Bogeyman

“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?”