Night, Forgotten: Draft 1

Chapter 14: Now

            

I stare at Thomas's empty little portable bed. My heartbeat is suddenly loud in my ears. Owen is curled on his side facing the wall, fast asleep and snoring softly.

"Sadie," I gasp, "did Grandma take Thomas into the other bedroom?" It's the only explanation I can think of, although I'm not putting much hope in it. Whenever Diana has come in here to feed Thomas in the middle of the night, she's always kept him in our bedroom. As far as I know, anyway. "Is Thomas in there with Grandma, Sadie?" I repeat.

Sadie vigorously shakes her head, no.

I decide to check anyway. In the upstairs hallway, the radiator hums and clatters gently. Sadie has left the door to the bedroom she's sharing with Diana ajar. The door creaks slightly as I tap it a bit farther open to peek inside.

There is Diana, asleep in bed, a tendril of silver hair dangling toward the floor. Her face is open and relaxed, like I've never seen it in waking life. Sadie must have kicked the covers back to climb out of the opposite side of the big, four-post bed, but otherwise the room is undisturbed.

Thomas is not there.

"I told you." Sadie's sing-song voice follows me as I whirl away from the doorway and rush down the staircase: "Some-thing's wrong with the ba-by."

In the parlor, the moonlight casts long shadows across the far wall where Thomas's crib stands. It's empty.

This is impossible. My chest begins to cave in on itself.

"Owen," I whimper meekly, making my way back toward the front entryway. Thomas is in trouble, but Owen will know what to do. We can form a search party. We'll put his picture on milk cartons like they do in movies. We'll find him.

"Owen," I begin to call out again, starting back up the stairs. Sadie is no longer standing in the hallway where I left her.

Where did she go?

I reach the landing and have to stop, pressing the heel of my hand against my lower belly. The wound where I stabbed myself with the grilling fork last week throbs angrily. Distracted by the sudden pain, I forget for a moment that I'm searching for Thomas.

Didn't I clean and dress this wound already today?

It feels like it's starting to get infected.

A distant, high-pitched wail shatters my thoughts. It's coming from the backyard.

I am moving again and I don't even see the entryway or the kitchen as I pass through them and then I am out the back door into the inky darkness of the night. As I step onto the porch, the noise is unmistakable.

It's a baby's desperate cry.

The gash in my abdomen throbs again, reminding me that I need to stay alert to my surroundings and keep an eye out for that fucking log so I don't trip again. I don't stop to grab the grilling fork; I won't need it to defend myself this time. If there is someone between me and that baby, in this moment, I feel certain I could tear their throat out with my bare hands.

Is this "a mother's love"? I should remember what this feels like.

As I step onto the lawn, the night is especially icy and black. My eyes water and spill over, as much from fear as from the brutal wind that sears my face. Thomas's screams crack across the air, which breaks into shards like the surface of a barely frozen lake. I tumble forward, through it, toward the woods.

The dead and dying leaves crunch beneath my feet and then I am leaping over the fallen log that tripped me last time, across the final stretch of dirt and now –

The shed.

The screams are coming from inside the shed.

All at once it rises before me. Its double doors gape wide open, rattling noisily on their hinges. The inside of the shed is a bottomless hole that pulls me nearer and nearer. And then, coming into view on the floor among the shadows, I see it: the tiny, squirming form of a naked baby. It screams.

Thomas.

I try to say his name, but can only manage a wild grunt as I lunge forward, up the low steps, through the open doors, and throw myself against the wooden floorboards beside him. It is all I can do not to crush his shivering body in my arms as I try to warm it, clutching it desperately to my chest, wrapping him in whatever heat I can will to the surface of my skin. His wailing abates slightly as he notices me, and then his lips begin to root, pathetically, against my breast.

If only I could feed him.

I have to get him back inside the house. Holding the whimpering baby firmly in my arms, I take a step forward, toward the outside.

But with a violent gust of wind, the shed doors slam shut and we are sealed in sudden, quiet darkness.

The space feels too full somehow.

I cannot see the interior walls of the shed but I know they are edging toward each other, closing in on me and the baby.

I try to take another step in the direction of the doors, but I can't move. I am suddenly powerless over my limbs. I know that I have legs, but for the life of me I cannot feel my weight on them.

The darkness around me grows denser.

And then from somewhere between us and the outside, between us and freedom, comes a low, hostile chuckle. It's the same voice that taunted me from inside Thomas's crib, behind the quilt. Now it is here, in this shed with us, invisible but very, very close.

The deep, throaty laughter comes again, from behind us now.

It's circling.

I hold my breath.

Suddenly thick, vice-like hands grip my upper arms and I am pulled back forcefully, deeper into the shed.

Feeling reignites in my limbs and I wrest away, doing my best to protect Thomas's body from the impact as I throw us both to the floor. I scramble to my feet and heave my right shoulder against the doors. They give way, and we are hurled out into the night, landing hard on the packed dirt.

I begin to run before properly catching my balance, lurching through the thorny underbrush and finally stumbling onto the path back through the woods.

The baby is too stunned to make a noise. Please don't let it be that he's injured. I try to blink; my tears have begun to freeze along my eyelashes. As we emerge from among the trees, Thomas is whimpering again, thank god, and shivering against my breast.

The outline of a little girl comes into view, standing rigid on the back porch. It's Sadie. She watches us approaching, her face obscured in shadow.

"Sadie!" I call out. "Get back inside!" She's going to freeze to death out here in her flimsy nightgown and bare feet.

She ignores my instruction. It's hard to tell if she can even hear me.

Then I'm struck by an awful thought. Without meaning to, I imagine Sadie sneaking into our bedroom, stealing Thomas from between my and Owen's sleeping bodies, and carrying him out here to freeze in the shed.

Could she be capable of that? I shudder.

But the look of relief that spreads across her face as I climb the porch stairs cradling Thomas in my arms convinces me that she could never be capable of harming him. "The baby," she gushes, reaching up as if to grab him from me.

I hold him up and away from her, motioning with my head for her to follow me. "Come on, Sadie," I say, leading her back into the dark kitchen. The house is still asleep.

I have no idea how I'm going to explain any of this to Owen and Diana.