Wishful Thinking

What's Said Is Said

The storm raged on over their house. The clouds boiled. Rain lashed the leaves on the trees. Thunder was followed by lightning.

Sarah and Stephanie were listening. What they were listening to was an unnatural silence within the room. Toby had stopped crying, so suddenly it scared them. The two sisters looked back inside the nursery. The bedside light was out. "Toby?" Sarah called. He did not respond.

Stephanie flicked the light switch beside the door. Nothing happened. Sarah took over and jiggled it up and down several times, to no effect. A board creaked. Stephanie tensed, filled with an eerie sense of apprehension. "Toby?" Sarah called again. "Are you all right? Why aren't you crying?"

Sarah and Stephanie stepped nervously into the quiet room. The light from the landing, coming through the doorway, threw unfamiliar shadows onto the walls and across the carpet. In the lull between two thunderclaps, they thought they could hear humming in the air. They could detect no movement at all in the crib.

"Toby," Stephanie whispered in anxiety, and the sisters walked toward the crib with their breath drawn. Sarah's hands were shaking like aspen leaves as she reached out to pull the sheet back.

Both sisters recoiled. The sheet was convulsing. Weird shapes were thrusting and bulging beneath it. They thought they glimpsed things poking out from the edge of the sheet, things that were no part of Toby. They felt their hearts thumping, and Sarah put her hand over her mouth, to stop herself from screaming.

Then the sheet was still again. It sank slowly down over the mattress. Nothing moved.

They could not turn and run away and leave him. They had to know. Whatever the horror of it, they had to know. Impulsively, both sisters reached out a hand to pull the sheet back.

The crib was empty.

For a moment or an hour, they would never know how long, they stared at the empty crib. Stephanie was horrified and confused. Sarah was not even frightened. Her mind had been wiped clean.

And then she was frightened, by a soft, rapid thumping on the windowpane. Stephanie  jumped, startled. Sarah's hands clenched so tightly, her fingernails scored her skin.

A white owl was flapping insistently on the glass. They could see the light from the landing reflected in its great, round, dark eyes, watching them. The whiteness of its plumage was  illuminated by a series of lightning flashes that seemed continuous. Behind them, a goblin briefly raised his head, and ducked down again.  Another did likewise. The girls didn't see them. Their eyes were fixed on the owl's eyes. Something was not right, Stephanie could feel it. That thing was not a normal bird.

Lightning crackled and flashed again, and this time it distracted Stephanie's attention away from the window by shining on the clock that stood on the mantelpiece. She saw that the hands were at thirteen o'clock. She was staring distractedly at the clock when she felt something nudge the back of her legs. She glanced down. The crib was moving across the carpet on scaly legs like a lizard's, with talons for toes, one leg at each corner of the crib. Stephanie's lips parted, but she made no sound. She quickly tugged on Sarah's sleeve to get her attention. When her sister turned and saw the transformed crib, she let out a startled shriek.

Behind them, something snickered. The girls spun around and saw it duck down again behind the chest of drawers. Shadows were scuttling across the walls. Goblins were prancing and bobbing behind them. Sarah and Stephanie were watching the chest of drawers. Like the crib, it had a scaly, clawed foot at each corner, and it was dancing.

The sisters wheeled around, mouths open, hands clenched, and saw the goblins cavorting. They ducked away into the shadows, to evade the girls' eyes. Stephanie looked for something that would serve as a weapon. In the corner of the nursery was an old broom. She took it and advanced upon the goblins. "Go away. Go away," Sarah whimpered, while her sister charged.