she had met the man, right next to the pool where the antenatal class was starting. Elena shrugged off the false stomach and placed it beside her on the bench. It looked like a grotesque sack of flesh. Would it hurt to have a look inside it?

She heard the chimes of the clock as her hand reached for the zipper on the side. Elena heard a click and there was a flash of light, a burst of pain and she thought no more as the bomb exploded her young body into a million pieces.

***

Thanks for reading!

There are 3 more books in the ARKANE series, so you can join Morgan Sierra on more adventures in Pentecost, Prophecy and Exodus.

The books are available in ebook format at Amazon stores and Kobo, as well as in print and audio through Amazon.

I also have a darker crime novel, Desecration, that opens with a murder in a medical specimen museum. Plus a short story series inspired by Dante’s Inferno, A Thousand Fiendish Angels.

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