by Gayle Wilson
Easier than eggs and bacon. And if the sugar made Maddie hyper, then there was no one to be bothered by it but her.
If Ruth and Delores at their age could put up with her daughter’s energy day after day, then she certainly had nothing to complain about.
Except maybe too many nights of lost sleep.
“So you really didn’t hear anything last night?” She dumped a cup or so of the brown pebbles into the bowl and covered them with milk.
“Rain. And the thunder.”
“You didn’t mind that?”
Maddie shook her head, digging her spoon into the mess in the bowl. She was right, Blythe realized. The milk had already taken on a decidedly brown tinge.
“Do you?” Maddie asked, looking up from under her bangs.
“Do I what?”
“Mind the rain?”
“Not most of the time.”
“Maybe that’s what you heard.”
“I don’t think so.” She didn’t want to make Maddie fearful. “Maybe it was a bird,” she suggested, sticking the milk back in the refrigerator. “Or a squirrel.” She turned back to see Maddie’s eyes come up again, widened with interest.
“Trying to get out of the rain?”
“Maybe. Maybe they were just cold,” she added with a smile.
“Then…would it be all right to open it for them the next time?”
“Open the window?” For some reason, despite the winter sunlight flooding the kitchen, last night’s chill was back.
“So that whatever is knocking can come in.”
In Maddie’s world, the one Blythe herself had created, you took care of those who couldn’t take care of themselves. You fed strays and rescued chipmunks from the neighbor’s cat. And if something was cold and hungry, you let it in.
Except not this time. Even though Blythe couldn’t explain the certainty she felt about that, she knew that whatever had caused the tapping she’d heard last night wasn’t something she wanted to let into her home.
And especially not into Maddie’s bedroom.
3
“M ama! Help me! Somebody help me!”
The screams pulled Blythe out of a sleep so deep that, despite her exhaustion, she couldn’t believe she’d achieved it. After all, she had tossed and turned in Maddie’s narrow bed for what seemed like hours. Listening for the tapping. Straining to identify every creak of the old house. She had finally drifted off, only to be awakened as suddenly as if someone had poured ice water over her.
She scrambled from under the covers, not stopping to pull on the woolen robe that lay across the foot of the bed. She ran across the heart-pine floors, bare feet skidding across their smooth surfaces as she made the turn through the doorway of Maddie’s bedroom and headed down the hall toward her own.
In the cold light of day—when her heart wasn’t frozen with fear or her mind imagining ridiculous scenarios—she hadn’t been able to justify letting the child sleep with her again. But she also couldn’t bring herself to put her back in that bedroom.
She had wondered if whatever she’d heard tapping at the window last night in Maddie’s room could precipitate the night terrors. Obviously, she’d been wrong.
“Mama, wake up. Please, Jesus. Please, somebody help me. Daddy. No. Daddy.”
By the time Blythe reached the doorway of her bedroom, the panicked screams had increased in volume. Following the now-familiar pattern, the little girl’s shrieks were growing so frenzied, words were no longer distinguishable. Piercing and hysterical, the screams echoed and reechoed through the room, even when Blythe turned on the bedside lamp.
As always when the child was in the grip of a terror, Maddie’s eyes were open, their dilated pupils eating up the blue iris. Blythe knew from experience that the little girl was totally unaware of her surroundings, still trapped in the horror of whatever she was dreaming about.
Blythe threw back the covers and then lifted her daughter to hold her against her heart. She rocked her back and forth in a rhythm familiar to them both since Maddie had been a baby.
“Shh. I’m here. I’ve got you. Everything’s all right.”
After what seemed an eternity, the little girl responded, turning her head to bury her face between her mother’s breasts. Through the thickness of her flannel gown, Blythe could feel the sweat-soaked hair. At least the shrieks had faded to whimpers.
Over the top of Maddie’s head, Blythe released a sigh of relief. Her own nightmare was that one night her daughter wouldn’t return from whatever terrifying place the dream took her. Tonight she had, and Blythe sent a silent prayer of thanks heavenward.
She had done that far more often since she’d come back to Crenshaw. Prayed. It was something she couldn’t remember doing much of during the last few years. Not even during those terrible months of John’s illness.
Maybe she’d sought divine intervention more often because she had returned to her roots, the town where she’d spent her childhood, which had certainly not lacked for religious instruction. Or maybe, she admitted, it was that she was at the end of her own very human resources in knowing how to deal with what was going on.
Why wouldn’t she be? How could she be expected to know what to do with night terrors so severe she literally feared for her daughter’s life—or her sanity. Or with inexplicable noises that chilled her to the bone.
She leaned back, attempting to put some space between them so that she could look down into those normally lucent and guileless eyes. Maddie refused to look up, clutching her more tightly instead, small fingers locked into the fabric of Blythe’s gown.
“It’s all right,” she whispered again. “It was just a dream. I’m right here, and I have you.”
There was no response. At least Maddie was no longer trembling.
Gradually Blythe’s own panic began to ease. With the light of day, she might again be able to convince herself that this scene, which had been repeated no less than a dozen times in the last few weeks, had not been nearly as frightening as she remembered.
With one hand, she brushed damp tendrils of fine blond hair away from her daughter’s face. In response to the gesture, Maddie finally leaned back, looking up at her.
In the glow from the lamp, the little girl’s features seemed illuminated, as if lit from within. The blue eyes had now lost the look of horror they’d held only moments before.
“What’s wrong?” Maddie’s pale brows were drawn together in puzzlement.
Unsure how to answer the question, Blythe forced a smile. “You had a bad dream. Don’t you remember?”
The child shook her head. She raised a fist, rubbing her eyes in that timeless gesture of sleepiness.
“Don’t you remember anything, Maddie? Not even what made you call me?”
Another negative motion of the sweat-drenched head, and then her daughter leaned tiredly against her chest again. As she did, she put the thumb of the hand she’d used to rub her eyes into her mouth. In the stillness, Blythe listened to the sound of her sucking it.
The psychologist she’d taken Maddie to had advised she not make an issue of this, although the habit was something the little girl had outgrown years ago. Ignore it and everything else, the woman had said.
She had reassured Blythe that night terrors weren’t uncommon in children Maddie’s age. Although there was definitely a genetic component to them, they were usually triggered by stress.
Probably the result of her father’s death, combined with the move, the psychologist had suggested. She just needed lots of love and reassurance that she was safe and that you’ll always be there for her. Other than that, it was better to completely ignore the nightmares.
Blythe had had to fight against her instinct, which was to ignore the advice rather than the nightmares. She wanted to question Maddie about her dreams. To talk to her about them. To find out if there really were, as it seemed, no lingering traces of whatever horror paralyzed her in the darkness.
Instead, she had listened to the expert. About that,
as well as about not sleeping with her daughter, which was one bit of advice she no longer intended to follow. At least not right now.
“I think I’ll sleep in here with you the rest of the night,” she said, pulling the covers back.
Obediently the little girl scooted over in the bed, making room. Blythe slipped between the warm sheets, settling the quilts around them again.
Before she reached over to turn off the lamp, she took one last look at her daughter. The little girl had already cuddled down on her side, her thumb back in her mouth. Her lashes lay motionless against the apple of her cheek, her breathing again relaxed and even.
Asleep? Was it possible that she’d already dropped off, despite the state in which Blythe had found her only minutes before? Something she obviously had no memory of.
Thank God, Blythe thought, completing the motion she’d begun. And while you’re at it, dear Heavenly Father, would you please give me that same blessed forgetfulness?
There was no answer to her prayer. At least not an affirmative one. Just as there had been no answer to any of the others she had prayed since she’d returned.
“Land sakes, child. You look like death warmed over. You sickening for something?”
“Too little sleep,” Blythe said, taking the cup of coffee her grandmother held out to her.
As soon as she had it in her hands, she turned her gaze back to the scene revealed through the kitchen window. Maddie was playing in her great grandmother’s sunlit back garden, the one where Blythe had spent so many happy hours during her own childhood.
The tire swing she’d played on still hung from the lowest branch of a massive oak. Maddie’s body was draped through it now, her jean-clad bottom and legs and the soles of her scuffed sneakers all that were visible from this angle.
“She having more of those nightmares?”
Blythe turned to find her grandmother still standing at her elbow, her gaze also fastened on the little girl. In an attempt to hide the sudden thickness in her throat at the genuine concern in the old woman’s voice, Blythe lifted the steaming cup and took a sip. Despite the strong flavor of chicory, a remnant of her grandmother’s childhood in St. Francisville, the coffee warmed her almost as much as entering this house always did.
“Night terrors,” she corrected softly, finding it difficult to believe that the child they were watching was the same one who had trembled in her arms only hours before. “An appropriate name. She’s certainly terrified by whatever she sees.”
“But if she doesn’t remember—”
“I remember. I thought last night—” Blythe stopped, hesitant to put her fear into words, lest doing so should give it some actual power.
“You thought what?” her grandmother asked when the silence stretched between them.
“I’m afraid she won’t come back from wherever she is.”
“Oh, child. You don’t believe that. You can’t.” With one weathered hand, its fingers knotted with arthritis and the blue veins across the back distended beneath the thin skin, her grandmother touched her fingers as they gripped the cup, seeking warmth for the coldness that seemed to have settled permanently in her chest.
“You haven’t seen her. And anyone seeing her now…” Blythe didn’t finish the thought, knowing that she could never explain the gap between the picture below and the events of last night.
“Why don’t you tell me exactly what happens?” her grandmother suggested. “Sit down at the table, and we’ll drink our coffee while you tell me all about it.”
“I should watch her—”
“In Crenshaw? Who you gonna watch her from here?”
The old woman was right. The backyard was as safe as church, to use one of her grandfather’s favorite expressions. There was no reason to fear for Maddie’s safety. That was one of the reasons Blythe had decided to come home.
She’d been reluctant to talk to anyone about the terrors. More reluctant to mention the tapping. The kindness in her grandmother’s voice encouraged her to share her fears, however, just as it always had. Here in this kitchen, she had revealed a hundred secrets during her adolescence.
And this—whatever was going on—wasn’t even a secret. If she could share the particulars of her daughter’s nightmares with some dismissive stranger in Montgomery, surely she could confide in her family. Almost the only family she had left.
“Delores, would you get us some of that pound cake you made yesterday?” Her grandmother took Blythe’s arm to guide her away from the window, apparently taking her silence for consent.
“Yes’m. You all want some preserves to go with that?”
Delores Simmons, the ancient black woman who had looked after the household since Blythe could remember, was almost as old as her mistress. Although the two elderly women were closer than sisters, the traditional formalities that had existed between them for more than half a century were still maintained, even in private.
“Preserves?” Blythe’s grandmother asked, pulling out a chair at one side of the kitchen table and gesturing toward the opposite one. “Or apple butter, maybe. I made both, so I guarantee they’re good.”
Blythe slipped into the place, shaking her head in response to the question. “Not for me.”
“Just the cake, Delores. And make sure you don’t cut none of that sad streak either.”
“Now you know Miz Blythe always likes a bit of sadness with her sweet.”
Despite the fact that the women were talking about a common flaw that left a swath of butter-rich denseness through center of the cake, the words seemed symbolic. A little too apt.
“You said she calls you. That that’s how it starts.”
Surprised by the change in subject, Blythe looked up from her coffee. Her grandmother’s faded blue eyes were focused patiently on her face. “She calls Mama.”
Blythe wasn’t sure when the thought had crept into her head, but since it had, she couldn’t dislodge it. Because she was no longer sure Maddie was calling her. Just as she was no longer sure—
She shook her head, refusing to take the next step. If she did, it might take her down a road she didn’t want to consider.
“And you go to her, of course,” her grandmother prodded, “and then what?”
“That isn’t all she says.”
“Something besides Mama?”
“I don’t know whether or not she says more the longer the dreams go on or whether I understand more each time. Most of it is just…sounds. Screams. No words. But at the very beginning…Before she gets so hysterical…There are words.”
“What does she say?”
“Help me. Mama, help me. Daddy. No. Daddy.”
“If she’s calling for her daddy, then maybe—I mean didn’t that psychologist tell you this was connected to John’s death?”
“Not exactly. She said the stress of his death combined with the stress of the move. But…a four-year-old? How she can be stressed?” Blythe asked. “Does she seem stressed to you?”
“She’s just having a nightmare, baby. Everybody has them.”
“But what does she see that terrifies her so much she can’t get her breath?”
“And she’s crying when she says all that?”
As she asked the question, Delores set a glass dessert plate down in front of Blythe. A thick slice of pound cake, the promised sad streak bisecting its perfection, rested in the center on a paper doily. Despite the presentation, Blythe felt a wave of nausea at the thought of trying to eat it.
“Is she crying? A little. At first. Then she starts begging for somebody to help her. Then…‘Please, Jesus, help me,’” Blythe whispered, her eyes holding on the black ones of her grandmother’s housekeeper.
“That pure don’t sound like it’s got nothing to do with Mr. John, whatever that doctor told you. That baby’s afraid of something.”
Blythe nodded, relieved to have her own conclusion put into words. To find someone who understood the fear she felt as the episodes escalated. “She’s terrified. After a w
hile the words become screams. Shrieks. As if someone is—”
“Hurting her,” Delores finished softly when she couldn’t go on.
“Nobody’s ever hurt that child in her life,” her grandmother said dismissively. “Why in the world would she have a dream about somebody doing it?”
“Dreams ain’t always because of something that’s happened to us. Dreams are sometimes more than what we know in our heads.”
“Don’t you start that nonsense, Delores. Not in this house. We’re Christians here.”
“I’m just as good a Christian as you, Miz Ruth. That doesn’t mean I don’t know things they don’t talk about in Sunday school. Mine or yours.”
Maybe if she hadn’t already crossed this line in her own imagination, Blythe might have ignored the housekeeper’s theory. Some indefinable something about the words and phrases the little girl uttered—something Blythe couldn’t explain to anyone who hadn’t heard them night after night—had already led her to the conclusion that whatever was happening in her dreams might not be happening to her daughter.
“What kind of things?” she asked.
The two old women, squared off for a religious battle they had probably fought a dozen times through the long years of their acquaintance, turned to look at her. Their faces indicated surprise, either over the interruption or her question itself, so she repeated it.
“What kinds of things do you know about dreams, Delores?”
“She don’t know nothing that the rest of us don’t know,” Ruth said. “Dreams are dreams. That’s all they are. Everybody has ’em. Sometimes they scare us, but that don’t mean we have cause to be scared.”
“That angel’s been dreaming the same thing since you all moved down here.” Delores ignored her mistress’s comments as if they were unworthy of a response. “Is that right?”
Blythe nodded and watched the old woman’s lips tighten.
“And she didn’t ever dream this before?” Delores went on. “Or anything like it?”
“I don’t think Maddie has cried out in her sleep since she was a baby. Certainly nothing like this. And believe me, I’d remember. I swear,” she said, turning to her grandmother in an attempt to convince her of how out of the norm this was, “it sounds as if someone’s killing her.”
