Read an excerpt from Delicate Condition, the inspiration for American Horror Story season 12

Before American Horror Story returns for season 12 with Kim Kardashian and Emma Roberts leading the cast, learn more about its source material, Delicate Condition, the upcoming book that author Danielle Valentine describes as "a horror novel about pregnancy." Anna Alcott, an actress new to fame because of a breakthrough performance in an indie film, is desperate to start a family. She's been through multiple failed rounds of IVF, and then just when she thinks the universe has given her a break, she suffers a miscarriage. Meanwhile, she's convinced she's being stalked by mysterious figures hellbent on preventing her from conceiving a child, but few, including her husband Dex, believe her. In EW's exclusive excerpt from Delicate Condition, Anna is recovering from the miscarriage when something particularly strange occurs.

The dogs swarmed as soon as we made it through the back door, like always.

"I'll get them; you just head upstairs," Dex said through the chaos. He had Peanut Butter by the collar to keep him from lunging for me, Happy sniffing around his ankles for treats.

I slipped up the stairs while they were distracted. I loved the dogs, but I couldn't face them right now. Their little trusting faces would only make me more aware of all the ways I'd failed. I wanted to be alone with my grief.

Talia's house was labyrinthine. The second floor twisted and curved, like it was trying to trick you, hallways opening into rooms that opened into yet more hallways, more rooms. I got lost the first time I walked through on my own but, this time, I found my way to the master bedroom without thinking. My bottle of prenatal vitamins was sitting on my bedside table, along with a book on pregnancy and a list of foods and medications I was supposed to avoid, which I'd saved from my very first appointment with Dr. Hill.

I stared at the vitamins for a moment, feeling sick. I'd taken them religiously. One vitamin along with a cup of hot water and lemon at the same time, every single morning for almost two years. Not that it had done me any good.

I climbed into bed and squeezed my eyes shut. For a second, I thought sleep would be kind, that it would take pity on me. But then I saw the bathroom, the bloody tile. I saw the red lipstick smeared across her front teeth. My eyes snapped back open. How was I ever supposed to close my eyes again?

Outside, the snow was getting heavier as thick wet flakes stuck to all the windows. They looked like feathers, and they made me think of down coming loose from pillows, of suffocating. That's what I felt like now, like I couldn't breathe.

I wanted my mom, I realized. I wanted someone who loved me unconditionally to hold me while I cried, and promise it would all be okay. But my mom was gone, and I'd never been close with the rest of my family, so I wrestled my phone out of my pocket and called the next closest person I could think of. The phone rang once, twice.

"Are you okay?" Siobhan said by way of answer. She sounded terrible, her voice raspy and thin. I wondered, vaguely, whether she'd been out late the night before. "Olympia told me you called. I've been so worried."

Olympia. I had a vague memory of speaking with a woman who'd answered Siobhan's phone earlier that evening. She'd called me honey and asked if I was okay. I must have scared her to death.

"Sorry," I murmured. "I mean, tell Olympia I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare her."

"Don't worry about her; she's seen worse at the center."

The center, right. Now I remembered where I'd heard her voice before. She was one of the women from the birthing center Siobhan had told me about. I could picture her clearly, a tall woman with intensely kind eyes and a low, soothing voice. Now, I felt even worse about scaring her.

"Anna," Siobhan was saying. "What happened?"

My chest felt suddenly tight. It was the way she said what happened that did it. I tried to get myself under control, but it was no use. I released a sudden sharp exhale that was already halfway to a sob. And then it was all over.

I told her everything. I'd been planning to keep it short but talking felt better than I'd thought it would. As soon as the words started coming out of my mouth, I couldn't figure out how to stop them.

"What do you need?" Siobhan asked when I'd finished. "Anything. Please, Anna, let me help you."

Her voice was barely a whisper. She didn't sound capable of getting me anything. I should've told her to get some sleep, that we could talk in the morning.

Instead, I blurted, my voice choked with fresh tears, "Can you get me my baby back?"

"Oh, Anna…"

I felt guilty as soon as the words left my mouth. "I'm sorry," I said, my shoulders shaking. "I shouldn't have said that. I just…I really loved her, Siobhan. I felt like I already knew her, and I…I just can't believe she's gone. I can't believe…" I had to stop for a moment. I couldn't breathe; I was crying too hard. My mouth dropped open, a wordless scream.

Even after everything I'd been through, all the rounds of IVF, all the heartache, I'd still had hope. I'd never believed the world would be this cruel. And now, all of that was gone.

"I just feel so…so desperate," I said when I could talk again. New tears were already blurring my eyes. If I wasn't careful, I was going to lose it all over again. "I'd give anything to have her back. Anything."

"Anything," Siobhan repeated, her voice soft, like she didn't realize she'd said the word out loud. Then, clearing her throat, she said, "This is going to work out for you, Anna. I know it's hard to believe that now, but it will. I promise."

It was the reason I'd called her, because I'd desperately wanted someone to tell me it was going to be okay. I tried to make myself believe it. "Yeah."

"I'll do everything I can to make sure it does."

I cleared my throat and said, "Right. Your friends at the birthing center, Olympia and the others."

"Yes, them, and anything else you need. Just name it."

"Can you come out here?" I asked. My voice cracked. I hadn't realized how badly I wanted that until the words left my mouth. "Please? I need you."

Siobhan hesitated. I thought again of how tired she'd sounded, and I almost told her never mind, that she didn't need to reschedule her whole life because I was having a crisis, but then she said, "Of course. Give me the address and I'll come as soon as I can."

— — — — —

I woke much later that night sweating, my muscles contracting so painfully that, for a moment, I couldn't breathe. It was another cramp, leftover pain from the miscarriage. I lurched forward, groaning, and kneaded my side with my thumbs.

Happy had been curled up at the foot of the bed and she lifted her little head, massive ears perked in concern.

"Come here." I scooped her up. She licked my chin as I dragged my heavy body out of bed and slipped into the hallway.

The hall was dark, Talia's family staring at us from the photographs lining the walls, their still eyes seeming to follow wherever I went, like the house itself was tracking my movements. I headed to the kitchen, a cavernous space with a six-­burner stove, two islands, and gleaming stainless-­steel appliances that never showed fingerprints. The countertops were made of some expensive stone that repelled dirt. I'd had the thought before that I could kill someone in this kitchen without leaving a trace. It was like the house itself was an accomplice.

I heard Dex's voice murmuring in some other room. It sounded like he was on the phone, probably catching up on the work he missed while we were in the ER. Peanut Butter and Oz were probably curled up with him on the couch getting head rubs. For a moment, I considered going to them, letting Dex comfort me, letting the dogs lick my face and curl up on my feet.

But then I remembered the doubt in his voice when he asked, "Is that what you want?" and a hollow space opened inside of my chest.

Dex had left the bourbon bottle on the counter, so I grabbed it and filled a glass one-handed, Happy still wriggling in the other. I let my eyes travel around the kitchen as I drank, taking in the farmhouse sink, the ice-­covered windows, the promo basket Emily had sent earlier in the week. I'd already eaten the fruit, but there was still a box of chocolates left untouched. I ripped them open and shoved a few into my mouth. I wasn't even hungry; I just needed something to fill the hole that had opened inside of me.

I ate mindlessly for a few minutes, washing the chocolate down with a swig of bourbon, my gaze settling on the basement door on the other side of the room. Talia once mentioned that her mother had kept all her baby things, every last onesie and bib. Talia didn't have space for it in her Manhattan penthouse, so she'd stored it all out here, waiting for the day her IVF worked.

I'd been fascinated. I didn't have anything left over from when I was a baby. I stayed with my mom after my parents split up, living in a series of tiny Brooklyn apartments that didn't have enough storage space to be sentimental, even if my mom had been the type to tuck onesies and baby socks away until I became a mother. My dad hadn't been super interested in parenting, and he'd sort of left her to take care of me on her own. But then she died in a car accident when I was nine, and I'd gone to live with him and his new wife in Burbank, California. They'd never had any other kids, just a series of increasingly neurotic poodles that Nora had knitted little sweaters for. We'd gotten along okay, but it had always been pretty clear to me that I wasn't part of their plan.

I took another swig of bourbon. It was a terrible idea, going down to the basement, looking through Talia's private things, but the sudden rush of alcohol had left my brain tender and dull. I crossed the kitchen and swung the door open, thinking, To hell with it.

The basement was dark. I smelled oak and something dank that made my nose wrinkle. I still had all those hormones pumping through me, increasing my sense of smell. Pregnancy hormones didn't go away when your pregnancy did. It was like a really messed up parting gift.

I groped along the top of the stairs for a light switch, but I couldn't find one, so I gave up and picked my way down in the black. Happy yelped in my arms, scared. I put her down and she immediately scampered back up the stairs to the safety of the kitchen.

A musty, forgotten smell rose up from the basement. The stairs groaned with each step I took, the unfinished wood so rough that splinters pricked through the bottoms of my socks. They were the kind of stairs that didn't have backs to them, leaving gaps of space between each slab of wood. I thought of a story Talia told, how her older brother and his friends once hid beneath these stairs and grabbed her ankles when she walked down them, how it'd scared her so much she'd peed her pants. My skin prickled with fear. For a second, I felt like a little kid again, imagining hands reaching through those gaps, grabbing me. I shivered and walked faster.

The basement wasn't finished. There were shadowy beams stretching over my head, God knows what hiding in the corners, shelves of storage bins lining the walls. My footsteps echoed hollowly on the concrete as I made my way to the middle of the room, the sound strangely mournful. I felt the ice of the floor through my thin socks, shivered when the cold air touched my ankles. It didn't matter how warm we kept this place; winter kept sneaking in.

I studied the labels until I found a bin that read baby things in Talia's small spidery handwriting. I went to unlatch the lid, then froze. My hand was trembling, bourbon sloshing up against the sides of my glass. I felt like Pandora in the old Greek myth, like opening this box would unleash something terrible into the world, and a part of me didn't care. Maybe it would be better to let the world burn down. Maybe it was time to create something new in its place.

I let my hand drop away from the bin, fresh sobs bubbling up inside of me. Why? I thought. Why did this have to happen to me? Why couldn't anyone tell me what I'd done to deserve this? Why couldn't I fix it?

I just want to do a couple quick tests.

The memory hit so suddenly that I felt as though I'd tilted sharply backwards. I saw Meg, or whatever the hell her real name was, the red lipstick on her front tooth, the crack stretching across the ceiling as she slipped the ultrasound wand over my belly. In my memory, she was staring at me hungrily, her eyes a touch too wide, her teeth too sharp. A witch in a fairy tale, licking her lips.

I clenched my eyes shut. I didn't want to think about her right now. I couldn't think about her. It was too much; I couldn't take it. But it was too late. Her voiced echoed through my head, taunting me.

I just want to take a quick look at your uterus.

Can I get you to lie back and lift up your shirt?

The skin on my belly burned with the memory of her hands on me, touching me. I wanted to peel it off my body, but instead, I clenched my hands into fists, focusing on my fingernails driving into my palms until the memory of her touch faded away. This was why I hadn't wanted to let myself think about her, because it filled my body with so much anger that I didn't have any room left for sadness.

Was she the same woman who'd climbed into bed with me back in Brooklyn? I couldn't say for sure; I hadn't gotten a good enough look at that woman's face. But I knew she was small and dark-­haired like Meg had been. And the idea that there might be more than one of them was too terrible to contemplate.

Why had she come to my hospital room? How had she even gotten inside? What had she done to me?

That last question was the big one. She hadn't come all the way out to the Hamptons just to scare me. She was here for a reason. What was it?

I couldn't stay standing any longer. I carefully placed my glass on top of one of the storage bins and sunk to the ground, curling my body into a ball on the cold concrete. From the corner of my eye I noticed a black beetle creeping up the wall, antennae twitching. I felt a tickle on my skin imagining those tiny legs creeping over my arm, up my back.

The pain that rose inside of me was different from the pain I'd felt during the miscarriage. It was different from any pain I'd ever felt. It was like someone had pulled my heart out of my chest. I wasn't a person anymore, just a shell, a body.

The room seemed to spin around me as I cried, and I had to press my hand flat against the floor to remind myself that I wasn't spinning. I was still.

— — — — —

Later, I stared up at the basement ceiling, studying a cobweb stretched tight across the unfinished wooden beams. Crying had left my eyes puffy, and it was getting hard to keep them open. I knew I should get up and go back upstairs to my bed, but my body felt so heavy. Also, I thought I might be a little drunk. Or very drunk. Apparently, all it took anymore was half a glass of bourbon.

My eyes closed. I didn't want to think about this anymore. I wanted to sleep. Sleep would be so good. Maybe I wouldn't ever have to wake up…

I heard a wet thumping sound somewhere in the darkness. The water heater turning on? God I hoped so. Through the haze of bourbon and drowsiness, I noticed that my left hand had started moving on its own. Twitching.

Groaning, I opened my eyes. My left hand was sitting on the soft mound of flesh between my belly button and the waistband of my pajama pants. It wasn't moving. I was drunk.

I was awake now so I stared at my belly, trying to think past the alcohol swimming through my brain. Several long minutes passed. I was just about to push myself off the floor and go back upstairs to my bed when something stirred deep inside my body. It felt like cramps or nausea at first, that strange, churning sensation of something shifting. I sat up, worried I was about to be sick…

But then the movement became sharper, clearer. I realized it wasn't nausea; it was the feeling of something turning over, a tiny body rolling and stretching inside of me.

The skin on my belly shifted from one side to the other. Staring down at it, my breath caught, a sour taste inching up the back of my throat.

It didn't feel like a flutter, like everyone said it would.

It felt like something waking up.

Learn more about Delicate Condition in EW's exclusive interview with Danielle Valentine. The book will hit shelves Aug. 1 from Sourcebooks.

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