The house had seemed so large all those years ago, like a loose skin that didn’t quite fit anymore. Now, Mallory thought it looked small enough to feel claustrophobic, as though it had sagged in on itself in the years she’d been away. It was only as she clumsily maneuvered her suitcase up the front steps that she realized she didn’t have a key. If she ever had, it was almost certainly back in the city, tucked away in some forgotten drawer in her apartment. Mallory wished that she was tucked away there, too. Instead, she was lifting up the ugly ceramic pig statuette which had hidden the spare key for at least the past two decades. There it was. Her mother was nothing if not predictable.

Mallory’s sister, Rachel, had been the one to call. She’d taken care of their mother all through her illness, always so patient and doting, despite being the youngest. But now Rachel was on strict bed rest due to complications with her pregnancy — a placental abruption, she had called it. Her husband could be of no help with their mother, having to commute almost two hours to teach at the nearest university.

That left Mallory.

The deadbolt gave way with little resistance, though the key stuck when Mallory tried to pull it from the lock. The living room was just as she remembered it, with its deceptively stiff sofa, where Mallory’s father had often slept. The kitchen countertops seemed unfamiliar. Her mother must have had them redone. A subtle odor permeated the whole house — something musty and a bit sweet, like rotting leaves on the forest floor. Houses always had a particular smell to them, Mallory thought, but this didn’t smell like home to her. This was the smell of sickness.

She left her luggage outside the closed door of her old bedroom to be dealt with later. She didn’t want to open that door just yet, didn’t want to see whether her childhood had been left untouched or turned into storage space.

Instead she found herself rapping lightly at the entrance to her mother’s room, which had been left slightly ajar. No response. An unwelcome image percolated in Mallory’s imagination — her mother’s lifeless body lying stiff and cold, dead in the half-day it had taken Mallory to arrive, if only she had left just a few hours earlier — but no, she was only asleep, hair fanned out over the pillow like a halo. She wore a silk nightgown, one that she’d owned for as long as Mallory could remember. Always wanted to look put-together, even when she slept, even when no one was around to see her. Now, Mallory’s stomach ached at the sight of how thin she’d grown, how old she looked. She hardly recognized the woman asleep before her. The skin on her mother’s once-sharp face now seemed to hang from it, and her pale hair was riddled with silver.

Mallory began to feel awkwardly voyeuristic hovering in the doorway, so she busied herself with the kettle. As it worked itself up to boiling, she caught a glimpse of her mother’s herb garden through the kitchen window. It looked to be on the verge of death — painstakingly arranged rows of basil, rosemary, thyme, lavender, and at least three varieties of mint curled wilted atop the soil. The plants seemed to be rotting from the inside out. Perhaps the garden had fallen ill when her mother had.

The shriek of the kettle wrested Mallory from her thoughts, and muscle-memory guided her to the mugs and tea bags, but she paused, realizing she couldn’t recall how her mother preferred it. She settled on two identical cups of Earl Grey with honey and a splash of milk, the way she had liked it as a little girl.

When she returned, her mother was awake and propped upright by a mountain of pillows, regarding Mallory with an unreadable expression.

“You’ve cut your hair,” she said.

…

The two adapted quickly, if uneasily, to cohabitating in that old house again. Mallory attempted to reconcile herself to their new roles as caregiver and patient. She helped her mother to the toilet, spooned her mouthfuls of broth when her hands shook too much, made sure she took her medication on time. Rachel’s instructions had been thorough; all Mallory had to do was follow them. Her mother, for her part, asked questions at polite intervals, the closest either of them had come to acknowledging Mallory’s nine-year absence after she’d left for college.

“Are you still seeing that woman?”

“Beth? No, we broke it off; she thought I wasn’t ready for something serious.” Neither mentioned that her mother had only learned about Beth after Rachel’s tongue had been loosened by one too many glasses of wine.

“How’s the painting going?”

“I haven’t had much time for it since I got that promotion. I only hope I haven’t lost my touch.” Neither mentioned the many times her mother had warned Mallory that her hobby wouldn’t take her past a bachelor’s degree in studio art.

They had kept in touch, of course, in the time that Mallory had been away. But days between phone calls had turned into weeks, until the only times she heard her mother’s voice were on birthdays and holidays.

…

Mallory’s childhood bedroom had remained unchanged in her absence. Everything was just as she’d left it, save for the thick layer of dust which coated every surface. Her stuffed toys were still arranged atop the cream-colored bedspread, and the trophy she’d won in a tenth-grade art contest stood proudly on its shelf.

That first night, though, Mallory came across an unwelcome discovery: a green-black swath of mold, trailing up the wall from behind her bed. She wondered if this was the harmless kind of mold or the kind you were supposed to call someone about. The stain was fairly small — only about a foot high, barely standing out from the room’s shadows.

Mallory recalled where her mother used to keep the cleaning supplies and decided that sleep could wait. Three parts water, one part bleach, a sponge and a pair of rubber gloves. An hour later and Mallory was satisfied with her work.

…

The following morning, she found that the problem wasn’t limited to a single room; the infection seemed to have spread throughout the entire house. Mallory saw it on the ceiling as she showered, found it creeping from behind the kitchen cabinets, and she spent the morning scrubbing the affected surfaces clean. Out, damned spot. By noon her hands were raw and stinging.

“How long has the mold been here?” Mallory had asked over breakfast. Eggs, sausage, an array of colorful pills. No toast. The bread had gone off.

“The mold?”

Had she really not been aware?

“Or maybe it’s mildew, I don’t know how to tell the difference. It’s all over the house, almost every room. I should really call a professional. It could be dangerous.”

“Rachel never mentioned any mold,” said her mother.

Mallory was beginning to itch.

…

Her mother didn’t like the lights on in her bedroom because they made her head hurt. It was almost a week before Mallory realized the dark curtains keeping the sunlight out had once been a gauzy white.

…

Rachel phoned unexpectedly as Mallory was peeling back the yellow wallpaper in the living room. The whole wall underneath was freckled black.

“Hello?”

“It’s a boy!” said Rachel.

“You found out the sex?” Mallory was still wearing her rubber gloves. “I thought you were going to wait until birth.”

“We did,” said Rachel.

“What?” The smell of bleach was making her head swim unpleasantly, her thoughts sluggish. “You already…You’re barely eight months along.”

“He’s so little,” Rachel cooed. “We don’t even have a name picked out yet.”

“But you’re alright? And the baby’s alright?”

“We’re alright.” Rachel sounded like she always did when Mallory was being neurotic. “But we’ll have to stay in the hospital for around a month. To keep him monitored.”

“A month.”

“How is everything there?” asked Rachel. “How’s Mom?”

“Everything’s fine,” said Mallory.

…

She was pulling up the herb garden when she found the first blooms of mold decorating her skin. It trailed from underneath her rubber gloves, standing out in stark contrast against her pale wrists.

Mallory had no doubt that if she were to look in a mirror, the face reflected back at her would be spotted with the same filth, festering from somewhere deep beneath the surface of her skin. She could imagine it winding down her neck, curling round the curve of her breasts.

So she kept her gaze averted as she filled the bathtub. Three parts water, one part bleach.

Immersing herself in the mixture, Mallory burned. Above her sharp gasp of pain, there was another sound — a fizzing, chemical sort of hiss. She wondered if it was the mold being purged from her skin, or if something inside her was dissolving. For a moment, Mallory allowed herself to think of the cleansing properties of fire. It would be so easy; the flick of a flame, the drop of a match, and the whole house would be ablaze, taking all that mold with it. She imagined flames licking up the walls, through the putrefied remains of the garden, over her mother’s unmoving form. Like cauterizing a wound.

Instead, she toweled herself off, red and inflamed with the sting of chemicals, and went to put the kettle on. Her mother liked her tea strong, with a wedge of lemon and a half-teaspoon of honey.

Mallory helped guide the cup to trembling lips. From beneath the sleeve of her mother’s silk nightgown, slick black spores were just beginning to spread.