They appear the moment I turn off the lights, sitting on our bed in their usual spot and wreathed in moonlight.
The first time we met they had a snake head. It had been the day after I found a garter snake slithering across the path on my walk through the woods with Dad. I screamed loud enough to wake my parents, and the moment the bedroom light switched back on, the monster disappeared.
They reappeared at irregular intervals after that. Sometimes they would be a massive brown recluse, stealing from my memories of Animal Planet. Sometimes they would be that hulking biker man I saw around town (who eventually had turned out to be nice despite the spikes and leather.) No matter what form they took they would always be whatever or whoever scared me the most at the time, appearing when I would least expect it.
When did that change?
It's odd to think back. Where once they had been the cause of my torment, now they were its balm, whispering tender words from beneath the bed to fill my dreams with hope and confidence rather than plaguing me with growls and shrieks. Their fangs had disappeared, as did their claws, their fur, and everything else until they almost looked human. Almost. They never could get the eyes right, and tonight was no different.
They smile at me, and I find myself smiling back. Where once they would roar or hiss, now they spoke softly and comfortingly without a trace of malice. I had often wondered how their change of demeanor truly happened. I had moved several times since I was a child, and though they had followed me every time, each new place had done something to them. Was it the place of dwelling that governed their moods? The energy within? I had asked before but they couldn’t say, either. Maybe they had thought I was trying to run away and that frightened them. Maybe they were lonely being trapped under my bed all day with no one to talk to, and became board of their haunts. Maybe they sought to explore new emotions once my fear had faded after I had acclimated to all the horror they could give.
Or perhaps, just maybe, as I was growing up, so were they. The thought warms me. If only I could have watched them in the shadows as easily as they could see me in the light.
It was hard to imagine a life without them after all this time, yet as the very thought enters my mind, their form changes. They became nothing. A shadow. A space where I knew something existed but could no longer perceive. As I witness this, they speak.
“I can feel your fear,” they say, barely a whisper. “What have I done to make you so nervous?”
I drop to my knee before the bed and open my hand to them before closing my eyes. “Give me something to hold on to.”
A pressure slowly spreads along my palm. I will my beating heart to slow. When I look up at them again all my fear and insecurity wash away, and I give them the biggest, most heartfelt smile I’ve ever made. “Nothing’s wrong, my love. Nothing at all.”
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