Thin Veil
by Amber Averay
Amber’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheEnchantmentSeries
I was scared of my child. I can admit that now; now the shadows gather to frame my vision and my age-spotted skin lies paper-thin over old bones.
Yes, I can admit to that now…
My late husband, taken far too soon, did not even know we were having a baby. I did not find out myself until the choking grief had eased its aching hold somewhat, and then it seemed the child was a gift from my lost love. It gave me peace. It gave me strength.
When he was born, Luke was beautiful. But from the first, his eyes always seemed drawn to fix on…well, nothing. He would smile and gurgle at pockets of air, transfixed by an imagination wild and vivid in one so young. He was a wonder. Adoration swelled my heart and pride filled me almost to bursting. That infectious laugh came from my child. That placid nature belonged to my boy. Was there ever a mother so proud as I?
Then he found his words, and his vocabulary proved him yet again a most forward child. Yet he began to say things that I found most perplexing, and a kernel of unease lodged deep within where I could pretend it didn’t exist. Until one day he drew me a picture of a man, his lips and chin a red mess, fingers tapered into talons, and carelessly informed me ‘that’s the man with the bleeding mouth – he watches you sleep at night’. Then there was the drawing of a hag-like being, tatty rags hanging off her bony frame, eyes nothing more than black pits in a skeletal face. ‘She sits outside my window and whispers to me,’ he said with a shrug, as if it was of no great import. But with each revelation anxiety scuttled the length of my spine and that seed of concern was dosed with fertiliser.
And it only got worse as he grew. Doctors, psychics, mediums – all assured me he would grow out of it. His ‘third eye’ would close as his age increased. Yet all were proved wrong. One ‘specialist’ had the temerity to claim it was due to my solitary parenting that he sought comfort and company with ‘invisible companions’. So I tried harder to be less ‘mother’ and more ‘friend’. We went to toy stores. The playground became a regular destination – one I disliked for the fact the swings would sway on still days, and Luke would inform me the children were already playing on them and he had to wait his turn.
Empty elevators were never really empty. Indistinct shadows in the house were never mere shadows. Voices I could hear and yet not spoke not to me, but to my child. And he withdrew from me, preferring the company of his ‘friends’ to that of his mother.
He told me a shadow man followed me into the bathroom. The man laughed a lot, a nasty chuckle that echoed through the closed door. A faceless woman gazed down through the skylight, scratching at the panel with bloodied fingertips. A burned figure, gender unknown, watched him through ruined sockets and reeked of cooked flesh while Luke read beneath the tree in the backyard.
They hate you, he told me simply. They say you stop me from being their friend.
Luke grew. Real human people avoided him because he was weird. Possible friendships were denied him, though he never minded because he had the ‘others’ to talk to. When I tried to suggest he cleanse his room, I awoke the next morning to livid scratches all over my back and thighs. One night, while he showered, I spread salt across his threshold and along the windowsill, then peppered his room with handfuls of the stuff. He emerged from the bathroom, wordlessly took up the vacuum, and hoovered it all up before retreating behind the closed bedroom door.
I awoke the following day to black bruises on arms, stomach, and shins. I’d not felt the blows land. When he saw the marks, Luke merely said, They don’t like you interfering.
So I started drawing away from him, much as he already was from me, until he was of an age that he could lived alone. Then I presented him with half of the life insurance I’d received on account of his father’s passing, and wished him well.
Awful as it sounds, but I’d never felt happier or more content in the ensuing years. We kept our distance, and contact was inevitably lost. I’d never felt so free, so content, so safe, and filled my life with friends and social groups and never once wondered what my Luke was doing, or where he was. Who he was with.
And before I realised it, my life had passed from young mother through middling years to shaky old age. Falls became frequent as I grew unsteadier on my feet, my head seemed to heavy for my neck, breathing seemed too much effort.
I began to wonder about my son, though could not speak of him – could not speak much at all, now. Incapable of feeding myself, and trips to the bathroom only happened when assisted. Sometimes help ran late, and my bladder ran free in the bed. And I slept; I slept a lot.
Then I heard a man’s voice, the deep cadence reaching me through veils of sleep and drifting cloud. He called me mother. But I had no son. Did I? A face swam into view, fuzzed at the edges and all blurred features and blotchy colours. But then my vision cleared, and I recognised my little boy in the grave face of this grown man. There was a weariness in his eyes, a solemnity that I recalled of long ago when he was but a child. He leaned in, his hand warm and gentle on mine, and apologised – for abandoning me, for leaving me, not caring for me as he should.
No! I wanted to cry, my body shaking with the effort of trying to speak. I apologise! I am sorry, for I never loved you as I should have. I was frightened of you, of what you could do. I wasn’t there for you, and I am sorry, so sorry!
Strange whimpers, growls, animal sounds scratched from my throat, and I cried – for all the things I should have done but didn’t, for the things I should have said but wouldn’t.
But Luke smiled at me, a gentle finger touching my cheek. Ma, Pop’s here. He’s holding your hand now, and says he’s ready when you are… I wasn’t the son you wanted me to be, but I love you, Ma. You’re safe now.
So thin was the veil between life and death; he realised long before I did that we balanced between two existences – the physical and the celestial – and after all my failures – as a parent, as a person – he’d still come to me to help me move beyond.
Was any mother more proud, or more undeserving?
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