Her smile was so big that it looked like her cheeks would break. Her small hands curled around her baby sister just like she had imagined a million times in her dreams. Lina’s vivid red suspenders were significantly different from the yellow blanket that the infant was covered in. But she didn’t care about how things looked or what colors they were. She was very happy to be the big sister.
I fell back on the hospital bed, tired and in pain, with sutures and hormones coursing through me. My heart was both full and weak at the same time. For four hectic years, Lina was our only kid. Every night, she kissed my big belly. She would ask every morning with huge eyes and excitement, “Is she here yet?” “At last, the baby was here.” I thought that maybe everything would be well now.
Lina leaned in gingerly, and her face was so near to her sister’s nose that it almost touched. When she whispered, it seemed if she was telling them a secret.
She said, “Now I have someone to tell my secrets to.”
I blinked in surprise. “Secrets?”
She nodded and grinned. “Like the ones I don’t tell Dad,” she said.
I was about to ask her what she meant when she glanced up at me with her big brown eyes and whispered, “It’s okay.” She won’t say anything else either.
I made myself laugh as the tightness in my chest got tighter. I foolishly said, “Well, babies can’t talk yet.” “But what kind of secrets?”
She thought about it for a second, then kissed her sister on the forehead and sprang out of the chair. She said, “I’m hungry.” “Can I have a cookie?”
Back then, it appeared like nothing more than a child’s innocent imagination. Lina always had a lot of ideas. She told stories about a dragon named Toffee and explained that God’s pillows were the clouds. But those statements lingered with me and made me think of a question that I didn’t address out loud.
That night, I didn’t tell James about it. He had a lot of work to do, and I didn’t want to bother him with strange child whispering because Lina, the baby, and I were all getting well.
Two days later, Elsie arrived home, and Lina became the best big sister ever. She gave her diapers, sung nice lullabies, and told her toy giraffe to remain quiet while the baby slept. But after that first time, hardly one remembered the “secrets.” That’s what I thought.
It wasn’t until two months later, on a rainy Tuesday, when the murmurs started again. I was half asleep on the couch breastfeeding Elsie when I heard Lina talking softly in the living room. She was having fun with her playhouse.
“No, we don’t tell Daddy.” That’s how it is.
She was facing away from me and carrying two dolls in her hands. Her voice was steady and forceful.
“Why can’t we tell Dad?” I asked while sitting up.
She turned around quickly, like she was caught doing something wrong. “Nothing!” Doll stuff.
I laughed and said, “Hmm, you really do have a lot of rules for dolls.”
“They have to follow them,” she said under her breath before rushing to her room.
Later that night, I told James. I said softly, “She keeps telling me not to tell you things.”
He made a face. “Like what?”
“Not sure.” “Secrets,” she said. Elsie must also keep them. She warned her dolls not to tell you today.
James chuckled. “She is four years old.” It probably means something simple, like “I had another cookie” or “I didn’t brush my teeth.”
“Yes, maybe,” I answered, but I still didn’t feel right.
It had been a week since I last heard Lina and Elsie talking outside on a blanket while I watered the hydrangeas nearby. While I was pretending to take care of the plants, I heard her say:
“Don’t forget to tell Daddy that the monster only comes when he’s not home.”
My heart stopped.
I went over. “What kind of monster, Lina?”
She looked surprised, like I had caught her lying. “Just pretend.” For our game.
“You said it only comes when Daddy is not home.”
“Yes, those are the days when we are heroes.” We fight it.
I sat next to her and tried to keep my cool. “What does the monster look like?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Big.” In the dark. There is no face. The thing occasionally bangs on the windows and other times hides in the kitchen.
I made myself happy. “You have a great mind.”
“Elsie sees it too,” she said softly as she rubbed her sister’s belly.
I didn’t get much sleep that night. James worked late at a call center two nights a week, and I kept whispering to myself what Lina had said.
I said in a hushed voice, “Sweetie, do you ever hear weird sounds when Daddy’s not home?” “What games do you and Elsie play while Mommy is in the shower?”
She’d tell stories like flying socks or talking lights, and then she’d stop or change the subject.
I set a baby monitor that can see in the dark and pick up movements in the corridor. James teased me for being too careful.
I might have been.
But three nights later, I saw something on the screen.
It was about 11 p.m. Lina was restless, so I watched her on TV until she calmed down. It was dark in the hallway since all the doors were closed. Lina came out of nowhere and stood outside our bedroom door in her pajamas.
She didn’t knock. For almost ten minutes, she stood still and didn’t move.
She turned around and went back to her room.
I asked her the next day whether she had a bad dream.
“Nope,” she said while she ate her oatmeal.
“Did you come to our room last night?”
“No, Eyes Squ ested.”
But I knew what I had seen.
That night, I looked around her room to feel more in authority. There was a piece of paper that had been folded up under her pillow.
Even though the lines were rough, it was evident that she had drawn on it.
Behind what appeared like our kitchen table was a tall, black person with no face.
There are two little people next to it, one in red suspenders and the other in yellow.
Written very small below: “Don’t let him take her.”
My blood ran cold.
I showed it to James, and he got pale. “This is not good.”
“She says it’s a game,” she says. But she did it on her own.
He said, “We should talk to a pro.” A psychologist for children. She can be anxious or apprehensive.
I said yes, and we planned a meeting for the next week.
But we never made it there.
Three days later, Lina was nowhere to be found.
It was Sunday morning. James changed Elsie’s diaper as I started breakfast. Fifteen minutes before that, we had seen Lina dancing with her stuffed duck.
Then there was quiet.
No footsteps, no sounds, no sign.
We searched every room, closet, every corner. The doors were locked, and the gate in the back was locked tight.
We were scared out of our minds.
They called the police. Dogs and drones looked over the area quite carefully.
Nothing.
James opened it four hours later, just as the search crews were ready to pull down the shed in our yard. There she was.
Holding Elsie close while sitting on the floor.
We didn’t notice that Elsie had gone out of the room with her.
My legs gave out, and tears ran down my face.
James’s face showed how happy he was as he ran inside with both girls.
After Lina calmed down, I sat next to her on the bed.
“Why, sweetheart?” I questioned softly. “Why did you steal Elsie? “Why did you stay hidden?”
Her small face turned serious. “The monster said he’d take her if I didn’t hide her.”
My hands were shaking.
“Did anyone come into the house?” I asked in a hushed voice.
“No.” He doesn’t need doors.
I didn’t know what to think.
That week, a psychologist worked with Lina for two hours.
He observed, “She’s smart and creative, but she looks nervous and maybe traumatized.”
“Trauma?” James asked. “From what?”
The therapist took a break. “Did someone scare her?” Did you hurt her? Is anyone close to family?
We shook our heads.
“She thinks it’s her job to keep her sister safe, so she’s obsessed with this ‘monster.'” It’s too much for a kid her age to deal with.
That night, James and I didn’t sleep.
The next day, Lina and I went to get ice cream by ourselves. We sat in the park and laughed.
As she completed her cone, I whispered to her, “Sweetheart, this monster… does he look like anyone you know?”
After a long time, she looked down and said, “He smells like Daddy.”
I couldn’t believe what I saw.
She said, “He doesn’t look like Daddy.” “But sometimes he does sound like him.” Like when Dad yells at the TV or slams the door.
I couldn’t get air. “Has Daddy ever scared you?”
She nodded her head. “Only when you’re not here.”
That night, I faced James.
He broke down and told the full thing.
He began to drink when I was pregnant. He only had one or two beers, but it was enough for him to lose control while I was not home or sleeping.
He stated he yelled at Lina and once grabbed her wrist too hard when she dropped something.
He yelled, “She never told me.” “I didn’t think she’d remember.”
But she did. She remembered everything.
In her scared, confused mind, she turned him into a monster.
James left that night.
He began to receive aid. Lina started going to therapy.
It took a long time for the healing to happen, but it did.
Lina quit drawing creatures with no faces and disclosing secrets.
She laughed again.
James gets to see his parents every Saturday with supervision. He hasn’t had a drink in six months.
Lina whispered to me one night, “I don’t need to keep secrets anymore,” while I was putting her to bed.
At the same time, my heart broke and mended.
The monsters don’t always live under the bed. We care about them.
People may change. Kids require families where there are no secrets.
If this story touched you, please pass it on. A youngster could be concealing behind what they say in a whisper.
