Week 38: Lullaby

"Hush, little baby, don't say a word,
Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird–"

Carla's voice broke as she stared down at the baby in her arms, her son, her only son, Jesse. She leaned down and kissed his head, with its covering of soft downy hair, lingering some time, breathing in the smell of him, before continuing with the lullaby.

"And if that mockingbird won't sing,
Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring.
And if that diamond ring turns to brass,
Mama's gonna buy you a looking glass.
And if that looking glass gets broke–"

Tracing her finger along his cheek, she marvelled at him, at all of his body parts so perfectly formed and fitted together, miniature versions of her own; tiny little nails on the ends of tiny little fingers, attached to tiny little fists, and chubby little arms. It was all so perfect.

"Sleep, my angel," she whispered. "Sleep soundly, my boy."

Carla padded down the hallway, alert, her eyes darting here and there in the dim light, as if by doing so she could catch sight of the spirits that she imagined wandered the mortal world during the witching hour. It was a time of night that Jesse, in the week he had been home with her, had seemed to revel in being most active, keeping her awake into the small hours as she sat by his cot, calming him, soothing him, watching him sleep.

But tonight he was calm and the silence seemed almost to echo off the walls, a supernatural being in its own right. The only sound Carla heard was the faint snoring coming from the spare bedroom where Nick was sleeping. She never had the heart to send him home, so anxious was he to stay near his son in these first few weeks of his life, and so he spent more nights camped out in Carla's spare room than he did his mother's.

Tiptoeing into the nursery, Carla spotted immediately the small figure in the cot and rushed as quietly as she could to him. Hanging over the side of the cot, she gazed down at Jesse, wrapped up snug, his eyes shut tight. Reaching down, she gently touched his cheek.

Carla shivered; the chill air of the early morning was seeping into the room, leaving a layer of frost over everything. Grabbing the soft and fluffy blanket in a shade of muted blue-grey that was hanging nearby, Carla gently draped it around Jesse's little body, tucking it in so that he was wrapped up nice and cosy.

"There we go, little man," she cooed. "We have to keep you nice and warm now, don't we?"

The smile on Carla's face faded when she felt Jesse's cheek. This isn't real, she told herself, you're imagining things. But, even as she repeated these assurances to herself, she knew instinctively that they were a lie. She knew that the coldness she felt in Jesse's cheek was not a trick of her senses, not a strange phenomenon of her own fingers somehow transferring the cold to him. No, this was real.

As her hand gently cupped his head, her thumb running lightly over his scalp, she felt again the same coldness. As she touched his tiny hands, still it lingered. She could not deny the truth any longer. Not when she felt his coldness, nor the stiffness as she lifted his arm, and not when the lamp that she quickly switched on bathed the cot with light and revealed the pale waxiness of his skin and the bluish tinge of his lips.

What she would give to hear him cry again at this moment. Not one word would she utter in complaint about another sleepless night, if he would only cry. But it was not her son's cry that she heard, but an otherworldly cry, a scream of some poor creature being tortured, forced to suffer some terrible ordeal.

Why won't it stop? Carla thought as she cowered a little, the sound was so terrifying, the abject wretchedness being unleashed into the world so raw. Until she realised that it was out of her own mouth that the scream was pouring forth, it was her own torment that was rending the peaceful night.

Carla did not hear the sounds around her, did not hear the people walking in and out of the room, did not hear their whispers, did not hear the sound of her own name being spoken to her. All she knew, or ever wanted to know, was the baby in her arms. Everything else was just white noise, a gentle hum in the background that she could ignore while she focused all of her energies on the most perfect person to have ever entered her life. While she held him, she reasoned, he would stay in her life forever, he would not leave. She couldn't bear it if he left.

"Carla."

The sound of the one voice that could break through to her, the only voice that she would recognise. But still she chose to ignore it.

"Carla, love," Peter said, sinking down to the floor of the nursery next to Carla where she sat, her back against the wall, her knees tucked into her chest, Jesse held close to her heart.

"Carla."

"Shhh," she shushed him softly. "You'll wake Jesse."

"Love–"

"Don't say it."

"I'm sorry, love, but I have to. You have to let them take him. They have to… do tests, find out why."

"I can't…" she sobbed. "I can't let him go. He'll be scared all alone in the dark and in the cold. He needs me. He needs his mummy."

"Carla?" Nick stumbled into the nursery, his hair dishevelled from sleep, his hands fumbling with the tie of his robe. "What's –?"

Nick stared in horror as Carla picked Jesse up from his cot, the unnatural appearance of the infant immediately ripping his heart to shreds. He watched as Carla, silent now that the first terror was over and her instincts transformed into that of a protective mother, rocked Jesse in her arms as if she were merely soothing him back into a slumber from which he should wake in mere hours from now. But the stricken father knew that his son would never awaken from this sleep, a sleep so deep that it had no end.

Carla placed her son into the hands of a stranger and, leaning down, kissed his forehead softly and whispered, "Mummy loves you".

Even then, she could not let him go. She followed this strange man's footsteps as he carried her son out of the nursery, out of the building and out of her life to a fate unknown, his lifeless body to be poked and prodded until all of their questions were answered.

Carla didn't care about questions or answers, the whys and the wherefores of what had happened that night, the understanding of what had gone so terribly wrong. All she cared about was that her son had been taken away from her and she could never get him back.

"He's gone," she said, turning to face Peter who, having sworn not to leave her side for a moment, was there for her, would always be there for her.

And then, with no one left to remain strong for, no son left to hold onto, she collapsed into Peter's arms and cried more tears than she knew existed. Loss she had felt before, the loss of family, the loss of love, even the loss of hope for a while. But this loss was different, this was a loss of part of herself; a loss she felt in that moment she could never recover from. Indeed, she did not know if she wanted to.