Five years ago, I buried my best friend and took in her baby, vowing to raise her as my own daughter. We were happy until three nights ago, when she started speaking a language she’d never learned. What she said made me want to go up to the attic.
First of all, I want to make it clear that I am not someone who believes in the supernatural.
I’m pragmatic. I pay my bills on time. I keep a first aid kit in my car. When my daughter Lily has a nightmare, I check that there aren’t any monsters under her bed, then we move on.
I am not someone who believes in the supernatural.
So when the baby monitor crackled at 2 a.m. three nights ago and I heard Lily talking in her sleep, my first thought was that she was simply dreaming.
I lay there for a while, listening through the static. It was a fluidity that sent shivers down my spine.
So I went into Lily’s room and gently touched her shoulder.
She opened her eyes slowly.
It was a fluidity that gave me chills down my spine.
« Bad dream? » I asked.
« No, » she replied and turned away.
I told myself it was nothing.
The next morning, Lily was as usual.
I gently probed her, asking her again if she had had a dream.
« A bad dream? »
She simply shook her head.
« No, Mom. I don’t remember. »
This happened again the following night.
Lily’s voice was louder. It wasn’t just the noise. It was the language. The persistence terrified me.
When I woke her up, Lily had the same expression.
This happened again the following night.
I called a child therapist, who explained that sleep talking in children Lily’s age is more common than most parents think.
I wanted to believe her. But something told me it was different.
On the third night, I climbed into Lily’s bed next to her and waited.
At precisely two o’clock, she began to speak in that same language.
Something told me it was different.
I took my phone, opened the translation app I had downloaded that afternoon, and recorded.
The result appeared in less than a second.
Icelandic detected.
I stared at the screen.
Then I read the translation.
« My mother is alive. Go up to the attic. She’s there. »
I picked up my phone.
Elena, Lily’s mother, was my best friend for 15 years. She died in a car accident five years ago.
Elena left behind a mountain of debt and a six-month-old baby girl.
As the damp earth covered my friend’s coffin, I made a promise. I promised to raise Lily, to be the mother Elena could no longer be.
Elena left behind a mountain of debt and a six-month-old baby girl.
Raising Lily wasn’t a burden. It’s the only thing that helped me feel better after the funeral.
My husband, Shawn, and I had been trying for years to have children.
We legally adopted Lily two months after the funeral.
My husband, Shawn, and I had been trying for years to have children.
She only knew Elena as the beautiful angel in the framed photo on the mantelpiece.
We were happy.
Or at least, that’s what I told myself until that night.
***
The fact that Lily said in her sleep that her mother was alive in the attic made no sense.
Elena was no more. I knew it. I had stood before her grave, holding her photograph.
But I was also standing in my dark hallway at 2 a.m., a flashlight in my hand, staring at the attic hatch in the ceiling.
The fact that Lily said in her sleep that her mother was alive in the attic made no sense.
The hatch hadn’t been opened in years. The attic was an old, isolated, and rarely accessible storage space—a part of the house Shawn and I had simply never needed. We hadn’t been up there since we moved in.
My hand found the zipper.
The ladder unfolded. Cold air poured out of the opening.
I climbed.
My hand found the zipper.
The flashlight swept across the space.
A thin mattress in the corner. Empty water bottles. Food wrappers from our pantry. A folded blanket.
And then, a woman huddled in the far corner, looking at me with eyes wide with fear.
I screamed.
And she darted towards the ladder.
A woman huddled in the furthest corner
« Please don’t shout. I’m just cold. »
I was already at the kitchen counter with my phone. I called 911 and didn’t take my eyes off her once.
She was sitting on the floor, her knees trembling.
She must have been around sixty years old, maybe older.
I called 911 and I didn’t take my eyes off her once.
After hanging up, I called Shawn.
He answered on the first ring. He was two cities away, on a business trip.
« I’m coming home immediately, » he replied.
The police arrived after ten minutes. What emerged from the interrogation took much longer to process.
The police took the woman’s statement at my kitchen table.
The police arrived after 10 minutes.
She had been homeless for over a year.
One afternoon, a few days earlier, she had walked past our garden and seen Lily outside.
My daughter was sitting alone in the grass, talking quietly to a teddy bear she called Buttons.
The woman had stopped. Then, in the manner of someone who had little left to lose, she approached.
Confident six-year-old Lily told the woman things she hadn’t told anyone else.
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