There was traffic clogging up I-95. It was a good thing I gave myself plenty of time for the errand. I’d be home late but not terribly so and Susan would still be awake waiting for her story. Still, I did hate being late. It always reminded me of the only time I hadn’t made it home in time to read the kids their story. I hit the horn and crept forward.
Susan was in bed when I finally made it back but she was wide awake. She was only nine but already looked so much like her mom. Black hair and green eyes, trusting eyes. Those, certainly, did not come from me. Her brother Mike was also in bed, not laying down but sitting in the middle, blankets swirled around him like waves of fabric floating next to a sandbar. Susan was holding a book, a new one
I pulled over my usual armchair, the one with the faded blue cushion, and took the book from my daughter.
“You don’t want to hear about the beanstalk again?” I asked her.
“I got this one from school,” Susan said. “I thought Mike might like it.”
I smiled at her. “Okay. You want me to do it regular or do some of the voices?”
“Voices!” Susan said.
“‘There once was a wood that stretched from sea to sea,’” I started. “‘And in this wood lived-”
There was a scratching noise at the window. I saw Susan stiffen but she kept her eyes on me. Mike glanced at the window, shifted in bed, and turned back to me. I cleared my throat and continued the story. The smell was getting worse, the familiar smell, like a trunk full of milk and eggs opened up after a week in the summer sun. I’d considered bringing in masks for us during the bedtime story but I doubted it would help. Worse, it would feel like giving in to it, acknowledging it, giving it more power over us than it already had.
“…‘and the goblin threw the ax but the brave knight was too fast and-’”
Now it was tapping at the window. I couldn’t resist looking up again. The curtains were closed; Susan was always good about making sure all of the windows were covered after dark, just in case.
I resisted a brief urge to stand up and rush over to rip open the curtains. I took a breath. I had a story to read.
“Can I do one of the voices?” Susan asked, sitting up in bed.
“Alright, well there’s a princess or a pirate captain or the Wise Wizard.”
“I’ll be the pirate captain,” Susan said. “You just have to tell me the words and I’ll do the voice. Mike, do you want to be the princess or the wizard?”
It was knocking on the door downstairs. Not demanding to come in, just asking. I knew it would probably start making a ruckus outside next, maybe tearing up the garden or banging on the trashcans. Some nights it acted like an animal, other nights, like a kid screaming for attention. I guess that made sense. As far as I could tell, whatever it was, the entity was only nine years old. The same age as the twins. I never thought it really wanted to hurt my family even after it drove Lisa crazy.
When it first showed up, we both thought we were just stressed. Mike and Susan were maybe two or three months old, Lisa and I weren’t sleeping, and the weirdness all started small. Bumps in the night, knocking pipes, that sort of stuff. Then we noticed shadows where they shouldn’t be, mostly hanging around in the nursery. Things…escalated after that to the point where Lisa was burning sage and having a priest come in weekly to bless the house. We moved. Twice. But it followed us. When the thing became physical, tossing furniture in unoccupied rooms and breaking dishes, Lisa finally snapped. She couldn’t accept that something truly unexplainable was happening to our family. She saw the bruises on Mike and Lisa and asked me if I did it. When I told her I’d sooner slit my own throat than hurt our kids, she believed. So she started to worry maybe she did it and couldn’t remember.
Nothing I did could bring Lisa back or convince her or give her peace. I still visit her every week in the hospital. I go early so I can be sure I’ll be home in time to read a bedtime story.
“I don’t think Mike wants to do a voice, sweetie,” I told Susan after a long silence. “How about you do the pirate and the wizard and I’ll try my best princess.”
Susan stuck out her tongue. “Fine but do it for real. Don’t make it silly.”
It was trying to open the window, jiggling the handle back and forth. I never knew why it didn’t just smash the glass. It was strong enough. I started reading again and the handle stopped moving. It was listening to me the same way it always did once the story really got rolling. I found that out by accident. After Lisa left, I started sleeping in the twins’ room every night. My presence seemed to keep it away but there were a few times when I left to go to the bathroom and I’d see it when I came back. I never got a good look at it; shadows seemed to stick to it like sand on wet skin. In those days, it was small but so, so fast. It liked leaning over the cribs, watching them sleep.
To pass the time, I started reading the twins bedtime stories. Honestly, it was more for me than for them since they were barely a year old at the time. I began with classics, some mystery novels, whatever we had on hand at the house. From the first night, the strangeness stopped. The shadow went away, no more broken dishes, it was like…it was like we were a normal family if not for Lisa being gone.
Maybe it liked to listen or maybe something about the stories kept it away. The thing seemed weaker in the day, more of a presence than a force, so if I kept it locked down at night, we were safe. After the first time, I never missed reading Mike and Susan a bedtime story. Then, last summer, a drunk driver t-boned me while I was coming back from getting groceries. It was early afternoon when I got hit. I didn’t wake up in the hospital until nearly midnight.
“You’re sure you don’t want to try a voice, Mike?” Susan asked.
“Honey, I, eh, well why don’t we let your brother just listen?” I replied. “It’s okay if he just listens.”
I saw tears on Susan’s cheeks. “Please, Mike? Please? This one time. Just this one time, please.”
After I woke up, all beat to Hell, and plugged into an IV, the doctors tried to stop me from leaving. I told them that my kids were at home alone. I had to get back. Was there anyone I could call, they asked. My car was totaled so I had to take a taxi from the hospital. By the time I made it to the house, it was too late. Susan was sitting in the living room, hiding under the table. Every light in the house was on. Mike was gone; the window to the kids’ bedroom shattered.
“Hey, sweetie, it’s okay.” I sat on the bed next to Susan and held her close. “It’s all going to be okay.”
She clutched me tight and buried her face into my shirt. I felt her tears soak through to my shoulder. I looked at her brother. What was left of Mike was staring at me like usual. He was rotting worse each night, skin pulling back from teeth and eye sockets, almost lavender blue-headed towards gray. His eyes–perfect mirrors of Susan’s–were locked on my face. There was hate there, an unforgiveness that didn’t belong on somebody that young. He glared at me, almost snarling. Mike blamed me for what happened to him.
The police found his body in the forest the day after he went missing. I had a heck of an alibi laid up in the hospital. His case is still technically open but I know they’ll never find what took him. A week after Mike’s funeral, he started coming back, slipping in the window to see his twin sister. Maybe part of him came back for the stories, too. It was a shock at first but, eventually, I began looking forward to seeing my son each night. Mike would leave after the story was done, climbing out the window and then carried off by…it. I tried to stop my boy from leaving once. I can’t remember exactly what happened but it came in and I woke up on the floor with Susan crying and my arm broken in three places.
Now I just do my best to accept the situation.
I miss my wife and what this took from her. I miss Mike so much that I feel like there’s a bag around my head and I can’t get enough air. But I still have Susan and I will not lose her. That’s why no matter what I have to do, I will be home every night to read her and Mike a bedtime story.
I hope, wherever my son goes after that, he takes some of the story with him. I hope it gives him comfort. I hope he knows I love him and no matter how much he hates me for not protecting him, I’ll always hate myself more.