HERE

When I first saw it, I waited for it to make sense, but it never did. 

Emma was so happy, thrilled even. She had just woken up, I remember that, and her little fist was tightly wrapped around something. She squealed, eyes wild, as if it was Christmas morning. 

“Mama, look what I found. It’s me, it’s me!” Emma opened her hand and a small, crumpled sticky note lay in it. I smiled at her, my little curiosity, then took the piece of paper. I smoothed out its pinched corners, staring down at it. It read, 

EMMA 

This was strange. The words written across the sticky note were in spiky, neat capital letters, and seemed to have been written in a thick black ink. Emma was just learning to write and this certainly wasn't her handwriting. Jonathan was on call and wouldn’t be back until next Tuesday, and I was sure, so very sure, I had not written that note. 

I asked Emma where she found the note. “Under my pillow,” she giggled and snatched it back from me. She took off down the hallway back to her bedroom. I followed her. 

Once I entered her bedroom, I looked around her room. Nothing was out of sorts, nothing was out of place. Her bedsheets were tousled, stuffed animals littering the floor. 

I bent down and started picking up a few of them, when I noticed a crochet monkey by the foot of her bed. It had holes in some places, was missing an eye and much stuffing, and looked as though it had been dragged through the mud. 

“Honey, where did you get this?” 

“Oh, that’s just Charlie. I found him in the backyard.” I set the monkey down on her nightstand, making a mental note to discard the filthy thing later without her knowing. Emma was pointing down at the crumpled sticky note, spelling out her name.

“E M M A, me, that’s me! Do you think it was the tooth fairy?” 

I nodded and stroked my daughter’s hair. “Maybe, honey.” The truth was, this note deeply unsettled me. I didn’t recognize the handwriting at all. And, with just Emma and I home, who else could have written that note?

Later that afternoon, when Emma took a nap, I called Jonathan. He picked up on the second ring and asked if everything was alright. I told him about the note she had found under her pillow.

“Babe, I’m so sorry I completely forgot, I wrote to her the night before I left. I thought it would be sweet if she found it one morning, you know, I miss her so much.”

I let out a laugh, finally breathing easily. I smiled, told Jonathan I loved him, and that I couldn’t wait for him to come home. 

I always hated when Jonathan left for one of his business trips. Before, when it was just him and I, it wasn’t a problem. We lived in a one bedroom apartment in the heart of Manhattan, I had friends and family close by, and endless coffee shops and bookstores to browse. 

But now things are different. It can be hard watching a child all alone. I love spending time with my daughter, but this house, this monstrosity of a house, can get a little overwhelming at times. 

We moved upstate last fall and I’m still getting used to all these rooms, all this space. What unnerves me most is the sound of quiet, of stillness. It hangs here and settles, like a thick fog, and then, even the slightest creak of the floorboards makes my head turn. Not to mention our never-ending backyard and how it sits up against the forest. At night, when it’s darkest, I can’t even see where the treeline begins. 

Everything here is big, so big, sometimes I feel like a small insect crawling inside the mouth of a monster.

Jonathan insisted we move here though, for security and stability for Emma. And I do like it here, I do. Most of the time.

 Just not on days like this. 

But after hanging up the phone with Jonathan, I did feel better. It was then that I remembered Charlie, that disgusting stuffed animal. Right now, with Emma taking a nap, would be the best time to take care of him. 

I tiptoed down the hallway into Emma’s room and slowly turned the door knob. When I peaked in, I could see she was clutching the monkey tight against her chest, fast asleep. I would have to wait until later, then. 

In the mad rush of cooking dinner, cleaning, and finishing Emma’s bedtime routine, I had completely forgotten about Charlie or the note. I went to bed tired, exhausted, and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. 

The next day I was awoken by Emma’s shrill screams again. She came bounding into the room, saying the tooth fairy had arrived once more. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and felt her little body crash into mine. She wrapped one arm around my neck, her hand clutching something tightly in her fist. 

She opened her hand and I saw she was holding another sticky note. In the same spiky handwriting, the black ink bled,

TONIGHT

Tonight? What’s tonight? My body went cold as I stared dumbfounded at the note. Surely Jonathan didn’t write that one too, or she would have found it yesterday. I scooped up Emma, not saying a word, and marched straight into her bedroom. 

When I opened the door, I saw the stuffed monkey, Charlie, sitting upright against her windowsill facing the doorway. Facing me. I stopped, staring at it. 

I set Emma down, trying my best to keep my voice steady.

“Em, now please, show me where you found the note Daddy left you.”

Emma’s eyes widened and she smiled. “I almost forgot about that one.” She grabbed my hand and walked me over to her desk. There, sitting face up was a colorful card with a monarch butterfly on it. She opened the card, and I could see clear as day Jonathan’s messy, cramped scrawl, how he wrote XOXO, Daddy. 

I looked back down at the sticky note in my hand. Who had written this? 

The room suddenly felt very cold. I glanced over at Charlie and suddenly did not want to be in her room a moment more. I grabbed Emma by the hand and led her to the kitchen. I poured her some milk and grabbed a box of animal crackers. We sat at the kitchen table, my hands slightly shaking, hers dipping a tiger cracker into a cup of milk. 

“Em, the little yellow papers under your pillow, did you write those?”

Emma shook her head and licked her lips. “No, but I like them! I like finding them in the morning!”

I pressed my lips together to stop them from trembling. 

Emma giggled, “I haven’t lost any teeth, but I bet it’s the tooth fairy.” 

I forced a smile. “Yes, that’s exactly right baby. Stay here for a minute, ok?”

I got up from the table and walked down the long hallway to Emma’s bedroom. As I neared her door, the air got much colder. I wrapped my cardigan tighter around me, wondering where the draft was coming from, and entered her room again. Both her windows were wide open, which was odd because I close them every night. Why hadn’t I noticed this when I first came in here a few minutes ago? 

And Charlie, still sitting on the windowsill, was now facing the backyard. 

That wasn’t right. Something here wasn’t right. I could feel it. I knew without a shadow of doubt Charlie was facing the door when I first entered the room that morning. Was I going crazy? 

I didn’t like looking at that stuffed animal, I didn't like being near it. And, I sure as hell didn’t want my daughter near it, either. So, I stepped forward, closing the space between Charlie and me, and slammed the windows shut. Then, I picked up the stuffed monkey.

I didn’t like the way it felt, the crochet a dry, ragged, burn beneath my finger tips. I ran straight to the garage, exited the back side door, and made my way to the waste bins. I lifted one of the heavy lids up, then tossed Charlie inside. He landed with a satisfying clunk, and when the trash can lid crashed closed, I felt instantly better. Hopefully Emma wouldn’t be too upset when she realized Charlie was gone. 

I was wrong. Later that night when it was time for bed, Emma threw a tantrum, crying for Charlie. Finally, after a few hours, she tired herself out and fell asleep. I sat at the edge of her bed for some time, not wanting to leave her alone in her room. But eventually, I knew I needed to call Jonathan again, to tell him about the second note and Charlie.

“Well, you didn’t see those sticky notes under her pillow, did you?” he said.

I told him I hadn’t. 

“Look hon, I bet she found those notes outside, probably the same place she found Charlie, and she’s coming up with this tooth fairy nonsense because we forgot to give her money last time she lost a tooth, last two times actually. And I’ll admit it, that’s on me.” 

I sniffled into the phone and laughed. Then my thoughts got the best of me. “But the note said ‘tonight,’ what do you think that means?” 

“Babe, please don’t worry. Go get some sleep, you need it, and if there’s another note in the morning, call me right away and I’ll come straight home, ok? I promise.”  

I loved how easily Jonathan could soothe me, and he did, until I hung up the phone. Once his voice was no longer in my ear, my mind wandered. Could he be right? Could she be finding strange notes and toys buried in the backyard? I had hardly been in our backyard since the move. I hadn’t even thought to check it before I sent Emma out to play every day. 

I wouldn’t be sleeping anytime soon, so now was as good a time as ever to take a look around. I pulled on my robe, my slippers, and grabbed a flashlight. I tucked my phone into my pocket and headed out into the backyard. 

The air stung from cold and a thick fog crept across the lawn. I could only see a few feet in front of me, for there was no moonlight tonight. I stayed close to the porch, walking through tufts of weed. My slippers slowly soaked from nighttime dew, and I shuffled forward, inch by inch, by eyes trained on the ground before me. I was looking for anything really; anything that looked like a kid had rummaged through. Anything that looked out of place, out of sorts. But so far, it was just grass and grass and more grass. 

And then, I saw it. 

There, tucked up against the treeline, was the silhouette of a shed. I turned around in a circle, suddenly very sure I was no longer near my house, but yes, I was. This was a shed, a shed on my property. How had Jonathan and I never seen it before? We toured this place twice before making a final decision, and not once had we been informed of a shed. Not once had we even seen a shed.

Yet, here it was. 

As I approached the shed, I noticed the wooden slats holding the decrepit structure together were cracked and caving in. The shed looked to be maybe five by ten feet, big enough for a table and tools, maybe. Big enough to house something. But it was old, make no mistake of that. My heart started to beat very fast, and I feared Emma had been in there. 

I was at the door now, so I reached forward and pulled on the handle. The door opened with ease and a rush of cold air pricked my skin. The inside, which was very damp and dark, smelled of mold and rotten wood. I flashed my light inside and the first thing I noticed was a long wooden table leaning against the left side wall. I took a step in, the floorboards creaking beneath my weight. 

The table had black splotch marks and dents all over it, clearly once having been used for projects of some sort. And although the table was empty, although this very room was empty, it was not in fact bare, for carved into the walls, the floors, the door, and the table, was a name. A name, written over and over again, in sharp, spiky slices: Charles. 

The air knocked out of me, the truth of the moment hitting me at once. 

Charles. Charles. Charlie. 

My arms broke out in goose flesh, as I read that name over and over again. I felt very ill and couldn’t stand being in that shed one more second. I turned and sprinted back to the house, my slippers flying off as I ran. 

When I reached the porch door, I gave it a tug, but it wouldn’t open. I stared down at the door knob, confused. I was locked out? But how, I never locked the door. Or, maybe I did? I dug into the pockets of my robe, searching for the keys, but came up blank. I turned back to jiggling the door knob frantically, twisting it with all my might, but it was no use. The door was locked. 

I wasted no time and circled the house to the front door. But when I tried that one too, it was also locked. I had a terrible feeling growing in the pit of my stomach, but I had one more door to try, so I made my way to the side garage door. 

When I was a few feet away from it, I stopped in my tracks, not quite believing what I was seeing. Both of the waste bins were wide open, their lids blown back, and stuck to the garage side door was a single sticky note. It read, 

HERE

My blood ran cold and my heart was beating so loud I could hear it. I seemed to be stuck there on the side of the house, unable to move, unable to think. 

I stared at the note, waiting for it to make sense, but it never did. 

And then, a loud, piercing scream pulled me out of my stupor— the scream of my daughter. Without a second thought, I rushed forward and pulled on the door. It opened, the sticky note falling to the ground as I ran past it. 

I made a beeline to Emma’s room, her door already ajar. I flipped on the lights and gasped, taking in the site: Emma, sitting upright in bed, and her walls, her floor, her desk, her dresser, her toys— all of it, all of everything—covered in little yellow pieces of paper. My eyes scanned the notes, reading one word and one word only,

HERE

For all the notes in that room, there was one other thing, besides Emma, that was not covered in small yellow papers: The stuffed monkey, Charlie, was sitting on the windowsill facing the door, facing me, the windows wide open.

I didn’t wait another second, I rushed forward, grabbed Emma, and held her tight against me. As I entered the hallway, I saw that the walls and floor were littered with sticky notes, my bare feet crunching them. 

I passed the living room and kitchen, both of which were covered with sticky notes from top to bottom. As I ran, it was impossible to miss the messages, the thousands and thousands of messages, written in spiky black capital letters,

HERE

EMMA

HERE

CHARLIE

HERE

US

HERE

STAY 

HERE

HERE

HERE

The madness of the moment seemed to have no end, but somehow, I made it to the garage door. I grabbed my purse and keys off the hook and opened the door. 

When I reached the car, I didn't stop to put our shoes on. I didn’t stop to make sure Emma was ok. I just stuck the key in the ignition and drove. I drove and drove and drove, and as I turned the corner of our street, I looked back in the rearview mirror, one last time. I watched as all the lights in the house flashed bright, then turned off. 

That house, that monstrosity of a house, went dark. 

And so did I.

***

I don’t know if Jonathan ever truly believed what happened to us, but he didn’t question me, and he certainly didn’t question Emma. 

It took some time for Emma to speak again. The doctors said whatever happened to her that night sent her into shock. But Emma came around, eventually. My little girl is strong like that. 

We moved back into the heart of Manhattan, into a small apartment, near endless coffee shops and bookstores to browse. 

And, we never speak of our house in the woods. Our lives are almost back to normal. 

Almost. 

Every so often, I’ll wake in the early morning hours and sneak into Emma’s room, gently reaching under her pillow, careful not to wake her.

And every so often, my hand will enclose around a small scrap of yellow paper, a sticky note, and it will read, in spiky black capital letters,

HERE

And every time this happens, it’s as if it’s the first time.

I see it. I wait for it to make sense. It never does.