Fantasy & Science Fiction - JanFeb 2017

by Spilogale Inc.

  * * *

  What exactly is a replacement child?

  A replacement is a sort of otherworldly "child"—the term child used here loosely—who arrives in the middle of the night, usually on the night of a full moon, taking the place of the family's original child who appears to have gone away to some unreachable location. We aren't sure where.

  * * *

  Why is this happening ?

  Actually, this has been happening for a while, for hundreds of years or longer if we pay attention to the old stories, though replacements have not previously existed here in such quantities that they warranted notice. We only learned about the first replacement in our community four years ago. On that initial occasion, many of us brought casseroles to the affected family's house, the kind of hot dish one brings to funeral lunches, appropriate as the mother of the household had taken to dressing entirely in black, in order to better mourn for the child she believed she had lost. This is no longer a recommended response to the appearance of a replacement.

  * * *

  Should such disappearances of original children be considered an ongoing epidemic ?

  Yes.

  * * *

  What are some preventative measures I can take to protect my original children, thereby keeping the replacement children away ?

  Because the children who are being taken are taken away at night, many parents have found it useful to stay awake guarding the windows of their children's bedrooms. Alternatively, some have forced their children to sleep in windowless rooms, such as an interior bathroom. Parents whose children are not taken away tend to be resourceful, driven, but also tired. To force a child to remain as they are, to stay like they're supposed to: this requires a great deal of effort. Many parents say such effort is worth it. Receiving a replacement child can, in some cases, indicate a failure of attention (see Case Study 64221 above).

  Because boys are taken most often—we do not know why—some parents have found it useful to dress their male babies at night in stereotypically feminine clothing, i.e. ruffled dresses, in the hope of tricking whatever is coming for their children, as such beings appear to abide by old-fashioned gender stereotypes. Or at least give the boy one of his father's socks, a technique which worked in many of the old stories. You should definitely leave a light burning. It must be the light of a candle made from beeswax.

  Whatever is taking our children appears to lose interest in them after they reach the age of nine.

  * * *

  If a replacement child somehow appears one night in my child's bed, is it useful to obsessively remember everything about my original child ?

  No.

  * * *

  Case Study 148200

  "What did you do wrong?" Tina Q.'s neighbor asked Tina on a particularly hot July day when everybody's lawn sprinklers were on trying to revive the sod. "You know you were supposed to be watching over your son, right?"

  Tina's child had been taken the Monday previous; her child's replacement, silvery haired, smelling of the underside of soil, had not left her son's bed since.

  "I thought it was a story that happened to other people," said Tina quietly. Her shoes were soaked from her neighbor's sprinkler though she did not move out of the way.

  "What?" the neighbor asked.

  "I thought it was a metaphor," Tina said.

  * * *

  What are some reasons a replacement child might appear ?

  1. Parent did not watch child adequately throughout the night.

  2. Candle was extinguished beside child's bed during the night.

  3. Mother's diet during pregnancy lacked certain vitamins, such as B or D.

  4. Unrestrained exercise of mother during pregnancy.

  5. Age of father (increased age equals increased risk).

  6. Pesticides used on lawn.

  7. Carrying the baby only in one arm, especially the left arm.

  7. Living beside a busy road with truck traffic.

  8. Mother breaks a glass cup during pregnancy.

  9. Excessive looking into the mirror.

  * * *

  What about the idea that the original child was not dragged off unwillingly but in fact wanted to go away ?

  This certainly is one possibility, that the original child wishes for a more exciting life, such as the kind of life they might have in a children's fantasy book, where dwarves will lead them to underground caverns coated in emeralds, and nymphs will be swimming with them under the lakes in blurry wet worlds. With this in mind, it's possible that when whatever it is comes beckoning, the child unlatches the window and jumps eagerly into its arms. Such an explanation suggests two additional solutions.

  One: it is in the parent's best interest to give their child an exciting life filled with adventure and quests.

  Two: parents should limit, or perhaps forbid, the reading of fantastical stories, instead encouraging at bedtime nonfiction, such as almanacs, which are now available in colorful glossy editions.

  * * *

  What are some things we know for sure about replacement children ?

  1. The replacements are said to sleep a lot.

  2. At the same time, the notion that they sleep so much might be a deception. Certain parents suspect that the moment they leave the room where the replacement is napping, the moment they shut the door, the replacement springs up and joyfully runs around while speaking in full and comprehensible sentences, so long as no one is watching or listening.

  3. Contradictions are common when talking about replacement children.

  4. Replacement children have silvery hair that does not feel like hair.

  5. They do not like to look us in the eye.

  6. Communication with them will prove difficult.

  7. Replacement children may not consider communication to be a form of connection.

  8. Replacements may have difficulty using the toilet properly.

  9. It appears the replacement, in most cases, doesn't want to be here with us either. Like us, they may be frightened, or disappointed, or even bored. Probably it is obvious to them that this is not supposed to be their home and we are not supposed to be their parents.

  * * *

  Case Study 88265

  Sometimes when the replacement we'll call P. was sleeping, the mother stared at him for hours, because when he was sleeping he looked like her original son, except for the color of his hair and the odd position in which he slept, with his legs bent slightly yet also open, as if he were running and in the middle of a stride. "Timothy?" she would ask while the replacement slept. That was the name of her original child. "Timothy?" she said again when P. was wandering back and forth in the hallway, dragging his fingers along the wallpaper.

  * * *

  Where do the real children go ?

  One thought is that they are still somewhere inside the replacement's body, for instance crouched inside of the liver, waiting to be set free by devoted parents. This line of reasoning places a great deal of pressure on the parents as they must now devote their lives to finding a way to get their original child out of that liver (or whatever organ it is). A second possibility is that the real children have been dragged off elsewhere by ill-intended forces, that they are locked up in a stranger's wardrobe or in some man's garden shed.

  Though why imagine the worst? There is also the possibility that our children have been taken to a better place than here, a fairy-tale place, perhaps, where they might help rule over a magical land, happier there than they would have ever been here with us.

  * * *

  Case Study 391041

  In the long afternoons, Terri O. had begun to drive her replacement to a park in the valley where several mothers brought their silver-haired children. The back seat of her car smelled like a toilet. She kept extra underwear and shorts in the trunk but the replacement refused to change when he peed through his clothes. At the park, the mothers avoided looking at each other, in case it was something they had done, while the replacements patted each
other's hair, then gathered up sand in their hands and watched it spilling out onto the ground like it wasn't sand. They might do this a hundred times in an afternoon. Terri tried to pay attention to the replacement, as we recommend, but when that proved difficult, she focused on the landscape instead, on the cardinals singing their melodic nonsense in the canopy of the trees.

  * * *

  If a replacement child appears in the middle of the night in my original child's bed, what reaction can I expect from the surrounding community ?

  Certain adults will tend to act enamored at first, especially if the replacement is a neighbor's and not their own. They might find it all spine-tingling and exciting, like they're part of a show on the SyFy Channel, this idea that a child can disappear in the middle of the night and be replaced by a piece of another world—that there are parts of this world we still can't understand. In Case Study 88266, we find the example of one such adult, a Mrs. M., who appeared at the W. family's home, carrying a loaf of banana bread wrapped in a tea towel, in the hope of glimpsing the new replacement. Mrs. M. is not alone in her belief that the replacements may have been touched by magic and are, in fact, part fairy or water nymph. The reason some people think this is because of the replacements' silvery hair, and also because of the occasional yet strange look in the replacements' eyes, as if what a replacement sees around them is vastly different from what any of us can see. No one answered the door to the W. family home, so Mrs. M. left the banana bread on the stoop, where it became soggy due to afternoon rains.

  Other adults may respond in a more negative fashion, wondering what the parents had done wrong (see Case Study 148200 above). They may ask inappropriate questions in order to avoid making the same mistakes themselves.

  * * *

  Case Study 23571

  The replacement who appeared in Susan K.'s house acted all the time as if he was starving. He ate anything bland that she put in front of him. Potatoes, yogurt, basmati rice. She did not like to watch him eat. She did not use a brush on his hair.

  * * *

  What is the role of the extended family, such as grandparents, in all this ?

  The initial impulse of many grandparents may be to deny that anything has happened to their grandchild. In Case Study 292589, when Grandmother L. first saw her grandchild's replacement during an autumn visit, she said, "Nonsense. This is still the same boy I know and love." The child was running his fingers repeatedly over the suede fabric of the family's couch.

  "He refuses to take a bath," the mother pointed out. "He hates the water. Remember how Brian used to love floating in the water? And his hair is silver, Mom."

  "Children change, dear," the grandmother said. "God knows you changed so many times, and every time you changed, I certainly did not go around suggesting that a boogeyman had snatched you up."

  "It wasn't a boogeyman. It was something else. I don't know what it was. Something came into his room in the middle of the night. There was water around the windowsill. The window was open."

  "Rain," the grandmother replied calmly. "Rain causes water to pool around a window." She reached to hug the replacement, who ran, screaming, out of the room.

  "Well, if that's how you want to raise him," said the grandmother.

  Grandfather L. would not come into the house.

  "It's not contagious," the mother told him. "Whatever is it, you can't catch it."

  The grandfather still would not come into the house.

  To assist grandparents and other extended-family members in accepting your new reality, we suggest sharing helpful educational materials with them, such as the pamphlet you are now reading. Keep in mind that people of earlier generations may possess traditional wisdom, and since the taking of children in the middle of the night appears to be a problem with ancient roots, it can be useful to consult with someone who still understands folkloric customs.

  * * *

  Case Study 56833

  When Leslie X. moved toward her child's replacement to pick him up in her arms, he cried. Every time she did this, he cried. Eventually she stopped approaching him.

  * * *

  What do replacement children like to do ?

  We are not sure. See Case Study 400021 (below) for one possible idea.

  * * *

  Why do you recommend parents seek outside help after a replacement appears in their home ?

  Let's assume most parents know how to take care of an ordinary child: if you act stern yet playful, distant yet loving, and tell a few jokes in between, you'll do fine. But replacements require us to become a different kind of parent. If that's even possible. For many parents, it isn't, which is why the help of experts becomes necessary once a replacement appears in your child's bed. There are also community resources such as camps made specifically for replacements where they will be taught, or someone will try to teach them, how to blend better into a crowd of ordinary children. There are schools that look like regular boarding schools only all the children would be like them at such a school and they never have to come home (see Case Study 53020 below).

  * * *

  Case Study 18769

  "I think I know how to be a mother," Angela D. said. "I think I can handle it myself."

  "Actually, I don't think you can," said the doctor, who was an expert. "Here's my advice. You are still young. You can have another child. Why don't you go and have another child and we can all forget about this one who isn't even yours?"

  * * *

  What is the role of science in these disappearances and appearances ?

  We do not think that science, in its traditional sense, can be of much help, as this is not a scientific problem per se. It is more of a magical or fantastical problem, the difficulty being that we do not live in a magical or fantastical world.

  * * *

  Case Study 400021

  Freddy W., having always been the easygoing parent oblivious to bedtimes and vegetable-intake requirements, did not become obsessed, as many parents do, about where his actual child had gone. Instead, he took it upon himself to find a shared activity that he and the replacement child could enjoy together (this is a very good idea if a parent hopes to find their happiness again). It turned out that this replacement liked being tossed into the air in their backyard, as high as Freddy could throw him, so that his silvery hair flew around his head like wings. Although the replacement's expression did not change, Freddy imagined he enjoyed it, as it was the only time the boy allowed anyone to touch him. "I miss our son, sure," Freddy insisted to his wife, Dorothy, "but I'm trying to move past all that." While Freddy was tossing the replacement into the air, Dorothy attended many support groups where she wrote down in a notebook any therapy that claimed to bring the original child back, assuming the original still existed.

  * * *

  What's up with the gender stereotypes (i.e., mother as distracted researcher vs. father as playful acceptor) ?

  When a replacement appears in your child's bed, there aren't many possibilities in terms of what you can do. Such limited options make for a lot of repetition. If it appears that the same thing keeps happening over and over in this narrative, that's because this is how life is once you have a replacement. Your life becomes a pattern of repetitions. If it bothers you, we suggest you skip the remaining case studies. As for gender roles, we too would prefer to see more variation—for instance, a researching father or a playful and accepting mother—but this does not appear to be the norm.

  * * *

  Do replacement children have parents of their own ?

  Most likely yes, though the reason why replacement parents continue exchanging their children with ours is unclear. Does this exchange happen by accident? If so, we can assume that the replacement's parents are as worried and distracted with longing as we are. Or is the exchange intentional? Maybe these parents are obsessed with our original children's language and laughter, which is understandable as that is also what we miss most about our real children. In any case, if your child has been tak
en, we encourage you to imagine that the replacement's parents are trying to learn to love your child just as you are attempting to love your child's replacement.

  * * *

  Case study 243819

  Throughout his first month, a replacement we'll call Q. did not speak a word, nor did he look at the mother of the household. Only after that initial month was over did he begin to speak, though he used a language none of us could identify, his words guttural and involving a rolling of "r"s. The mother pointed to a shoe. "Shoe," she said. They stood in the kitchen, Q. entranced by the sunlight on the floor. "Shoe," she said again, this time bringing her house slippers into Q.'s field of vision. When Q. saw the slippers interfering with the sunlight, he began to howl. She put away her slippers. The following week, she tried to learn his language. He said something like, " Obush grush treshla tran. " She pointed to herself. " Grush? " she said. She pointed to him. " Obush ?" He wandered out of the room, leaving a thin trail of pee behind him. She wiped up the pee with a towel that once had bright poppy flowers all over it.