I need you to believe me.
I have to write this so as many people as possible can know the truth. I know how it will look, but you need to know what was really happening. You need to believe me - what I have to do is necessary, so necessary. The safety of the world depends on it.
Let me explain.
My husband, Matt, and I had trouble conceiving. We had tried everything. Infertility treatments, IVF - I mean, we’d prayed to saints we didn’t believe in and swallowed supplements that turned my piss green. Matt wanted to try adoption, but to me, that felt like giving up. I wanted the experience my friends and sister-in-law talked about - feeling tiny feet kicking inside of you, hiccups that aren’t your own, a painful birth to wear as a badge of honor.
Adopt or try again - this became our debate. And because we were both stubborn as hell, the debate lasted five years. By the end of it, we were at a frustrated stalemate. After all, if your goal to make something together is driving you apart, there’s no winning. Looking back, I wonder if we both clung so hard to our sides because we subconsciously knew we shouldn’t have a baby together. Not that it matters anymore.
The two of us were starting to drift apart, questioning our compatibility. We weren’t even trying for a baby anymore. In the anxiety and grief of potentially losing not only my husband, but the loss of precious baby making years, I felt swaddled in confusion and obsessiveness.
And then, one day, I realized I’d missed my period.
I was pregnant. We were in shock - we’d barely slept together in months. But the conception date matched up correctly with one drunken, lonely night a few weeks ago. Despite our minute chances, we had created something made out of our love. It felt like a little karmic gift, bringing the two of us back together when it seemed like we were falling apart.
So we crossed our fingers until I’d passed the first trimester, cried and held hands while staring at a fuzzy ultrasound image, and excitedly surprised family members with onesies stating cliches like “Grandma’s Favorite” and “My Auntie Loves Me”.
I first felt movement inside of me on the car ride home from telling my family. My initial feeling was discomfort - it was like I’d eaten something bad. A second later, it happened again, and I realized. After I screamed for him to pull over, Matt held my tiny bump with a huge smile. Even though he couldn’t feel the kicking yet, his hands on my belly brought me more joy that I could have ever imagined.
I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than I was back then.
The pregnancy flew by. We found out she was a girl. We bought more baby clothes than we had closet space. We looked up ratings on convertible car seats. We deliberated over fifty different shades of pink paint to adorn her nursery with. We named her Marie.
As we moved towards my due date, I started to get a new symptom. I’d had the run of the mill morning sickness, cravings, and fatigue in the first two trimesters. I was having the heartburn and Braxton Hicks that were expected for the third. But now I was started to be hit with this… odd discomfort that wouldn’t go away. When I asked my sister-in-law about it, she grinned wryly. “Yep, the last month or so is hell. You have to pee all the time, you can’t sleep, your feet hurt… you feel like you can never get comfortable, it’s a nightmare.”
I laughed it off with her, but it didn’t seem like that was what I was feeling. My body had the typical aches and pains, but my mind felt different. Like my thoughts were moving through a heavily perfumed dryer sheet.
My mom called it pregnancy brain. This seemed to make a little more sense. The whole pregnancy thing was so all-consuming on my body, it wasn’t surprising that my mind was a little worn out.
In the weeks leading up to my due date, I was starting to feel like not only were my thoughts moving through a heavily perfumed dryer sheet, they were filtering into this big empty space, where they’d bounce around and echo. It made it hard to keep my focus. I told Matt about it, and he looked confused. “If your mom and my sister say it’s normal, I’m sure it is. We could talk to your doctor if you want, though.”
It felt stupid to be so overwhelmed by something that, according to everyone else, was just a normal part of pregnancy. I decided I was overreacting. I’d wait to see how I was feeling after having the baby.
At 3 in the morning, we drove to the hospital, Matt’s hand clutching mine. 20 hours, a Pitocin, and a failed epidural later, Marie was born.
They handed her first to Matt - I was busy violently shaking from exhaustion and the shock of the ordeal.
When I’d delivered the placenta and been plugged into an IV, they placed my sleeping newborn daughter on my chest. She wore a tiny pink cap adorning her head, her little body stinging hot against my skin. I twisted my neck to see her from my horizontal position.
And I felt… nothing.
Matt was weeping with joy, repeating on the phone to everyone he knew that Baby Marie was here, our sweet little girl, and she was perfect.
I smiled tiredly for the pictures, I kissed my baby’s pink cone-shaped head and told Matt I loved him. I did everything I’d dreamed of doing, and still I felt empty.
A nurse noticed my state and gently recommended going to sleep. “You’ll need your rest to take care of your little one, honey,” she told me maternally. “You’re a Mama now!”
I didn’t feel like a Mama. I felt like a hollow shell. But I conceded and slipped into unconsciousness.
I had a nightmare.
In sleep, I was standing outside my home, in the empty street. I was gazing intently up at the light that shone from Matt and I’s bedroom window. I was waiting for something, something urgent.
And everything felt… wrong. Like being stuck in a liminal space. I felt vulnerable, like I was in danger.
Instinctually, my dreaming mind named what the threat was.
The baby.
I heard a shrill wail and jolted awake.
It was the middle of the night. Matt was passed out on the couch - he had the gift of being able to sleep through anything. The little one was in the clear plastic bassinet next to me, making a weak crying sound. I moved her closer to me. Gazing at her small, helpless-looking face, I felt guilty for what my dream self had thought. She was just a baby. Maybe she still didn’t feel like my baby, but that wasn’t uncommon. I’d read lots of stories of women having baby blues, or even postpartum depression, and feeling weird about their babies for a little while.
I picked her up and held her, and she stopped whimpering. My tired brain couldn’t help but acknowledge: she was weird looking. A splotchy red face, odd hairs on her forehead, a lumpy nose covered in dry looking skin. Was this really what she looked like yesterday, when she was kicking inside of me? I felt like I should recognize her, but this baby didn’t seem like mine at all.
A dark thought hit me. What if she wasn’t mine? I’d once seen a documentary on babies being swapped at a hospital.
Don’t be stupid, I thought. She had the same little security bracelet on as she’d had for all of her short life. Besides, Matt hadn’t stopped staring at her for a waking second.
Just then, the baby opened her eyes. I was struck by the depth of them. Dark and flashing in the moonlight, she stared up at me. I didn’t expect her to seem so alert. It was almost spooky.
And for a second, I was flashed back to my nightmare.
An electric shock of anxiety rushed through me, setting my senses on fire. Heart pounding, I felt a rush of paranoia that felt ancient, primal. It was like being… hunted.
But then I was back in the hospital, holding eye contact with the baby. A wave of nausea hit, and I put her back in the bassinet.
This is normal, I told myself sternly. You’re worried for her. This is maternal protectiveness. You’re like a Mama Bear.
Lying back down, I glanced back at the clear plastic box she lay in. Swaddled so tightly, she couldn’t turn her head to watch me. But those deep eyes were still open, staring intently at the ceiling.
“Mama Bear,” I whispered to myself. But as I uneasily tried to go back to sleep, I knew it wasn’t the infant that my instincts were trying to protect.
The next few weeks felt like they spun by in a haze of sleepless nights, painful feedings, and piles of laundry. With all of my parental preparation, I still felt blindsided by the constant overtired waves of emotion post-birth. Most days were spent going through cycles of anxiety and brain fog. Matt and I were snapping at each other, losing the bliss of pregnancy. This was nothing like what I’d envisioned life with my little Marie to be like.
Maybe because this wasn’t my Marie.
The idea that I’d doubted at first had become harder to rebuke. If it was still just the uneasy feeling after birth, I could question myself. Now, I’d take the unease a thousand times over the fear she consistently provoked in me.
It took a few weeks to admit this to myself. But sometimes I’d look at the baby, and I’d see no whites to her eyes. Just black irises that bore directly into me, and a bone deep understanding of danger.
I tried to ignore the evidence. The eyes could be a trick of the light. The panicked jolt when I looked at her could be the baby blues acting up.
But… sometimes it didn’t even feel like she was a baby at all.
No other child I’d ever seen could gaze with such intensity. No other child would wake me in the night without making a peep, just a glare that left me frozen until morning. No other child - no other human being - had ever invoked this instinctual horror upon its mere presence.
Nursing the… thing was the hardest. The agony of clogged ducts and chapped nipples could not compare to the terror of putting its small form to my breast. It stared at me with those soulless black eyes as it fed from me. I swear I once saw the thing offer a sly smile up at me. Not a baby smile. The sharp toothed grin of a predator ready for the kill.
I felt like prey, caught in a trap. A trap set by this possibly demonic being, lying in the bassinet beside me.
Matt did not share my knowledge. He spent his time cuddling with the thing, kissing it and changing its dirty diapers. How could he not see that this was not our sweet baby Marie? Was he under its spell, or simply on its side? He assumed I was just tired, feeling weakened from mastitis and sleeplessness. I was afraid to tell him the truth. At the very least, he would never believe me. At the worst, he would relay my superstitions to the demon. I had to maintain the illusion of maternal care. I don’t know what it would do if it found me out.
But even that illusion has become too much to maintain. The danger is increasing.
Tonight, while it fed at night, I saw a red trickle drip down its face. I pushed it away from me, and realized it was suckling on my blood.
My scream and the demon’s intermingled, finally waking my husband, who took the being into his arms as if to comfort it. “Why would you just throw your daughter on the bed like that? Jesus, Claire, what is wrong with you lately?”
I stared at him in shock. He stood there and ignored as a creature playing the role of our child fed on my blood!
“Maybe we should switch to formula. I think this breastfeeding thing is just too much for you.”
I walked out of the house. Leaving the demon’s puppet to comfort it with the sweet words that should belong to our Marie.
I realized then: the puppet had wanted to “adopt” from the beginning. I thought he’d meant a child, but no. I can see now, all he wanted was to bring his devil master into my home. Maybe this was all his sick way at fooling me - switching out our beloved child with an otherworldly imposter.
So here I stand in the empty, haunted street. I type the truth to you anonymous strangers and implore you to believe me. I need you to spread the truth as far and wide as you can.
For now, I can see as the light in our bedroom goes dark. When I re-enter the cursed space that was once my home, my former husband will have returned to his famously heavy slumber.
I need you to believe me. This is not my sweet baby Marie. I don’t know what they did with my Marie. I don’t know if the demon stole her, or if it is possessing her. But you have to understand: it is not a human child.
I need you to remember that.
I need you to listen to the truth about what they are - the Devil and its puppet.
Because as I silently lock each door and each window, I grant the world protection. As I switch the gas stove on without flame, I ensure that the Devil will never steal another baby again. And as I spark a match for candles in every room, I eliminate the demonic forces.
I will be eliminated too, for good measure. After all, with the horrors that I have borne witness to, there is no life ahead of me.
All that is left to pray for is my soul.