by Josh Shiben
A Face at the Window
By Josh Shiben
The sun was just rising as Susanne groggily thumped down the stairwell and into the kitchen, still rubbing sleep from her eyes. The automatic coffee pot was humming and it exuded that rich odor which filled the entire house. She hadn’t slept well, but the promise of warm coffee was more than enough to drag her from her bed.
She stepped into the kitchen, eyes bleary as she made her way past the round oak table and to the refrigerator. Jeremy was already up, as usual, but instead of watching cartoons, he sat at the table staring into a bowl of cereal. A brief hint of worry penetrated her fog as she searched the door of the fridge for her creamer. “Morning, Hon.” She was met with silence from the six-year-old, unusual given the avalanche of chatter that typically poured out of him. “Sleep well?” She managed to keep an eye on the child as she poured her drink with her back to him -- a feat learned and honed to perfection in the last three years.
He was silent again for a moment as his little face scrunched in consternation. His mouth opened in thought, hesitated, shut, and then opened again. “Is Peter Pan real?” he asked at last.
Susanne sipped her drink and looked at the boy, a little relieved, but debating what to say. Was he too old to be believing in things like that? Would telling him Peter Pan was imaginary be making him grow up too fast? He was only six, after all. Christ, parenting was hard. She stalled for time. “Peter Pan? Why do you ask?”
Jeremy frowned into his shredded wheat, and Susanne could see that they’d long ago become soggy in the milk. She briefly wondered how long he’d been up. “I saw him last night. At my window.” He paused, apparently thinking.
“I think you just had a dream, Sweetie,” she answered, relieved.
“He said he needed me to let him in, so he could find his shadow.”
“Yeah, I hear he losses that sometimes. I think it’s because he attaches it with soap.” Jeremy looked up at her with those huge eyes he got when he was nervous, and she instantly regretted her levity.
“He was scary.”
“Why was he scary? What’s scary about Peter Pan?”
“I dunno.” Jeremy looked back down at his cereal and stirred what was rapidly becoming shredded wheat gloop with his spoon. “It was dark, and he was just scary.” Susanne briefly wondered where her son had even seen Peter Pan. She certainly didn’t own the film. She decided the point was moot -- he’d obviously seen it some place, and it had frightened him. Somehow. She didn’t pretend to understand what scared children and what didn’t -- it seemed entirely random to her.
She moved beside him and put her hand on his shoulder, giving it a comforting squeeze. “Sometimes, dreams can seem very real. Especially the scary ones. But there’s nothing to be afraid of. There’s no Peter Pan, and if there was, he wouldn’t want to hurt you.”
He looked up at her with his big blue eyes -- they had been his father’s, but they were his now -- and her heart melted. “Promise?”
Susanne stroked his hair and smiled. “Promise.” He was so small and perfect. She loved him more than anything. “How about this,” she said, arching her eyebrow inquisitively, “after we finish our chores and go grocery shopping, we stop and get some ice cream.” He flashed her a gap-toothed smile. “Any flavor you like.” His blond head bobbed up and down emphatically. Crisis solved.
***
Susanne had been dreaming when she felt the little hand shaking her shoulder. A soft, scared voice said something she didn’t quite catch and she peeled her eyes open, glancing at the clock. It was after 3, and Jeremy stood beside her bed, his arm wrapped tightly around his stuffed bear. His tiny face was knotted in worry. “He’s back mom. He’s back and he’s scary.”
It took a minute for her to realize what was going on. She’d been deep asleep, dreaming about something that wakefulness had already stolen away. “Who’s back?” she choked out, at last.
“Peter Pan. He said he’s still looking for his shadow. He’s looked all over and he can’t find it and-”
Her brain worked through the fog as it spun to wakefulness. Her first instinct was one of concern, Jeremy rarely ever had nightmares, and had never had a reoccurring one. “He’s at your window now?” The boy only nodded. She rubbed a sleeper out of her eye and sat up. “Jeremy, there’s no-one at your window. You had a nightmare.”
“No, he’s there. I don’t like him. His teeth are too big, and his eyes are dark.”
Susanne dragged herself out of bed, and took Jeremy’s tiny little hand, saying a silent prayer of thanks that she didn’t teach summer school. “Let’s go see,” she said, walking with him to the door. “Maybe Mr. Pan will look somewhere else for his shadow if we ask him nicely.”
The window was empty, and she looked out sleepily. “See, Sweetheart? Nobody here.” There was nothing outside the window, but a small oak tree and the neighbor’s house. She tucked Jeremy back into the sheets and sat down at the foot of the bed.
“He’s gone now, but he was there. He talked to me.” His two eyes peered out from the blankets, and Susanne wished she could reassure him better.
“You were dreaming, Sweetie. And this window? It’s too high for anybody to get up, so no-one can get in. I promise.” She gave his tiny foot a squeeze through the blanket and smiled, suppressing a yawn. She’d hoped this talk would be enough, but his eyes were still large with fear. Susanne sighed inwardly, and steeled herself for a long night. “But I’ll stay up and watch for him, ok?” Jeremy smiled then in the dim light, and yawned himself. Susanne caught it, unable to suppress it this time. They sat in silence for a moment, until a nagging concern in the back of her mind made Susanne break the quiet. “Sweetheart… Peter Pan. Was he a grown up? Was he big?”
The little face looked at her, and then shook in the darkness. “No, Peter Pan’s a boy. He’s my size.”
“You’re sure?”
“He never grows up.” The small head shook again, and she smiled, relieved. She had almost half-convinced herself some pervert was sneaking up there somehow. She felt the tension deflate out of her.
“I love you, Mom,” he murmured, his eyes already getting heavy now that he was laying down.
“I love you too, Sweetie,” she replied. “I’ll be right here. Sweet dreams.”
***
It was mid-day, and Susanne stood at the side of the house, looking up at the second story window. The warm sun beamed on her, and she felt silly even being concerned about the issue. There was no way anything was at Jeremy’s window last night -- it was on the second floor, straight up, with nothing but crème colored siding to hold on to. The nearby oak tree was thin and wispy, too young to bear any kind of load. A person would need a ladder.
She frowned and checked the ground, certain she was just being paranoid. She was pretty sure that a ladder would leave some sort of indentation in the ground, especially given how soft the soil was on this side of the house. There was too much clay for grass to grow, and the only thing covering the ground was a soft layer of moss that would tear up under the slightest provocation. She peered at the furrowed green, looking for any sort of disturbance. The ground was smooth aside from the slight indentation of her own footprints. She smiled, relieved that her concern really was only parental paranoia, and headed inside.
***
Sunlight streamed through the large bay windows, warming the playroom in the late morning warmth of the summer, and Susanne sighed into her lemonade. There weren’t enough days like this. There could never be -- even if you lived forever, you could never experience enough summer mornings. Jeremy sat in the corner next to an assortment of small trucks and cars, maneuvering a firetruck through a toy city-scape. Fires were apparently a very common occurr
ence in wherever his city was supposed to be, because he regularly had to move that truck around streets, making siren noises with his mouth. She watched him play with a smile, sipping on her drink. It’d been two days since he’d woke her up the middle of the night, and he hadn’t even mentioned Peter Pan once since then. The whole episode seemed to have passed, leaving Jeremy apparently no worse for the wear. She wondered how children could move on so quickly from something that had apparently scared them so badly.
Jeremy looked up at her from his corner, and his face flashed from a smile to one of guilt. Awkwardly, he moved his little hand on top of something that had been resting on the floor. “Hi, Mom,” he said, forcing a fake smile. He gripped the thing on the floor, and slowly drew it back to his body.
“Hey Hon. What’s that?” His hand stopped moving and he looked up at her with a blank expression. He stared at her for a moment, then blinked.
“My firetruck.” He gestured to the truck, overturned in the city streets, and Susanne did all she could to keep a straight face.
“No, what’s in your hand?” He stared at her for another moment, then opened his mouth and, apparently thinking better of it, closed it again. “Jeremy, what’s in your hand?” she said again, beginning to get irritated.
“I’m not supposed to show you. It’s a secret,” he said at last.
“A secret? With who? Where’d you get that?”
He just looked up her with a twinge of panic in his face. “I’m not supposed to say that either,” he murmured. “I promised.” His little hand clenched the object tighter, and drew it into his body. Susanne briefly considered forcing him to give it to her, curious as to what it could be, but instead decided to wait him out. She could find out was later, when he’s asleep or playing outside. Let him have this little bit of independence.
“You’re keeping secrets now, huh?” she asked with a smirk. “Fine, I’ll leave you to it.” She backed out of the room, wondering who Jeremy had been referring to about the promise. Perhaps one of the other kids from his playgroup had loaned him something. Kids could be strange about that kind of thing. She resolved to get a look at it later.
***
Her chance came that afternoon – Jeremy was watching cartoons while she put away the laundry the bedrooms. She knew his secret spot where he kept all of his “treasures.” She pulled the shoe box out from under his bed and opened it, finding the usual collection of things in it -- a small assortment of dead insects, a piece of snake skin, a chicken bone he had dug up in the backyard and fervently believed to be a dinosaur bone. She bit her lip when she saw the photograph of Jeremy with his father. That one always killed her a little bit. She moved the items to the side, and dug deeper before she stopped in puzzlement. There were two new things in the box: a small, beaten up doll and a coin. The doll looked to be decades old, and what coloring it once had was faded to an off-white. She took it out and inspected it, wondering where he had gotten it. Written on the doll’s foot in a faded, but still legible child’s scrawl was the name E. Worledge, and Susanne tried to think of a playmate with that name. None came to mind. None were even close. Given the age of the doll, perhaps it had been one of the mother’s. A maiden name, then. She would have to ask around.
Setting the doll aside, Susanne picked up the coin and studied it. Roughly circular, the coin was heavy and cool in her hand, and it shown golden in the dim light. Crudely hewn onto one side was a face, with what appeared to be three legs sprouting out of it. Something was written around the head, but grime and the wear on the coin had rendered the lettering unreadable. On the back, a laurel wreath surrounded the letters O.C.S. The coin felt very old, and Susanne stared at it in confusion -- where had Jeremy gotten this? Had a classmate stolen it from a parent’s collection? It certainly looked like something a collector would own, and it was probably very valuable. She wondered if someone was looking for it, or knew it was missing.
She pocketed the coin and walked downstairs, where Jeremy was still watching his cartoons. “Hey, Jere?” He turned to look at her from the couch, but said nothing. “I was cleaning, and I found this under your bed.” She held up the coin, and at the sight of it his face paled. His mouth pinched shut in a small scowl as he watched her walk into the room, still holding up the coin. “Where’d you get it?” she asked, casually.
“I found it,” he said quietly, after a moment. “Outside.”
“Are you sure someone didn’t give it to you? Maybe someone from Kindergarten? Or playgroup? I don’t think this is yours. It looks very old.”
He shook his head. “No, it’s mine. I found it.”
“Where’d you find it? Because I think maybe somebody lost this, and they probably really miss it. I don’t want them to be sad.” He was fidgeting now, tugging on his hair the way he did whenever he was caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to.
He groaned and threw himself back against the coach dramatically. “Mom. No. Nobody misses it. It’s mine, ok?”
Susanne crossed her arms and looked down at his little form on the couch. “Where did you find this? Show me.” He groaned again, then stood up, taking her hand in his.
“Fine. I’ll show you,” he said as he stomped towards the front door, tugging her along in his wake. They exited the house, then walked around the front yard to the small tree that grew outside his window. In the base of the tree there was a small nook she had never noticed, about a foot from the ground, and a few inches deep. Just large enough to fit a small hand into. Jeremy pointed to it, then looked up at her expectantly.
“I found it here,” he said. The nook didn’t look natural, and she wondered if it had been carved by an animal of some kind.
“You found it inside the tree?” He nodded, then glanced back at the house, clearly annoyed to be missing his cartoons. “Why was it in the tree?” He only stared up at her silently, meeting her gaze with one of simmering anger. “Jeremy, who gave you this? You won’t get in trouble, but you have to tell me who gave you this, so we can give it back to its rightful owner.”
“It’s mine. He gave it to me!” shouted Jeremy, his brow furrowed.
“Who gave it to you?”
“Peter Pan! He said I could have it. It’s gold from Hook, and he said I could have it! It’s mine!”
Susanne rubbed her eyes, biting back the urge to snap at her son. “There is no Peter Pan. Who really gave you this?”
“He’s real! He talks to me! He left the coin in the tree for me,” said Jeremy, his voice rising in anger.
“Go back inside. I’m going to find out who this belongs to.”
“It belongs to me! He gave it-”
“Get inside! Go to your room.” Jeremy glared, then turned and stomped into the house, slamming the front door behind himself.
***
Susanne called every parent in Jeremy’s Kindergarten class, and every parent in playgroup. Not one collected old rare coins, and nobody had ever heard of anybody with the last name Worledge. She asked the neighbors if they knew anything about the items, but none of them had any idea what she was talking about. She even tried the police, asking if anyone had reported a missing coin, but apparently nothing had been filed.
Sitting at the table, Susanne stared at the coin and thought about the possibilities. Perhaps a small animal had found it, then taken it away to its nest. Maybe someone had hidden it there a long time ago, and Jeremy had just found it. A small part of her wondered if someone had left it there for Jeremy. It was paranoid, she knew, but what if it was true? What if there was someone talking to him at night? Not Peter Pan, obviously, but someone. A creep. Maybe their ladder was lightweight, and didn’t leave marks in the ground.
Moving to the basement, she began opening boxes, for once glad she’d kept everything from when Jeremy was a baby. She’d put an end to this tonight.
***
Susanne lay in bed, staring at the baby monitor glowing softly in the dark. Its mate sat hidden behind a pile of clothes on Jeremy’s dresser,
and Susanne listened to the occasional rustle and heavy breathing of a sleeping child that emanated from the speaker. A nervous energy had gripped her initially, but after several hours, she felt herself beginning to fade. Pulling an all-nighter had been so much easier in her early twenties; now, even with her nerves on edge, her body fought to shut down for the night. Blinking away the sleep, she looked at her clock. 3:06 AM. Just a few more hours. She yawned, and blinked again, struggling to stay awake.
A slight tapping noise snapped her awake, fully alert. Was that coming from the baby monitor? Was it just something she imagined? She waited another moment, holding her breath, listening to the quiet background purr of the monitor. She heard it again. A soft tap-tap-tap, like a small finger on a window. After a moment, it repeated a third time. The hair on Susanne’s neck stood up as she heard a rustling noise. The monitor broadcast the noise of sheets moved and tousled free, then four soft steps.
Rising as quietly as she could, Susanne moved slowly towards her own door. She’d left it ajar so she could move without it creaking, and by the light of the hall night-lite, she could see through it down the hallway to Jeremy’s closed door. Her heart was pounding in her chest and she worried briefly if Jeremy or whoever was at his window might hear it before she could swing the door open and catch them.
A soft voice came through the monitor, Jeremy muffled by static. “I told her… I know, I’m sorry.” Susanne gritted her teeth and stepped closer. She would catch whoever was at her son’s window and rip their throat out with her teeth. No-one came to her baby’s window. “No, she’s asleep… You still can’t find it?” She moved as quickly as she could without making noise. She had to see whoever this was, so she could identify them. Nobody got away with this type of thing. Not at her house. Not with her son.
She was almost all the way down the hall, her face twisted into a grimace of rage. “I’m not sure… Do you promise to be quick?” crackled Jeremy’s voice from the box in her room. She readied her body to launch herself into the intruder in a whirlwind of motherly instincts and wrath. Her stomach coiled, her legs tight like a spring. She felt like a jungle cat ready to pounce, or a mother bear preparing to charge. “Ok…” crackled Jeremy from both behind and ahead of her. She crossed the last few steps in an instant, throwing open Jeremy’s door and flipping on the light.