Please note: I don't know anything about this book and I haven't seen the movie, so if you have please bear with me in this adaptation. I'm just going to follow the plot as best I can. And I would rather do so knowing nothing about the book so that I don't follow it too closely. If I remember I will include quotations.

ROSEMARY'S BABY

Chapter One

"Why are we doing this again?"

Amadeus looked at Rosemary and said, "I think we've discussed this in enough detail already."

"Well...I was fine with where we were..."

"Rosemary, we both looked at the apartment. We both liked it. Why do you keep asking me why we're moving into it?"

"...I don't know..."

Amadeus pulled the car up in front of the building and gazed up at its strange Gothic facade. It was kind of odd to put this sort of building in the middle of Station Square like this, but it was cheaper than anything else they had looked at without being far from the city, and it would do for now.

"My dear, stop worrying. We've committed to it and that's that. We're not going to get into any trouble just because the building is kind of old-fashioned."

"I get enough trouble from 'old-fashioned', thanks," said Rosemary, and she got out of the car. Puzzled, Amadeus got out of the car and went to stand with her.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're old-fashioned. Look at all the trouble I get into with you."

Amadeus was still confused. "Trouble? I haven't even seen you in 6 months, how did I get you into trouble?"

Rosemary sighed. The trouble with Amadeus being old-fashioned was that he often didn't get nuances. It was hard to talk sarcastically around him because he simply didn't understand.

"Never mind. Let's just start moving these boxes."

"You go upstairs if you like, Rosemary. I think I can handle it."

Normally she wouldn't have taken him up on it, but she was tired and kind of irritated with her husband. So she went into the building and took the elevator upstairs.

The apartment was a sparse room done in darker colours, and Rosemary found it oppressive. She wandered around it, trying to let in as much light as possible. It wasn't like their old home, the country one where the sunlight fell through the windows in streaming ribbons of bright rainbow colours, but with Amadeus on indefinite leave for his accident there really was no way of knowing where the money was coming from. Their savings weren't too bad but Amadeus was a stickler for planning far, far ahead. Another old-fashioned thing he did. Rosemary wouldn't have minded hanging on for a while if she'd had to, but Amadeus said he wanted to make sure she was taken care of in the event that he couldn't find work. Which she appreciated and understood, and went along with.

But she didn't like it.

She went and sat on the floor in the bedroom, trying to think of a way to brighten it up. There was no way she was going to live in a dark bedroom. It was pretty hard to paint over those sorts of colours though.

After a while Amadeus came back upstairs with a good number of the boxes, all meticulously labelled by him of course, and Rosemary helped him sort them out.

"When are they bringing the furniture?" she asked him as they stacked the kitchen boxes in that general vicinity.

"Mm...sometime this evening, I believe," said Amadeus, straightening the pile and leaving to get the rest of the boxes. As soon as he turned around Rosemary adjusted the box so that it was no longer flush with the box below it. When Amadeus came back he stared at it.

"I thought I..."

He readjusted it and brought some of the boxes into the bedroom. Again Rosemary moved the box and slipped into the other room. She stood and looked out the window. If she squinted she could pretend she was back in the forest.

"Rosemary?"

"Yes?"

"Am I going senile, dear?"

Rosemary tried not to laugh but was not entirely successful. "Why would you say that?"

"I think this box is moving."

"Well...they don't normally do that..."

"I'll be damned, then. What's in it?"

"Plates?"

"Plates don't move," said Amadeus. He was sounding more and more perplexed with every minute that went by.

Rosemary's smile faded as she went back to looking out the window. It made her think of home far too much.

All of a sudden there was a tickling feeling around her waist and Amadeus was lifting her off the floor. She cried out and started laughing, fighting to get back to the floor in mock panic. Amadeus locked his arms around her waist.

"Nice try, Rosemary," he whispered into her ear, making it tingle with the proximity of his voice, "but don't usher me into insanity just yet."

"Mm," said Rosemary, looking up at him as best she could from her awkward, bent-over position, "I don't need to do that...it happened a long time ago..."

They started mock-fighting again, both of them laughing and falling to the floor when Amadeus lost his balance. Rosemary felt a lot of the tension she had been feeling melt away. Amadeus was good for that. He was very sensitive to how she was feeling.

They both sat there breathless on the floor for a few moments, just looking at each other and trying to gauge their feelings. It wasn't easy to hold a relationship together when they were always apart, and occasionally Rosemary wondered why she went on with it at all, Amadeus seemed such a stranger to her sometimes, but then he would do one of those things that only he could do and she would hold on until the next time they were together for a while. In fact their relationship had been a little strained since Amadeus had come back, because every time he came back he was like a different person. He was colder. More impersonal. Rosemary understood that was how you had to be in the army, but when you were supposed to be sleeping next to this person and kissing them goodnight, this cold creature who had to numb himself so that he could kill without thinking about it, it was difficult.

But Amadeus never did her wrong. Tested her resolve sometimes. Tested her faith. But he always lived up to his name. Always did everything he said he would do.

While they were sitting their catching their breath Rosemary thought about these things and decided that she didn't want the Amadeus of last night sleeping beside her when darkness fell. So she took his face in her hands and kissed him. At first he did not respond, and she was afraid she had gone too far too fast. He needed time to adjust, after all, and for a second her insides froze at the thought of him rejecting her. But her fears were unfounded, as after a few moments had passed he seemed to relax a little more, took her in his arms and kissed her back. The feeling she got was one she had been waiting for all the time he had been away, and she didn't want to let it go.

Then of course the buzzer rang and they had to break it off.

"Damn," said Amadeus. "I guess we'll have to do some work now."

"We can play later," said Rosemary, and she ran a finger down his back.

"I doubt it," said Amadeus. "We're going to be moving furniture for the rest of the evening. We're going to be dead tired by the time later comes."

He went to the door and opened it, and started talking with the lynx who had brought up the first of the furniture.

Rosemary was just short of grinding her teeth. Sometimes...sometimes...sometimes Amadeus was so infuriating...

After a minute she calmed down and went to join him. He was right, as usual. She was short of exhausted right now, she didn't want to think about later.

Amadeus told her she wasn't needed for moving the furniture, and although his chivalrous nature did set her off sometimes, she wasn't too keen on moving it and gratefully slipped out into the hallway. Again she found herself drawn to a window, this one at the end of the hall overlooking the city.

"Well hello my dear!"

Rosemary jumped and turned around. Behind her were two elderly hedgehogs, clearly an old married couple, and the female was holding an aluminum pan covered with Saran wrap.

"Hi," she said.

"I'm Bernadette," said the female, "and this is my husband, Jules."

"We're your neighbours," said Jules. "We want to welcome you to the apartment."

They were standing a bit too close for comfort but Rosemary couldn't back up any farther. She put a hand on the windowsill behind her.

"Well...thank you," she said.

"I made you some lasagna," said Bernadette. "You're not going to feel like cooking after the long day you've had. You can just reheat it in the microwave. Or the stove. Is your stove set up yet?"

"No, but-"

"Well if you need to you can come use our stove," continued Bernadette as if Rosemary hadn't spoken. "In fact, you can just pop into our apartment anytime you like. We enjoy having visitors."

Something about the way she said it made Rosemary's fur prick uncomfortably.

"Thank you," she said, not knowing what else to say.

"Here, darling," said Bernadette, and she handed Rosemary the pan. It was still warm. Rosemary thanked her again and then politely excused herself. She took it back to her apartment and placed it on the counter. Then she went to stand outside the doorway so she wouldn't get in the way of the furniture being moved.

After only a couple of minutes, though, she felt a funny feeling creep over her and looked up.

Jules and Bernadette were staring at her.

She looked away quickly, not wanting to speak to them. When she looked back up to see if they were still watching her, Bernadette waved and Jules smiled in a kindly gentleman sort of way. She shifted uncomfortably and tried not to look at them again. But after another moment she looked up and they were gone.

She shivered.

She hoped she wouldn't need to speak to them too often.