A Nest of Nightmares

And found him, as she had more than half-expected, again standing before the open chest, clearly fascinated by whatever he imagined he saw inside.

‘Julian.’

Obviously he did not hear the threat in her voice, for he looked up brightly, blue eyes shining and round face puckered with interest. ‘Baby,’ he said.

‘Julian, what did I tell you about that chest?’ She advanced upon him.

The bright interest went out of his face, and he looked stubborn. ‘Me see,’ he said firmly.

‘It’s not a toy, Julian. I told you before you are not to play with it. You must not open it. Don’t open it again.’ She shut the lid.

‘Me see,’ he said again, his chubby hands creeping for the edge of the lid.

‘No.’ Helen caught his hands and held them. ‘No. Leave the chest alone, Julian. I mean it. You’re going to be in big trouble if you do that again.’ She looked into his stubborn face and knew he would go to the chest as soon as her back was turned. Threats did not work with him, so she would have to distract him.

‘Well, big boy,’ she said cheerfully, hoisting him up in her arms. ‘Why don’t you play with your old mommy for a while? You want to play with your choo-choos? You want to play choo-choo trains with Mommy?’ She carried him away, bouncing him slightly in her arms and asking questions, taking him away from the sight of the wooden chest.

For the rest of the day she kept an eye on Julian, never giving him the chance to go back to the chest. But in the evening, sitting with her family watching television, she was struck by how often Julian turned his head to look at the chest. In particular, she was struck by the way he looked at the chest.

Later, when Julian had been put to bed, she tried to explain her unease to Rob. ‘He’d get a look on his face, as if he’d heard something, and then he’d turn and look straight at the chest. As if the sound came from the chest. Except that there wasn’t any sound. Why is he so fascinated by it? Why does he want to keep opening it?’

‘Because you’ve made such a big deal out of it,’ Rob said easily. ‘He opened it once, out of natural curiosity, and you hit the ceiling. Naturally that made him curious. He can’t figure out what is so special about it. He’s a kid who doesn’t like to be told no, especially without a reason.’

‘If you could have seen him, Rob, staring into . . . He was seeing something, I’m sure of it. But there’s nothing there.’ She stopped short of telling him what she had briefly, oddly imagined: the old, crumpled newspapers which seemed to fill the chest.

‘So? It’s big and dark and empty. To a kid, it’s interesting. Why are you so worried about it?’

She saw from his face that he expected some irrational response, that he was ready to make fun of ‘women’s intuition’. She said calmly, ‘Rob, he could get hurt. If he decided to play inside it, he might shut himself in and suffocate.’

‘Oh come on, Helen. You’d hear him and find him long before that could happen.’

‘What if the lid slammed down? It’s heavy enough to break his hand.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Rob said. ‘But there are lots of other ways he could get hurt around the house – more likely ways. It’s silly to worry – ’

‘It’s not silly! I’ve caught him opening the chest twice, and he’ll try again, I know it.’

‘All right, all right.’ He held up a placating hand. ‘Don’t get upset. Maybe we could put something on the chest that he’d have trouble getting off.’

Helen nodded grudgingly and the discussion was over, but she was far from satisfied. She wished they had never bought the thing.

Something was wrong. Helen swam up out of sleep, drawn by the sound of a baby crying.

Then she was wide awake, listening and remembering. This was no dream. A baby was crying, somewhere in the house. It was not Alice – to Helen’s ears the cry sounded like that of a much younger infant, a newborn child. The muffled sound came, she thought, from the living room.

She looked resentfully at Rob. He could sleep through anything. There had been a time, just after Julian’s birth, when Helen had seen Rob’s regular, undisturbed slumber as a sign of hostility towards her and their child. Logically, she knew he did not will his sleeping patterns. And she was used to it, now.

Gradually the crying was fading, and Helen thought she might be able to go to sleep after all. Then she heard the soft, unmistakable patter of Julian’s feet in the hall, going towards the living room, and she sat up in bed. Had Julian heard the crying, too?

Heart thumping unpleasantly, Helen got up and went to check.

Julian was standing in the dark living room, a few feet from the chest. He turned and looked at his mother when she came into the room. He pointed to the chest. ‘Baby,’ he said.

Helen felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No baby. Come back to bed, Julian. You must have been dreaming.’

He shook his head emphatically and walked closer to the chest. ‘Baby,’ he said firmly.

‘No,’ she said sharply, seeing Julian’s hands straying to the lid. ‘What did I tell you about that? Let Mommy open it.’