A Nest of Nightmares

The baby was crying again. Helen’s eyes came open on darkness. The muffled sound came from the living room, from within the wooden chest. She clenched her teeth together. It would pass. The sound would fade and die away. She wasn’t going to get up this time and go to the living room and open the chest and assure herself it was still empty. She would wait it out. And tomorrow she would take the chest out and sell it to the first furniture-­dealer she found, and worry about the lies or explanations for Rob later. She wondered if Julian was awake and listening, too. She could imagine him in the living room, crouching beside the dark bulk of the chest.

She shivered and moved closer to Rob’s warmth. When would it stop crying? How long did she have to listen to it?

It occurred to her then that if Rob could hear it she would not be alone, and she would not be so afraid. And he might understand. Heartened, she sat up and began to shake her husband, calling his name. Waking him in the mornings on the rare occasions when he overslept was hard enough; waking him in the middle of the night was all but impossible.

‘Rob! Wake up, wake up, wake up.’ She tickled him and blew in his ear, but got in response only the sluggish motion as he moved away from her, still holding on to sleep.

‘Rob, wake up. Wake up. This is important. Rob. Damn.’

Sighing noisily, Helen rose and went across the landing to the bathroom to fetch a wet towel. Drastic measures were called for. For a wonder, the crying had not died away. She hoped it would go on long enough for Rob to hear it. Returning from the bathroom, she glanced into Julian’s room and saw his bed was empty. Well, she knew where he was. Right now the important thing was to wake Rob.

The wet towel did the trick. At last he was moving, fending her off, eyelids fluttering to reveal flashes of blue.

‘Whatsamatta – whatsamatta – hey – Helen, what’s wrong?’

She let out a sigh of relief as he sat bolt-upright in bed, indisputably awake. She clutched his arm. ‘Hush. Listen. Tell me what you hear.’

He stared at her. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Hush, just listen,’ she said. She could hear it still, but faintly – a distant, gasping cry that was fading.

Rob was silent for a moment frowning, then he shook his head. ‘What did you hear?’ he asked quietly. ‘Someone at the door? Someone in the house?’

Helen shook her head, despairing. If he hadn’t heard it, then he would not. The crying had faded altogether now; she could no longer hear it.

‘A baby,’ she said hopelessly. ‘A baby crying.’

Rob swore and threw himself back on the bed. ‘You couldn’t go and check on her yourself? You woke me for that?’

‘Not Alice,’ Helen said. ‘It was another baby crying. I’ve heard it the past two nights. The sound doesn’t come from Alice’s room. It’s in the living room. Inside the chest.’

Rob turned over, burying his face in the pillow, and did not answer. Helen had no heart to try to explain what she meant, to struggle with his anger and sleepy incomprehension. He had not heard and he would not understand. She lay back down, longing for the oblivion of sleep.

But she couldn’t stop thinking of the chest. It was almost as if it was calling to her. She wanted to go to it and raise the heavy lid and look inside yet again, to assure herself that there was nothing there. But she knew there was nothing inside. How many times did she have to look before she believed?

There is no baby there, she told herself. No crying, no newspapers, nothing. I will stay here in my bed and go back to sleep.

Helen heard Julian’s footsteps on the landing, going towards his room.

It’s over, she told herself. Even Julian knows that. And this is the last night I will suffer this. In the morning the chest goes.

She did not sleep again. She lay in bed until it was light, and the thought of the chest was like a suffocating weight. When she heard Julian stirring in his room, she knew it was time to get up. While she was in the bathroom, she heard the front door open and slam and knew that Julian had run outside, as he often did, to bring the morning paper in for his parents.

In the kitchen she went through the motions of making a pot of coffee while her mind puzzled over the fact that she had not yet heard a sound from Alice, and the oddity that Julian had not rushed into the kitchen, eager to be praised for bringing her the paper. Moving slowly, wearily, Helen went back to check on her family.

Rob, she saw from the doorway, was still sacked out, the alarm buzzing steadily and to no effect directly into his ear. The interruption of his sleep during the night meant she would have another battle to wake him, and he would be grumpy all day.

And Alice –

– was not in her crib.

Helen stared down, disbelieving, at the bare sheet. Alice was much too small to have got out of bed on her own. ‘Julian,’ she called, rushing into the living room. ‘Julian!’