Black gnarled thorns grow visibly around the bed. The face hidden under the covers, motionless, I observe, with fright, the brambles wrap around the white metal bars of the headboard and rise above me, until forming a kind of cathedral monstrous, with thick stalks inextricably interwoven into each other. At the back of the room, moving shadows. Only the illumination of my bedside lamp allows me to escape the darkness and to watch the advance of the shadows. In my arms, the rag doll offered by mom for my six years reassures me. Fingertips, I feel the padded body and hair wool. My fingers are wriggling on the soft body of the doll and I feel, in the palm of my hand, a tenuous pulsation. The shadows are getting closer, that's for sure. Above me, from the cathedral of brambles flows a black and tarry substance that falls, in fine nets, on my sheets. Under my fingers, the palpitation is racing. I lift the sheet. Eyes sewn in wool, now flows a thick dark matter. I scream and wake up sweaty. The room is empty. I do not dare to get up, put a foot on the ground. Mom comes running, she heard me scream. She sits on the edge of the bed, comforts me, surrounds me while I lie down in my cozy bed. She promises to stay with me until I go back to sleep. She knows me customary nightmares.
I feel my eyelids heavy and, even if I struggle, while my mother caresses my blond curls, I end up sinking into a deep sleep. Mom is still there, on the edge of my bed, eyes of intense black. Behind her, I can see shadows with fuzzy outlines, barely visible, so light that they look like smoke. They stand just behind mom who remains impassive, her big black eyes turned to me. Other shadows arrive, rank behind the first and give them more thickness, material. Mom is now surrounded by a black and moving mass that melts on her without her moving or showing any emotion. The mass becomes opaque and I do not see the face of mom anymore. I scream with all my might, open my eyes. Mom jumps. She had stayed close to me and had finally fallen asleep. She sees my terror and reassures me, again. I observe it, scrutinize it from every angle. His eyes are of their usual hazel color. Her features are drawn, she is tired, but smiles tenderly. She caresses my cheek and invites me to lie down. I must sleep soon because sleep taraude. I beg her to let me sleep with her, in her bed.
She refuses because she knows full well that my father will oppose it. I explain that there are shadows under my bed that scare me and patiently wait for the right moment to catch us. She smiles and assures me that these are children's terrors of the most common and that there is nothing real in all this. Growing is also for each of us, overcome his own terrors night. She offers me to look under the bed if it can reassure me. I tell him I do not care. She sees that I am worried and want to persuade me of the baseness of my fear. She leans. I beg him to stop. She lies down on the floor, puts her head under the bed and does not move for a few seconds that seem very long. I call him. She does not answer. His body is frozen. Slowly, his body disappears under the bed. Unable to move, I can only see the horror of the situation. Mom's whole body is under the bed. Petrified, I sit, eyes wide open, all night. In the early morning, dad finds me like that. He takes me in his arms. I am mute and will remain so ever since. For a long time, Dad will look for mom in every corner of the house, in the garden, in the neighborhood, without success. The police officers, the psychologists that I met afterwards all agree that I attended a traumatic event, that I had to see my mother being kidnapped, perhaps killed, and that I am in a bad state. shock. Of course, they found no track, no footprint. I refuse to speak, to draw the scene as they ask me. Papa is infinitely sad, his big blue eyes are surrounded by black. He stays with me late into the night and often falls asleep beside me. After the intense dread lived the night of the disappearance of mom and the immense pain of his absence, my emotions dried up. I only feel the need to be in my room, where it all began, and the almost organic need to join Mom, as if I felt it still close, in a way.
In my bed, curled up under the sheets, I read tales by the light of the bedside lamp. My eyes are blinking. I rest the book and rub my eyelids. On the floor, in the luminous halo formed by the lamp, a shadow emerges from the space under the bed. She moves with great gentleness, stops for a moment, then resumes her graceful movement. I look at her without apprehension and ask her if it's her, if it's her. The shadow advances even more. I push back sheets and blanket, put my feet on the floor, kneel next to the shadow that grazes me. The shadow is nestling in the hollow of my small arms, caress my cheek. Miffed, I recognize mom. I lie on the floor, eyes closed with happiness, entwined by the shadow that covers me now and both we disappear, as if sucked by the floor, leaving behind us a faint glow in the dark room.
