She stands motionless, luminous in white, another finger of the moonlight that falls across your cot. The cotton of her nightdress is so fine that it floats around the silhouette of her body. It makes me think of a jellyfish propelling itself across a dark sea. A loose floorboard creaks under me and she spins round, long hair flying after her. With the window behind, her face is a dark blank.
Truly it’s one of the most frightening moments of my life. As I move toward your cot, taking in the fact that the side has been lowered, that you haven’t yet made a single sound, my heart falters and skips. I lift you out, already certain you’re dead. But then you open your eyes wide and begin to wriggle and I have to choke back the screams that are almost out of me.
She hadn’t made any noise getting from her bedroom to yours. As I take her back to her own bed, my fingers tight round her wrist, I notice how cool her skin is. She’s been in there for a while. I wonder if some ancient instinct alerted me to the danger, waking me with a silent alarm only a mother’s blood would hear.
The next morning I ring around until I find a man who will fit a lock to your door today. Not a bolt or a latch, but a proper turning lock that requires a new handle and drilling into the frame. A lock with a key that I can have with me, that will keep you in and safe, and out of her reach.
When Greg gets home that night, his eyes are red. John Lennon has been shot, and they’ve been playing “Imagine” on the radio all day. He’s so upset and disenchanted with the world that I don’t tell him what happened with Élodie, but of course he sees the new handle that doesn’t match the rest when he goes up to bed. I brace myself for a fight but he doesn’t say anything. He rests his hand on it for a moment, the brass garishly shiny in the gloom of the hall, then walks slowly toward our bedroom. He looks so beaten-down, I don’t have the heart to repeat what Élodie said after I’d led her back to bed. “Je n’aime pas ça,” she had whispered, a sharp little hiss in the dark. I don’t like it. I don’t want it here.