Nocturnes

I saw movement inside the hollow of its abdomen. I looked closer and discerned a large spider trapped beneath the branches and straw. It could not have found its way inside by accident, for the figure was too tightly woven. Instead, whoever was responsible for its construction had deliberately placed the creature within. It probed at the gaps, attempting to escape from its prison. As I removed the figure from my daughter’s grasp, the spider seemed to shudder once, then curled in upon itself and died.

I carried the primitive form from my daughter’s room and placed it on a shelf in my study before returning to bed. When I went back to check on it the next morning, it had fallen to pieces. No trace of its previous form remained, and the spider that had once dwelt within it was now merely a ball of dry, withered limbs.

It was almost midday when I at last had a chance to talk to Louisa about the incident of the night before, but she could recall nothing of our conversation, nor could she tell me where Molly had gone or how the straw figure came to be in her place. I left her scouring the house for her lost doll. The sky had darkened and the promise of rain hung in the air. Sam was napping, and our housekeeper, a local woman named Mrs. Amworth, was keeping one eye on him while working through a pile of ironing. Despite the prospect of the weather changing, I decided to take a walk and found myself, not entirely without design, making my way toward the mound in the third field. Even in bright sunshine it had a vaguely threatening aspect to it; now, beneath lowering skies and gray clouds, it seemed almost to have a palpable consciousness, as though something within were brooding and conspiring. I tried to dismiss the sensation, but Louisa’s words from the night before kept returning to me. Her window faced out upon the mound. She could see it in the distance when she stood at the glass. Beyond it lay only the river and empty fields.

I reached the mound and squatted silently at its base. I laid my hand upon it, the earth warm beneath my palm. I was experiencing no unease now. In fact, quite the opposite: I found myself relaxing, my eyes closing, the scent of wildflowers and ru

And it was not alone. Others followed it, ascending toward where I knelt, drawn by my warmth and driven by an anger that I could not comprehend. My eyes snapped open, my mind emerging from its torpor, and I snatched my hand away and threw myself back from the mound. But for a brief moment I felt movement beneath my palm, as though some force had tried to thrust itself through the crust of the earth in order to grasp me to itself.

I rose to my feet and wiped the grass and dirt from my hands. Where my palm had rested only moments before, I now glimpsed a patch of red. Warily, I stabbed at it with a twig. It tumbled down the slope of the mound, a little pile of disturbed earth beneath it exposed by the movement, and came to rest at my feet. It was a doll’s head, separated from its body, worms coiling through its thick red hair and beetles scurrying from the hollow of its neck. It was the head of Molly, my daughter’s doll, and it was only when the first drops of rain began to strike my face that I found the strength to pick it up and take it home.

Later, I went to Louisa’s room and attempted to speak to her, but she grew agitated and tearful, denying with increasing force that she had done anything wrong and appearing genuinely shocked when I showed her the remains of her doll. In fact, she became so distraught at the possibility that Molly was lost beneath the earth that I was forced to remain with her until at last she fell asleep. I myself locked her bedroom window, securing it with a little key that, until now, had remained unused, then deposited the key in my pocket and took it with me to bed once I had ensured that every other entrance to the house was also securely closed.

That night, a great storm arose, and all the windows and doors rattled and shook. I awoke to the sound of Sam crying and brought him to my bed. I checked on Louisa, but she remained asleep, oblivious of the turmoil without.

The next morning, when I pulled the curtains, the sun shone brightly and there was no sign of any disturbance to the garden or its environs. The leaves remained upon the trees, and the flowerpots on the windowsill had not deviated so much as an inch from their positions.

And in the village, nobody could recall even the slightest breeze arising during the preceding night.

Days went by, and the summer sun grew warmer and warmer. We slept with the thi

Sam no longer went walking with me down to the stream. Instead, he preferred to stay in the house, spending more and more time in his own room, with its window screens, or in my study, which had narrow leaded panes that would open only an inch at the top. When I asked what was troubling him, he declined to say what had caused this change in his behavior, and it seemed almost that some threat hung over him, requiring silence on all such matters if it were not to be put into action. For the first time, I began to make serious enquiries about selling the house.

Then, one day, I was called away to unavoidable business in London, where I was forced to spend the night. Despite my repeated warnings to her that all the windows and doors should remain securely locked at night, Mrs. Amworth, who had agreed to stay with the children, left the window in Louisa’s bedroom slightly ajar, so that air might flow through her room and give her some comfort. And whatever dwelt within the mound took the invitation that was offered, and all was altered irrevocably.

It was Sam who first alerted me to the change in his sister. Previously adoring of her, he now kept himself apart from her, refusing to join in her games and remaining even closer to me than before. One night, after I put him down to sleep, I heard movement in his room and, upon attempting to enter, found my progress impeded by a chair and cushions, and Sam’s toy box. When I asked him what he was doing, he at first refused to speak, instead pushing his lower lip out and looking at his feet. But slowly that lip began to tremble, and in the midst of a flood of tears he told me that he was frightened.