1 - Goodnight Mommy

Elias said nothing. He was watching the corner of her jaw, where the bandage met the hairline. A dark sliver of something—not skin, not scab. Suture thread. Black and glistening.

Click.

“That’s not Mom.”

Click.

And the way she said it—like a line from a script she’d found in the attic—made Lukas think of the barn. Of the jars of water in the cellar. Of the way she’d stopped using their names. goodnight mommy 1

Not the way a scratch or a mosquito bite itches—not a surface thing. This was deep, a slow crawl beneath the gauze, like tiny legs moving along the seam where her skin used to be. Lukas wanted to scratch it for her. He always did. But Elias held his wrist under the table.

That night, Elias pulled the covers over his brother’s head and whispered: Elias said nothing

Lukas studied her hands. The left one trembled slightly when she lifted the bowl. Their mother’s left hand had never trembled. She used to hold a cigarette steady through a two-hour phone call with Aunt Margit, ash never falling.