Tess stood and peered down the street both ways but saw nothing. “I can’t stand it,” she said. “I’m going inside until they knock it off. Can I freshen your coffee?”
“Always.” I smiled and handed her my cup. The second she vanished, I saw what had driven the animals mad. There on the street, in the broad light of Sunday morning, two of the devils zigzagged across the neighborhood lawns. One of them limped along as she ran, and the other, a mouselike monster, beckoned her to hurry. The pair stopped when they saw me on the porch, two houses away, and stared directly at me for an instant. Wretched creatures with hideous holes for eyes, bulbous heads on their ruined bodies. Caked with dirt and sweat. From downwind, I could smell the feral odor of decay and musk. The one with the limp pointed a bony finger right at me, and the other quickly led her away through the gap between houses. Tess returned with the coffee too late to see them go, and once the creatures disappeared, the dogs quieted, settled back in their kennels, and relaxed their chains.
“Did you figure out what all the commotion was about?”
“Two things running through the neighborhood.”
“Things?”
“I don’t know.” I took a sip. “Little monsters.”
“Monsters?”
“Can’t you smell their awful odor? Like someone just ran over a skunk.”
“Henry, what are you talking about? I don’t smell a thing.”
“I don’t know what set those dogs off. Mass hysteria, a figment of their doggy brains? A mouse and a bat? A couple of kids.”
She put her cool hand on my forehead. “Are you feeling okay, Henry? You don’t seem yourself today.”
“I’m not,” I said. “Maybe I should go back to bed.”
As I drifted off to sleep, the changelings haunted my dreams. A dozen crept out of the woods, stepping out from behind each tree. They kept on coming, a band of hollow children, surrounding my home, advancing toward the doors and windows. Trapped inside, I raced from floor to floor and looked out through peepholes and from behind curtains as they silently marched and assembled in a ring. I ran down the hall to Eddie’s room, and he was a baby again, curled up in a ball in his crib. I shook him to wake him up and run away with me, but when the child rolled over, he had the face of a grown man. I screamed and locked myself in the bathroom. From the tiny window I could see the monsters begin to climb up the porch rails, scale the walls like spiders, their evil faces turned to me, menace and hatred in their glowing eyes. Windows were shattered in other rooms; the glass exploding and hitting the floor in an oddly gentle crescendo. I looked into the mirror, saw my reflection morph into my father, my son, Gustav. Behind me in the mirror, one of the creatures rose and reached out its claws to wrap around my neck.
Tess sat on the edge of the bed, shaking my shoulder. I was drenched with sweat, and though I felt hotter than hell, she said I was clammy and cold. “You’ve had a bad dream. It’s okay, it’s okay.” I buried my face on her breast and she stroked my hair and rocked me until I gained my full senses. For a moment, I did not know where I was, did not know who I was now or ever.
“Where’s Edward?”
She looked perplexed by my question. “At my mother’s, don’t you remember? He’s spending the weekend. What’s wrong with you?”
I shivered in her embrace.
“Was it that mean old Mrs. Ungerland? You need to concentrate on what’s important and stop chasing after what’s past. Don’t you know, it’s you I love. And always have.”
Everyone has an unnameable secret too dire to confess to friend or lover, priest or psychiatrist, too entwined at the core to excise without harm. Some people choose to ignore it; others bury it deep and lug it unspoken to the grave. We mask it so well that even the body sometimes forgets the secret exists. I do not want to lose our child, and I do not want to lose Tess. My fear of being found out as a changeling and rejected by Tess has made a secret of the rest of my life.