Aaqib Majid
I thought I would never meet someone who could restore my faith in love after years of feeling like my life was on hold. Really, I was just surviving and not searching for anything. Then I met Brian, though. Although he wasn’t ostentatious or boisterous, he exuded warmth. I laughed again because of him. He regarded me as though I were more than just a mother or someone attempting to keep things together. He restored my sense of self.
It was like fate giving me a reset button when Brian asked me to move in with him. My son, David, was only a little older than his daughter, Alicia. I pictured us as a lovely blended family. Weekend pancakes. games in the backyard. Perhaps even vacations where none of us felt isolated. I replied, “Yes.” I moved us into Brian’s comfortable house just outside of the city after packing our belongings and telling David that we were moving.
It was lovely at first. Together, we prepared meals. sat on the couch and watched movies. David and Alicia played together, and despite the typical small arguments between siblings, everything appeared to be going well. Really, it’s better than fine. I thought I had entered the life I had always dreamed of for a few weeks.
Then, however, something altered.
David started to hug me tighter than normal. I initially dismissed it as adjustment. new faces, new routines, and a new home. Yet, it persisted. He was always with me. to the restroom, laundry room, and kitchen. He would shake his head and respond, “I want to be with you,” when I asked whether he wanted to go play. In the corner of his room, his toys remained undisturbed.
However, the night that everything changed arrived.
Brian was sleeping on the couch while I stayed up late doing the dishes. Hours earlier, the children had gone to bed. The kitchen’s under-cabinet light was the only source of light in the quiet house. I heard it while I was drying the final plate.
whispering.
I initially believed it to be the wind. Or perhaps I’m being deceived by the refrigerator’s hum. However, it returned. It was quiet, low, and unmistakably coming from David’s chamber.
David had his door slightly open. I leaned closer.
I was the first to hear his voice. Then there was quiet. Then there was another voice.
However, it wasn’t mine.
The voice was that of a youngster. A female. Soft, unsettling, not laughing or playing, just a whisper that I couldn’t make out. I went cold. I felt sick to my stomach. Slowly, I pushed the door open.
David was lying in bed, staring at the wall with his eyes wide open. His lips were quivering, his fists tightened over his blanket. I hurried over to join him.
“What’s wrong, David, sweetheart?”
He simply shook his head and buried his face in my shirt without saying anything.
“To whom were you speaking?” I inquired.
Once more he shook his head.
I made an effort to speak steadily. “Who, dear?”
His terrified eyes gazed up at me. “Alicia.”
Alicia?
I looked about the space. She wasn’t present. I crossed the corridor to her room in silence. She was in bed, breathing quietly, holding a shabby bunny. She seems calm.
I returned to David, who was still awake. He shivered in his sleep that night, and I stayed with him, snuggled up next to him. I asked Brian the following morning if Alicia had ever chatted or sleepwalked while she was asleep. He responded no, seeming perplexed. He remarked, “She has always slept deeply.” “Why?”
I began to notice additional odd occurrences throughout the course of the following several days. Each time Alicia entered the room, David would wince. He refused to take a seat next to her at the table. When he thought I wasn’t watching, he would occasionally look at her with a strained expression. In contrast, Alicia appeared to be… different. Despite her modest and courteous demeanor, there was something impenetrable in her eyes. She would shrug and respond, “Just secrets,” when I would ask her what she and David played.
I discovered David humming a tune I didn’t recognize while sitting by himself in the backyard one afternoon, his shoes off. I sat next to him and inquired about his well-being.
Suddenly, he continued, “She tells me I’m bad.”
“Who does?” Even though I was already afraid of the response, I asked.
“Alicia. She threatened to summon the shadows if I told.
A chill went through my body.
I went up to Brian that evening. I told him everything, including what Alicia had told him, David’s anxiety, and the whispering. Brian appeared taken aback, then defensive.
He remarked, “She’s just a kid.” “Perhaps David is fabricating this. Children experience jealousy. Perhaps he’s struggling to adapt.
It wasn’t jealousy, though. It was fear. My son was someone I knew. I could tell when something was genuine. I stayed up and watched from the hallway that night.
Alicia appeared at David’s doorway at 2:37 a.m.
simply stood there. Quiet. Still.
“What are you doing?” I inquired.
Charmingly, she said, “Checking on him.”
I informed Brian that we were departing the following morning. He attempted to explain that I was overreacting and that Alicia was only a child, but he didn’t get it. But I had a gut feeling that something wasn’t right. My son was being harmed by something in that house, whether she intended it or not. And on the day I held him in my arms for the first time, I made a self-promise to never let anything to harm him again.