Each night, while with my husband, I prayed for someone to take root in my body and bloom. Month after month, blood and water swept children away from me. Whispering, they followed me as I brewed cups of tea, walked under the burning trees of autumn. 

As my body swelled with you, I remembered my youth—how I thought I would die before my thirties. As a child, I spent the deep nights planning my death over and over. Peace came only when I closed my eyes, delving into memories of Ohio’s Hocking Hills: the black newt curled in my hand, the cavern speaking in its language of water and stone, my feet skidding over red rocks leading to a curtain of roaring water. 

Even before you were born, I knew that I must show you the wild, help you gather the music that would save you. But I already feared losing you, that you would be swallowed by a current, plunged straight into the heart of the earth. 

Your birth-cry was a shriek from another world. Little flesh of my flesh, you surged outward, returning to me from the darkness. I held you and knew that I loved you. While I rocked you to sleep, the stars outside the window swayed in the night wind. I gazed down at your face, hewn from moonstone. And, in the stillness, a beast rustled behind the walls of our hospital room.

I’m always vigilant, waiting for the return of that dark animal, the one that devoured me. After you were born, the beast clamped down its dark jaws, cleaving me in two. It seized my heart and began feasting as you bawled beside me.  

I was taken to the mental ward, leaving you in the arms of my husband. During visitation hours, I sat in a graying, slouched love seat and fed you from a bottle in a locked room. At night, I would wake to your ghost-cries, then pace the ward halls until early morning. I watched the moon rise, the pinpoints of cold stars. I searched for the constellations, the bear and her cub. The city lights smeared the horizon.

When you were almost one year old, my mind was haunted by apprehension. The beast raised its hackles, clawing at my side. I feared that I was not well again. Where could I go to escape its ravenous maw, its wet panting breath? 

So, I took you over the Ohio border, traveling west to Colorado with my husband in a beat-up van. Over the three-day journey, the Rockies lifted themselves above the plains. Your dark restless eyes reflected the sharp rising peaks, the lupine blazing at their foothills. 

Together, we roamed Seven Falls, their rocks glistening under the pounding water. Your eyes followed the brawling streams, fretting their way between the moss-cloaked rocks. I held you at the edge of waterfalls, gripping you tightly, fearful that you would plunge over the cliffs. Laughing, you grasped at the mist coursing from the roaring torrents.

I imagine your death a thousand times—by a famine, a fever. At night, I hear you calling again, only to find you fast asleep, the wind winding down the eaves of our blue house. Lying down again beside your father, I hear another call—the beast prowling the fringes of the bedroom shadows, raking at our walls.

In my robe and nightgown, I stand beside your bed. I will the rise and fall of your chest, my body a rampart against the panting beast. I hiss at its hulking shadow.

You wake, smiling at me, your black hair mussed, standing on end. 

“Mamma,” you say, your voice slurred with sleep. “Why is that baby crying?” You gesture to the darkened corner of your room where the beast crouches, its hackles raised. 

“There’s nothing there,” I say. The beast’s eyes fill with feral tears.

One night, you wake up screaming, your eyes clamped shut. You writhe in my arms, your stiffened legs covered in angry red claw marks. I pray for an answer, a way out of your terror. In my dreams, a voice says, “There is a spirit in his room.” A pale hand motions to a pair of ceramic bookends, adorned with blue-eyed children. 

The next morning, I seize the bookends, tossing them in a trash bag. In our darkened garage, I smash them with a hammer. I place a string of tiny lights above your bookcase in place of the fractured children. I read to you from Psalm 121 that sings of the golden city, the laughter traveling up the spring hills. 

I teach you the language of poetry, repeating paired words, their chiming syllables. Together, we sway to the chant of the “Jabberwocky”: forests glinting with flaming eyes, the hero’s crystal sword blazing through the creature’s heart.  

We wander the echoing halls of the Columbus Museum of Art, gazing at sculptures and paintings. Entering a dark room, we encounter the “Spirit,” Mel Chin’s installation. Suspended on a rope of braided prairie grass, the monstrous barrel looms above us bearing the heft of the human world—a chorus of living and dead voices.

I ask you: “What do you see?” and study your face for the gleam of recognition. Your small feet tap against the gleaming floors as you circle the installation. The Spirit hovers, reflected in your eyes. 

You shrug your shoulders. “I see nothing,” you say. “Let’s go.” 

At night, you sleep fitfully, curled up in layers of comforters. I am still mired in worry. I imagine the crimson scratches traveling up your legs again, the darkness clamping onto you. As you sleep, I whisper into your ear memories of Joshua trees, their daggered branches, ladders to the sky. Your small hand slips through my fingers as you turn in your dreams.

In August, I take you into Innis Woods, its boundaries hemmed in by the Westerville suburbs. Formed by human hands, the park mimics the meadows of Ohio, the gardens of Japan. A gurgling stream runs over concrete stone, between the succulents and bonsai-limbs snaked with silver wires. 

You giggle as we enter the children’s area with its whispering stalks of tall prairie grass. As you play, I conceal myself among the looming golden stalks. I listen to the drone of grasshoppers and wait for you to miss me. 

With shrill cries, you search for me. For a moment, I’m a ghost fading into the tawny grasses. When I part the waving golden curtains, you run to me. Closing my eyes, I feel your tight, fearful embrace. Forgive me for this lesson in terror, for the scar I’ve given you.

As winter strips the trees, leaving a bleak gray landscape, the beast slinks back into our house. I wake to its panting; its dark eyes gleam from the corner of my bedroom. The beast mewls as it gnaws pale crescents from my wrists, winnowing down my body. A star streaks across the night sky, blazing towards the east—the promise of travel, another roaming. 

I help you count the days before I leave for Virginia on a calendar. Looking into your small face, I want to tell you how important this trip is, how I will reclaim myself by writing. Your gaze shifts from my face to the space behind me, to the beast prowling along the kitchen walls.

As I drive, our blue house, then Ohio, unravel in the rear-view mirror. I open the car window, and the wind strokes my long hair into a banner. Over the border of West Virginia, the day begins to wane. Then, from the east, the Blue Ridge Mountains rise into view. The approaching night is only broken by the beams of a single passing car. Gripping the steering wheel, I allow darkness to wash over me, through my chest, out of my body.

Now, in my room in Amherst, I rise when the hills are still dark to welcome the morning chorus. As the birds wake, the sky brightens, cast in orange and gold. The cardinals flit from the trees like shards of fire. Shrill and mournful cries rise from the bushes and bare trees, high above the thrumming of US-29. Again and again, the birds call out, weaving through the dark branches. I wonder if they sing in praise of the sun or cry out in terror of the new day.   

The beast lumbers from the shadows, winding its fierce tail around my leg. Placing my hand on the beast’s matted head, I channel these memories: the chanting pines, cool weight of a limestone shell, the tang of honeysuckle. The beast shudders, pulling away. I begin to write, feeling myself returning to my body. 

As crimson spills over the horizon, I cup the darkness and light, pondering what to offer you. In a vision, you answer me, holding out both your hands. You sing of the night sky, the clouds sweeping the face of a blue moon. A strange flame dances in your palms. Unscathed, you look up at me, your voice overflowing with laughter.

Sayuri Ayers is a prose writer and poet from Columbus, Ohio in the USA. Her work centers on mental health, identity, and spirituality and has most recently been published in CALYX, Parentheses, and Gulf Stream. A Best of the Net and Pushcart Award nominee, Sayuri has received fellowships from Kundiman, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Randolph College. Please visit her at sayuriayers.com.