The Pumice Tooth

Before I turned to reflexology, I worked the polish bar at a wellness emporium called ‘The Tepid Oasis,’ a name that promised more serenity than our fluorescent-lit strip mall could deliver. The Oasis offered salt scrubs, lymphatic drainage, and something called ‘auricular detox’ that was just ear candling with a waiver. We were tucked between a tax preparer’s and a shuttered pet groomer’s, the whole facade a beige stucco that had already started to crumble at the corners, though the building was barely a decade old.

There was a manicurist, Delia, who had a constellation of allergies. She’d break out in hives if you so much as sneezed near her station. But it was more than that. She’d get these nosebleeds, and once she vomited into a pedicure basin after touching a particular bottle of cuticle oil. She was convinced it was the building, not the chemicals. She’d beg our manager, Hank, to test for mold or asbestos, but he’d just wave a clipboard and say, ‘The air quality index is fine, Delia. Maybe you need a vacation.’

But Delia wasn’t just worried about toxins. She had this theory that the building was built on something wrong. She’d read about a sinkhole that had opened up a few blocks away, and she’d seen a news report about a burial ground that wasn’t on any official map. We all thought she was just spiraling. I’d been in my share of odd places—a rental house where the doors wouldn’t stay shut, a motel room that always felt like someone was watching—but the Oasis felt sterile, save for the faint, perpetual smell of chlorine and aloe.

Then one Tuesday, Delia just snapped. She flung a nail file across the room and screamed, ‘There’s a face in the steam room!’ We all went to look, but the steam room was empty, the tiles just glistening with condensation. She quit that Friday, leaving a voicemail that was mostly static. Before she left, she pressed a smooth, gray stone into my palm. It was warm, almost feverish, and pitted like pumice. ‘It’s a tooth,’ she said. ‘It came from the steam room’s drain. It’s not human.’

I laughed and tossed it into my apron pocket, meaning to throw it away, but I forgot. The next week, I started noticing things. The ficus in the lobby would wiggle its leaves even when the AC was off. My clients would complain of a faint grinding noise, like something chewing, coming from the walls. And my own skin began to itch, dry flakes falling like snow when I rubbed my arms.

One night, I stayed late to prep towels. The hallway to the back rooms was dim, the flickering overhead light casting shadows that didn’t quite match the objects. I heard a wet, sucking sound from the tanning bed room. The door was ajar. I peeked in and saw the bed’s lid was open, the acrylic surface smeared with a dark, viscous goo. But the smell—that was the worst. It was like burnt hair and rotting meat, and it made my stomach lurch.

I backed away, and my hand brushed against something cold and hard on the shelf: the pumice tooth. It had grown. It was now the size of my fist, and I could see tiny, vein-like cracks running through it, pulsing with a faint green light. A voice, guttural and wet, whispered from the drain in the floor: ‘Feed us.’ I dropped the tooth and ran.

I never went back to the Oasis. I moved to a town on the other side of the state, but the nightmares followed. In my new apartment, I found a small, gray stone on my pillow. It was warm. As I leaned in, I heard a faint, rhythmic grinding from inside it, like teeth gnashing. And somewhere deep in the plumbing, something chittered in the dark. The Oasis had been a mouth, and I had been living in its stomach all along.