The Growling

by Heather N. Santo

It was a late birthday present. Sam even wrapped the box in pretty blue paper. “It’s beautiful,” I said, tossing aside crinkled tissue paper. My own surprised face looked up at me from inside a sterling Gorham hand mirror. I gripped the handle and pulled my gift, heavier than expected, out of the box. The repoussé, tarnished but otherwise in good condition, was fashioned to look like a Japanese landscape.

“Where’d you find this?” I asked.

“Remember those houses we tore down on Freemont?” he asked. I nodded, inspecting a barely visible monogram on the back. MJW. My fingers traced the letters. “It was inside a wall in one of those houses. I showed it to my site boss, and he told me to keep it, that I could probably get a couple hundred bucks out of it just in silver weight.” Sam paused and shot me a nervous glance. “But I thought you would like it, and since I forgot to get you a birthday present,” he trailed off, motioning weakly with his hands.

“It’s okay. I know you’ve been working a lot,” I assured him. He looked unconvinced, so I led him upstairs to my bedroom, one hand holding the mirror and the other loosening his belt.

Sam slipped out sometime before midnight. I didn’t so much hear him leave as I did sense his absence after he was gone. Sighing deeply, I stretched and stood up. The mirror sat where I had left it, on the nightstand. I caught a glimpse of my naked shoulder, a pale, half-moon shape, passing across the reflective surface.

Weak light filtered through the bedroom window curtains. I pushed the thin, gauzy material to one side and paused, my breath fogging the glass pane. Suspended high in the night sky, a full moon glowed, cold and silver, like the oval face of a mirror. My fingers absently traced MJW on the window, inside the shape of the moon. The light intensified, filling the room with a moving brightness that seemed almost hungry. I pulled the curtain over the window and stepped back, frightened.

“Just your mind playing tricks,” I whispered, climbing back into bed.

Sleep draped itself slowly over my body, but the moment I felt myself surrender, a deep, guttural growl rose from the right side of the bed.

I jolted upright.

There was no movement in the shadows, but the noise was so close I could almost reach out and touch it.

Something inhuman, but unlike any animal I had heard before.

“H-hello?” I asked.

A dark flash danced over the surface of the mirror. I jerked my head in the opposite direction, expecting something to be standing there

The room was empty and still, bathed in shadow.

The growling grew louder, and with rising horror, I realized it was coming from inside the mirror. With a shaking hand, I grasped the handle and picked it up. My tired, frightened face looked back at me, hair rumpled from sleep. The growl turned into a snarl, punctuated by snapping teeth. My eyes probed the reflection, and in the corner, just behind the bed, something moved. Something with dozens of bent and jointed legs.

I screamed and shoved the mirror into the drawer of the nightstand. Without a glance back, I ran downstairs and called Sam.

“No, I wasn’t having a nightmare,” I insisted.

“What was it, then?” Sam asked, voice thick with exhaustion. When I didn’t answer, he sighed. “Look, I can’t come over right now. I have another early morning, but I’ll stop over on my way to work, okay?”

I gripped the phone so hard my fingers ached. “What if it happens again?”

“It won’t,” he assured me.

I settled onto the living room couch, but sleep eluded me. I Iay on my side, pillow positioned over my eyes to block the moonlight. It was even brighter than before.

A few hours later, someone knocked on the front door.

“Sam?” I called.

I wrapped a throw blanket around my body and went to the door. “Sam, is that you?”

No one answered. I looked out the window to the front yard. I couldn’t see anyone.

Biting my lip, I unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door.

On my doorstep stood a child of about six years old.

“Hello,” said the child.

The voice was androgynous and, physically, I was unable to decipher a gender. The child, paler than moonlight, was completely hairless, with eyes so black I could not discern iris from pupil. A robe of burlap-like material hung sack-like from the child’s body, and his or her feet were bare. I shivered, wrapped in my blanket, but the child seemed invulnerable to the cold.

“You have something I’ve been looking for,” the child said.

My mouth went suddenly dry. I licked my lips.

The child made an impatient sound. “Please, if you wouldn’t mind fetching it for me. Then I’ll be on my way.”

I could not place the child’s accent. “What is it?” I asked.

“It’s called a Growling,” the child said. “By most standards, the one you have is just a baby. Which is lucky for you. If it were any older, the mirror couldn’t hold it.”

“How did you find me?”

“You called me,” the child said, pointing up at the sky. I suddenly remembered the initials, MJW, I’d traced on the window, inside the shape of the moon.

“If you wouldn’t mind, please hurry. The Night Mother is coming. She’s searching for her fallen things and, trust me, it’s much better you called me.”

“Fallen things?” I repeated, pulling my blanket tight around my body.

“The Growling, and others like it.” The child made another impatient sound. “I rescue them, and rehabilitate the ones I can. For the most part, these creatures are misunderstood.”

“Who or what is the Night Mother?”

“Really, we haven’t the time for further explanations,” cautioned the child. “Fetch the mirror now, please.”

Without another word, I went upstairs and retrieved the mirror. The child was still on my front steps when I returned.

“Thank you. I’ll be on my way now.” The mirror disappeared into the folds of the child’s robe and the child, into the darkness.

I stood in the open doorway for a long time, wrapped in blankets of moonlight, waiting for a bent and jointed leg to pierce through the shadows.

“Lily?” said a voice, and I screamed.

Sam stood on the front path leading up to my house, looking completely bewildered. “Is everything okay?” he asked.

“No,” I answered. “Next year, buy me a gift card for my birthday.”