Under the Blanket

Inspired by a recent nightmare.

“Mommy? Where’s the train?”

Before she could answer, Sonya heard the tell-tale swoosh of doors sealing shut. She spun around – too late – behind her was supposed to be two panes of glass, and before her, a concrete boarding platform, but now . . .

She felt a squeeze on her hand. The first course of nausea rippling through her innards was pushed back by that first, most important reassurance – her daughter was still with her. Sonya squeezed back, her eyes scanning frantically across a low stone wall to a stretch of meadow gradually puckering into hills and finally crumpling into mountains at the horizon.

         “I don’t understand,” she stammered. Recoiling from the sight, she began to move in a circle, as if she could back herself away from the isolation of a lonely country road flanked by rows of drystone. “What just happened . . . I can’t . . . how?”

               Ashling, 8 years old, stood on her tiptoes to peer over the stone wall. 

               “Maybe it’s that way?” She began jumping. “I’ll look over it!”

Still holding the little girl’s hand, Sonya was rattled from her trance and tugged back.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m looking for the train!” Ashling squealed, laughing.

Sonya yanked her back, more roughly than she meant to. “There’s no train, this isn’t the station-”

An old-fashioned whistle, muted with distance, drifted through the air, but that wasn’t what stopped her mid-sentence.

Her daughter was hovering.

“It is!” she squealed. “I can see the train! Mommy, I found it!”

“Ashling!” 

The little girl swooshed across the drystone barrier and skimmed the tops of what appeared to be an orchard. Sonya screamed helplessly and Ashling laughed raucously while her little form banked and curved like any flying ace. Finally she stuck out her two feet like a duck, glided downward and gently stumbled back onto the rough dirt road.

Sonya clutched at her, sobbing, trying to scold but not finding the words.

“It’s fun!” was all the reply she got. “Try it yourself. You just have to jump high enough, and up you go. Watch me!” She began to bounce again, but this time Sonya yanked her back down with another wail.

“Hello there?” With a rustling of branches, an elderly woman emerged, a basket of apples strapped to her chest. “Anything I can do you for, neighbour?”

Sonya bolted upright, fresh panic washing in, then receding in the face of this development. “Maybe . . . maybe you can - I definitely need help. Please, I’m at my wits’ end. We were on a field trip, my daughter and me, but then we were just getting on the train, the violet line, going home to Gully Run. My husband is picking us up at the station there. Gully Run station. But we don’t know how to get there. We don’t know how we got here.”

The woman was leaning her forearms on top of the stone wall. She nodded, turned behind, and whistled. A boy about Ashling’s age trotted out of the tree trunks, gnawing an apple core.

“But the train’s that way, Mommy, I saw it!” Ashling tried to pull her hand free.

“This is Edward, my grandson, and I’m Viv. Shake hands with our guests, Eddy, mind your manners.”

The boy tossed his apple core aside, rubbed his sticky fingers on his pants, then extended his hand. Ashling looked it pointedly, and he switched to his left. They shook. The crow’s feet around Viv’s eyes bunched with pleasure, then she turned her attention back to the young mother.

“Wrong train, mm? Not the first ones.” Her eyes had a faraway.

Sonya took a deep breath. “This has happened before? How did we get here?”

Viv shrugged off her load of apples. “Nobody knows.”

Another train whistle sounded plaintively beyond the orchard. Sonya curled in her lips, then spoke again with tight control, “Do you know any way to get back?”

“Sure thing,” Viv smiled, tucking her basket under one of the trees. “This-a-ways. There’s a stile just down the road. I’ll get you on your way back home.”

Sonya hesitated, not sure if this was too good to be true, but she was at this woman’s mercy, so she walked in the direction pointed. Sure enough, within a few paces was a gap in the green-fleeced stones crossed by a set of little steps. Sonya sent Ashling over first, and on the other side they saw another rustic trail meandering through the trees. Boughs groaning with red and yellow globes dipped on either side like bulbous fingers. The fruit’s autumn fragrance filled the air. Viv began trudging her workhorse boots across the packed earth. 

“This is a shortcut,” Eddy said in response to Sonya’s quizzical look, and the pair fell into step with their guides. “You could take the road, or you could go as the crow flies.”

“I can fly!” Ashling squealed. “I can fly just like a crow. Did you see me fly?”

“I did,” Viv glanced behind, crow’s feet crinkling. “You’re still joyful. That’s why you can. Not like me or your Mom. Too old.”

Sonya’s fear faltered long enough to allow room for a pang of annoyance.

“What about you?” Ashling asked with that instant magnetism children have for each other.

Eddy’s face fell and he looked away. “Nana, how will they know which station to get off at?”

“First light,” she said. “It’s always first light.”

“So they’ll be on the train all night?” he asked, alarmed.

“’Fraid so.”

He looked solemnly at his guests but said nothing.

They spent the next hour criss-crossing hedgerows and tunnelling through country lanes. 

“New neighbours, Viv?” elderly folks would call from the verandas of homes, small children clinging tightly to their ankles.

“Just passing through, Viv” would call back.

“Oh,” they would say in a knowing tone. 

“Do they need anything?” asked lad of perhaps 15, leading a gentle brown cow. “I could go home and get them a blanket.”

“Much obliged, but I’ll buy them one at the station.”

“It wouldn’t take but a minute,” he called after them down the path.

“No time.”

“You’re a brick, Viv.” He resumed his trudge, the heifer’s soulful eyes following the small party until the halter drew her head away.

“New friends, Viv?” said one smiling grandpa in overalls and a straw hat, staking his tomatoes. “I could whip them up a sandwich, wouldn’t be no bother.”

“Thanks, but gotta be on the train before nightfall.”

“Night train?” The man reached to a little girl standing next to him and rubbed her head thoughtfully. “Well, good luck to them.”

 At length they approached the train platform, where an old-fashioned locomotive was huffing and puffing at the ready.

“Nick of time,” Viv said. “Not that we’d deny you a sleep-over, but . . .” She smiled wistfully. “Best get you home. Sooner the better.”

“We’re very grateful for your kindness,” Sonya said, “but I think it’s time now. Please tell me whatever it is you haven’t told me. Your friends - they clearly know something.”

Viv’s gaze looked far away again. “Of course. Couldn’t send you off without telling you even if I wanted to. Eddy?”

She walked to the ticket counter and produced a billfold. Eddy took Sonya’s hand and fixed her in a most earnest gaze.

“You’ll need to stay under your blanket,” he enunciated. “The Meanies can’t get to you if your head is covered. But not just under the blanket. Don’t look at them, don’t talk to them, don’t hit them to make them go away.” He hung his head again and looked off to the side. “Like Daddy tried to do.”

Ashling’s hand tightened around Sonya’s.

“What kind of a train are you putting us on?” Sonya sputtered.

“It’s not the train,” Eddy answered, looking much older than his years. “It’s here. Every night, everywhere.”

“Viv?” Sonya turned to the older woman, who was returning with a blanket and a lunchbox.

“At first light, the train will stop, and you can get off,” she said matter-of-factly.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“And then what? Where will I be?”

“What did you call it - Gully Run Station? Ayuh. March on through the doors, like you did when you arrived. You just have to survive the night, and you’ll be right where you need to be.”

Sonya paced back and forth, then snapped her head up as the train whistle sounded, now shrill and strong.

“Hurry along then,” Viv pressed two tickets into Ashling’s hand. “Mind Eddy’s instructions, and you’ll have nothing to fear.”

“Nothing to fear?” Sonya bleated. “Please! You have to give me more than ‘just survive, and you’ll be where you need to be.’”

“Wish I had better,” Viv said. “But what else is there?” She opened her mouth, closed it, sighed deeply and closed her eyes. “Just don’t acknowledge them in any way. Really is that simple. And that hard. Folks say there’s nothing they wouldn’t do to protect their child, but nothing is exactly what needs doing in this case. You follow me?”

Sonya was trembling, but she nodded. She glanced back and forth from Viv to Eddy. “Is that why there are so few people here my age? Only young ones, and . . . lucky ones?”

“Lucky isn’t the word I’d use,” Viv said drily, taking Eddy by the shoulders. Then, more gently. “Chop chop now.”

The second whistle sounded, and Sonya, choked with words there was no time for, flung her arms around the old woman’s shoulders, kissed the top of Eddy’s head, and dashed to one of the train cars. No one greeted her for a ticket, and there were no other passengers, just empty benches on either side.

A thought pierced Sonya’s mental fog and she swung to the window.

“Why don’t you come with us? If we got into your world, couldn’t you get into ours?”

Viv shook her head slowly. “It doesn’t work like that. Wish it did.”

“Viv!” Sonya held her hand out the window, and her friend clasped it. “What’ll you do?”

“Be grateful,” the grandma shrugged. “Grateful that you got free.” The wheels started to clack, and she fell into a jog along the track. “Junebug, don’t ever regret that you left behind something what was no good for anything except getting left behind.”

Their hands broke apart. Sonya slipped back in, but Ashling leaned out, bending at her waist.

“Nana Viv!” she shrieked. “What if the Meanies follow us?”

“They can’t!” Eddy cried, his young legs carrying him farther than his grandmother as the train picked up speed. “Stay joyful, Ashling! Keep flying!” And they were out of the station.

Sonya closed the windows and lifted Ashling onto her hip. They hugged as countryside scroll by in the encroaching dusk – green pastures sprinkled with white sheep, rivers glowing peach in the setting sun, white picket fences with hollyhocks towering above them.

At length the light was just a golden thread blotted in turns by the shapes of hills or trees. Sonya and Ashling nibbled at the snacks Viv had provided, then stretched out on the hard, narrow bench. The blanket went over their heads and they squirmed a great deal to get all the corners snugly tucked around their hands and feet. Then they waited. 

The blanket wasn’t that heavy, but before long breathing became stuffy. Sonya vented the fabric at her hand, then froze in terror. Nothing happened. She vented it again, then decided not to press her luck. Ashling whimpered, and she pressed her cheek to top of her daughter’s head.  

“Mommy? It’s dark.”

“Of course it’s dark. It’s night. You know something neat, though? There are colours on the insides of your eyelids.”

The train clacked and rocked.

Ashling stirred. “Oh yeah! I see them!”

“Mine are green. What colour are yours?”

“Purple. Dark purple and pink, moving in circles.”

“Isn’t it beautiful?”

A contented sigh.

A thump.

It took a moment for Sonya to realize the thump was her, hitting the floor. She’d fallen asleep and rolled off the bench. Ashling! She flapped around, legs tangled in the blanket, but felt her daughter’s form even as she heard her crying.

“It’s okay, sweetie!”

“Mommy, get under the blanket! He said to stay under the blanket!”

Fumbling in the pitch black, Sonya found two corners, stood, and swooshed it around herself like a cape. She sank onto crossed legs and Ashling, trembling, squirmed into her lap. The blanket now around them like a tent, they panted to get their breath back.

Her foot! One foot was sticking out of the blanket, exposed to the night. But before could move, she heard it.

Click click. Scritch-scratch

“Nom nom. Nom nom.” A half-growl, half smack.

Sonya tightened her grip around Ashling, whose face was burrowed into her mother’s arm.

Footfalls, skittering across the wooden floor.

Her lips found the little girl’s ear. “Shh . . . shhh.”

“Nom nom nom.” More skittering. The blanket moved at her leg.

Her foot twitched involuntarily as something cold scratched across her sole.

“Nom nom?”

Viv’s words resounded - Just don’t acknowledge them in any way.

A moist claw began to tickle her foot. Sonya clenched the toes of her other foot and bit hard on one hand. Electricity was shooting from the soft skin of the sole, grating the insides of her bones, exploding in her head. Her body sweated in protest.

The tickling stopped. 

Sonya relaxed her teeth, which had left a deep trench in the flesh of her fingers.

A loud snarl. Claws coming through the blanket. Ashling uttered a muffled cry and though Sonya managed not to, the force of the attack did knock her over. While twisting her frame so as not to land on her girl, a corner of the blanket loosened from her face.

“Nom nom . . .”

She controlled her breathing, the slow inhale and brisk release of a sleeper’s breath. She clenched her eyelids shut. It was right at her neck, waiting.  A clammy filament skimmed her cheek.

“Nom nom!”

She moaned slightly, smiled, and rolled onto her side. She drew the blanket under her chin and tucked her arm under her head. She heaved a contented sigh and resumed her rhythmic breathing.

Long silence.

A bit of skittering.

More silence.

No more noms.

Rhythmic breathing.

Ashling’s silent, shuddering sobs.

Not daring to opoen her eyes, Sonya pulled the blanket back over her head and cradled her daughter.

“It’s okay, shh shh.”

“Is it gone?”

“Don’t talk. I think so.  We’re okay now.”

The clack of wheels over tracks. The sway of the car. Nothing was real except quiet, and black, and stuffiness.

And then, light.

Sonya slipped out her head and saw deep blue through the windows.

“First light!” she couldn’t lift her voice above a whisper. “Sweetie, we’re getting off!”

Leaving the blanket behind, she hoisted Ashling to her hip and stood at the window. The sky became paler blue, lavender undersides of clouds emerging, telephone poles hypnotically whizzing past. The train slowed and the vista was replaced with grey forms of luggage, and passengers waiting on benches under maps of who-knew-where.

The brakes had barely hissed before the pair were leaping onto the platform. Ignoring quizzical looks, they dashed for the sign marked “EXIT.” Before them loomed heavy carved oak panels on ancient black hinges. No time to think – Sonya pushed the brass handle, dragged Ashling through, and stumbled to a halt on the other side. Sun, low in the sky, was right in her eyes.

“There you are!” her husband’s voice found her.

“Daddy!” Ashling leaped into his arms and clung to his neck.

Sonya staggered. Into her vision returned the familiar contours of Gully Run Station. She whirled around, and a motion sensor dutifully swooshed open two delicate glass doors. People were rolling their suitcases away from the slick stainless-steel bullet train with a violet stripe along its flank. 

“Sonya? You okay there? I’ve been waiting almost 45 minutes, what happened on the other end?”

She turned slowly back and put her head on her husband’s shoulder.

He glanced from daughter to wife, wondering. “Rough day?” He patted her back. “Well, then, let’s get this nipper in bed. You’ll feel better then.”

Whatever the matter was, he figured she’d tell him when she was ready. In the meantime, he stopped for takeout and took it upon himself to fill the silence. Sonya couldn’t register his cheerful words, pronounced around bites of burger. Instead, she kept looking out the window, at big box stores and baseball fields whizzing past. At the sun, sinking lower and lower to the horizon, blotted out in turns by condo towers. At the street lights as they sputtered on, bathing the streets in a neon glow.

She was comforted by the finality of their car crunching into the driveway, the engine cranking off, Ashling’s seatbelt zipping free. Sonya was pulling out the litany of kid things that always seem to accumulate in a car when she saw Ashling jumping. Three, four, five times, she strained . . . then stopped, looking defeated.

 Inside, Ashling’s father took her upstairs while Sonya, after tossing the garbage, found the first-floor bathroom.  She stood a long time under the shower head, soaking in its comforting warmth.

Carrying her clothes up the stairs, she heard her husband’s voice in Ashling’s room.

“But sweetie, you’ll suffocate with all that stuff on your head.”

“He told me to stay under the blanket! So the Meanies don’t get me!”

“What Meanies, sweetie? There are no Meanies here.”

Ashling turned the covers down to look her father in the eye.

“You don’t know.”