Nursery time - A tale for Halloween

Nursery

“Oh I recognise that look, sweetie,” ‘Granny’ Audrey said to the young woman sitting at the usual table, waiting for her friend to bring the coffees. “Grainy, burning feeling in your eyes, like fine sand has blown in during the night.

“Oh, hi Audrey,” Deb said. “Yeah, that’s exactly how my eyes feel this morning. We’ve got night terrors in our house.”

“Oh poor little Emily,” Audrey said. “It is Emily, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Emily.” Deb rubbed her face with the palms of her hands in an effort to bring back a little feeling.

Audrey nodded and moved on, tidying up, wiping tables and chatting to the parents as she went. Deb put her head on her folded arms and sighed. Then she smiled. She remembered ‘Granny’ Audrey from when she had been at Nursery. It felt like centuries ago and the little old lady hadn’t changed. All the children at Nursery loved her and when she was forced to retire, she asked if she could come back on a volunteer basis. With the backing of staff, parents and children, Granny Audrey was given free rein to work
whenever she wanted to.

Of late, she’d missed more sessions than she’d attended and the children always asked where she was, but for the time being, she was enjoying good health so attending Nursery and playgroup was a must.

“Morning, Granny Audrey,” Claire said as she passed the little old lady. She placed the mugs of steaming coffee on the table by Deb’s arm. “You look shocking, are you coming down with something?”

Deb looked up. “No, just a really bad night with Emily. She’s had night terrors before, but this one is the worst I’ve ever seen. The poor mite is terrified.”

“Here, drink your coffee, you look like you need it this morning,” Claire said, patting her friend’s arm.
Another young woman approached carrying a mug. “Morning, another bad night, Deb? Looks like Sammie had a bad night too, it’s not like her to be late,” she said, nodding towards another woman at the coffee shop hatch. Hot drinks were served separate from the children’s play area in a safety net measure so parents could enjoy a coffee or tea and keep an eye on their kids as they played.

“Morning Jules, yeah, Emily was up at stupid o’clock this morning. She wouldn’t settle, so I brought her into my bed and we know how much sleep is possible with a toddler in bed with us,” Deb said, rubbing the heels of her hands in her eye sockets. “I wonder if it’s a symptom of something? You know, bad dreams caused by a fever or something?”

“Could be, I suppose,” Sammie said catching the gist of the conversation as she approached the table. “But I haven’t noticed Ellie having a temperature and she was fine when she went to bed, but still woke up screaming with nightmares.”

The mothers looked across the room, past the coffee hatch and safety gate, to the play area and their children. Usually, the children were active first thing. They got to Nursery and the play area and it was like so many wind-up toys; place them on the floor and off they’d go. There was a subdued air about the children, all of them, not just their four, an air of tension and foreboding hung over the playgroup.
Their children sat around a miniature picnic table, playing with a mismatched tea set. Five cups and saucers on the table, five chairs around it, only four children in attendance. Another child arrived at the table and the four children turned to look at him. They didn’t just turn their heads, they moved in their chairs to face the boy.

Ellie, Emily, Tara and James listened to the boy as he asked to join their game. The mothers couldn’t hear the conversation but it was clear to them all what was happening. The four children seated shook their heads ‘no’. They didn’t want the other little boy to sit in the spare seat. There had been no discussion, all came to the same conclusion at the same time. The boy was not welcome to join their game.

Their mothers watched, fascinated by how the little group interacted. The other little boy wandered off and the mood at the picnic table shifted back to the tense tea-party.

“Did you see that?” Claire said. “Little Davey is usually welcome to play with them; why not today?”

“Don’t read too much into it, they’ll be back to normal tomorrow,” Sammie said.

“That’s not how they interact though. Davey is James’ best friend,” Jules said.

The mothers took more notice of their children than they did their coffee and chat that morning.

The next day, two of the usual crowd were late; they turned up for playgroup dishevelled and weary.

“I was going to give it a miss today, I could really use a lie-in but Emily insisted,” Deb said.

“This has got to be more than coincidence,” Jules said. “Tara had another bad night. She woke up screaming at 3 a.m. I was up and running to get her before I was even awake.”

“Three a.m. – the curse of tired mothers everywhere,” Deb said. “Emily woke me up screaming, and I do mean screaming, something about a girl in the corner of her room. I think it’s since we re-decorated, that corner is a little dark now. I’ll have to move the furniture back, see if that cures the problem.”

“Little girl?” Jules said. She put her coffee cup down on the table before she spilled it, her hands were shaking. “That’s what Tara was screaming about. She was standing right at the top of her bed, as far away from the corner as she could get, pointing at the corner. She said she didn’t like the little girl there.”

“Oh hold on,” Sammie said. “This is freaky.”

“Don’t tell me, you too?” Deb said.

“And me,” Claire said. “That’s a full house then.”

The women looked at each other, glancing from friend to friend, recognising in each other’s faces, the symptoms of disturbed and broken sleep. The dark circles were uniform of course, but the dishevelled hair, lack of make-up and a general air of neglect in their appearance; whereas a wardrobe malfunction was rare before, of late it had become the norm.

Granny Audrey swiped the coffee marks from the table. “Let me tell you something, ladies,” she said and sat down at the closest table, swinging the chair around to face the frightened group. “Back in the fifties, when my little girl came to this playgroup, we called it nursery school back then. It was run by a nice lady called Miss Waite. Where the coffee hatch is now, that was the kitchen entrance, so not much has changed since she lived here. She seemed to like children and we new mothers were all glad of a rest to catch up on housework.”

“I didn’t know you had a daughter,” Deb said.

“No, she died.” Granny Audrey’s usual whimsical manner had gone. Her voice had lost the gentle timbre the children adored. To the friends, she sounded younger, more ‘with it’ and less playful. They didn’t think the children would have taken to Granny Audrey if they met her just then.

“My daughter died of, um, complications with a fever she caught. No one has been able to give me an explanation of this fever, how she caught it or where it came from. All I know is she was fine one day and dead within the week.”

“Oh my god, that’s awful,” Claire said.

Audrey nodded.

“Now, you keep an eye on those babies, they’re adorable.” ‘Granny’ Audrey was back, Audrey the doom-sayer had gone and the friends watched with dazed expressions as she wiped tables and picked up cups on her way back to the kitchen.

“What the actual fuck?” Deb whispered because swearing was frowned upon in the playgroup.

“Don’t ask me, I was beginning to think I had fallen asleep and was dreaming it all. I take it you heard it too?” Sammie said, only half-joking.

“Now that I think about it, I remember the rumours about Granny Audrey,” Jules said. “Her daughter did die and they don’t know how or why. She never had any more kids though and that’s the sad part. The thing is, even soon after the daughter died, she came here to work. The owner felt sorry for her, thought it would help with the grieving process or some such rot. Anyway, she’s worked here ever since, never kicked up a fuss or anything and everyone loves her.”

“Well I did, until that,” Sammie said.

James woke up. Darkness enveloped his room, but the night light shone reassuringly at the bottom of his bed. He didn’t know what had woken him, it never occurred to him to think about it. He lay still in his Thomas the Tank Engine bed listening. He could hear the nursery rhyme ‘Bye Baby Bunting’, which only his grandma-great sang to him.

‘Bye Baby Bunting, Daddy’s gone a-hunting, To fetch a baby rabbit skin, To wrap poor Baby Bunting in.’
James started to drift off back to sleep with the soothing lullaby. The sound of the voice became harsher, rasping and nasty. James couldn’t have explained it, he was too young, but the voice became vicious and threatening and he no longer dozed, he woke up.

The little girl standing in the corner of his room jumped forward as soon as he caught sight of her. She raised her arms, making claws of her hands and whispered, “Boo!”

James sat up in bed, shocked into silence. He grasped his teddy and held it to his chest. It didn’t matter that he had it upside down, the squashy body felt familiar and therefore comforting and James needed as much comfort as he could get at that moment.

The little girl, hands still raised, crept forward, one exaggerated step at at time. When she got close enough for James to see her features, they changed as he watched. The bright blue eyes turned into ragged black holes in her face, like someone had held a cigar to a piece of cotton until it singed and burned away. The pretty, turned-up nose melted to form another hole in her face and her cheeks turned from rosy pink to sharp, grimy grey cheekbones. The cupid-bow mouth, which had been smiling at him, curved and widened into a harsh, red leer. He could see her teeth in that leer and again, he couldn’t have explained how all the rows of teeth could have possibly fit into her mouth, but they did.

“Mum,” he whispered. “Mum!”

“Mummy can’t hear you, James. Mummy isn’t coming,” the little girl’s face changed back to the sweet, cute face it had been. She lowered her hands and put them behind her back and she smiled at James. If it had been daylight and at the nursery and she had said, “Hello, can I play too?” The answer would have been “Yes.”

It was dark, not daylight, they weren’t at the nursery and she wasn’t playing.

The cute face changed instantly back to the toothy, horror-filled face he’d seen before and she leaped forward, almost to the bed. “I want your skin, Baby Bunting! Gimme it!”

She reached out one clawed hand and snatched the teddy from James’ arms. He found his voice at last.

“MUUUUUUUMMY!”

He heard the scrambling and bumping of his mum getting out of bed and rushing to his room but he dared not take his eyes from the little girl. She had retreated to the corner. He could see her smiling, her face the only thing he could see in the gloom.

“Mummy! The little girl! She’s got my Teddy!”

“Shhh James, it’s OK, Mummy’s here, shhh.”

She turned the light on and the little girl was gone. Teddy lay in the corner, his head partially ripped off.

“Oh James, you’ve wet the bed. You haven’t done that for a long time.”

“The little girl, the little girl!”

“There’s no one here, sweetheart.”

James’ pyjamas and bedding were changed; Teddy was recovered but put on a shelf because he needed to be mended. James kicked up such a fuss that another toy had to be found and put into bed with him.
“Your nightlight’s on, you’ll be fine, it was a nightmare, that’s all,” Claire said.

“I want the light on! Can I have my cartoons on? Don’t switch the light off Mummy!” James got so panicky that Claire went back to cuddle him until he calmed down.

“I’ll leave the stairs light on, is that OK?”

“OK,” he said.

An hour later, he had calmed down and gone back to sleep but only once Claire had taken him into her bed.

James’ dad was grumpy in the morning but tried to cheer his son up over breakfast.

“Come on sunshine, the park will be fun. Mummy’s tired this morning, so she’s staying in bed. Are you sure you want to get up? You can stay in bed too if you like,” he said.

“No, I don’t want to go to the park. Can we go to playgroup?”

“It’s not open today. You’ll have to wait until Monday.”

Monday came and the four friends wandered in late, zombie-like from sleep-deprivation and shortness of temper.

Granny Audrey greeted them at the door and took the children from the mothers.

“Go and sit down, I’ll bring you a cuppa when I’ve settled the babies in,” she said.

Audrey brought the drinks over on a tray. She knew which of the mothers preferred black with no sugar and the exact requirements of the rest. She placed the tray on the table and dished out the drinks, then she sat with them.

“I know what I told you last week must have come as a shock, I can switch personalities from time to time and it’s not always a good thing I’m afraid. I often wonder if it’s my medication but the tablets are keeping me going so I daren’t change them.”

The four women sat listening, cups in hands as though they had just been dragged inside from a blizzard. They hunched over their drinks and listened to the strange little lady who had decided to regale them with her stories.

“You all look just like me and my friends must have looked back then. Our kiddies had these horrible, vivid nightmares and we were at a loss. There were no nightlights then, the light was either on or off and personally I didn’t like leaving a candle in the bedroom, too risky.”

Audrey looked at each woman, studying her for a moment. They couldn’t care less; such was the effect of disturbed sleep.

“My little girl, Joan, she had these nightmares, along with a few of her friends. Me and my friends, the girls’ mothers were at our wits’ end. It went on for weeks, it felt like months. The girls all woke up at around three in the morning, screaming about the little girl in the corner of their room. Now, we noticed it didn’t happen if there was more than one child in the room, so we started having what you’d call sleepovers at the weekend. It meant we had a chance of getting at least one night’s sleep and believe me, it was welcome. That didn’t last, though. After a couple of weekends of peace, it started happening when two or more were in the room. The girls were suffering; we were suffering. Eventually, we found out that they had all played with one particular toy at nursery school. They described this doll, it was home-made, well most of the toys from that time weren’t shop-bought, especially at nursery school. The doll had yellow wool hair, black button eyes, a little sewn nose and mouth, and coloured cheeks. It was their favourite thing to play with, but they didn’t know why. They would have tea parties with Lucille, I think the doll’s name was, and she would tell them how much she loved them. Nothing odd there, they all had imaginary friends back then. Joan was always eager to get to nursery and even if I was poorly, she still insisted I take her. I was glad that she liked it so much, to be honest. Anyway, one day, she sneaked Lucille home with her and took her to bed. I found the doll and told her she had to return it the next day and boy, didn’t she have a tantrum!” Audrey paused for a moment, collecting her thoughts but the four mothers didn’t comment, they waited for her to continue, they all had a weight in their hearts like they knew something was coming but hoped it would change with the telling of it.

“She slept like a log that night. We had a full twelve hours and we were late for nursery but she didn’t care for once. She wanted to stay at home and play with Lucille. I told her she had to take the doll back because it wasn’t hers and the tantrum she’d pitched the previous night was nothing compared to the rage she went into. Still, we took the doll back and I told my friends what a good night’s sleep we’d had. One of my friends, Marge I think it was, came up with a theory that the doll was some kind of guardian against bad dreams and she said she was going to try it that night. There was a bit of an argument over who wanted the doll next but she won because she said it was her idea. The others would draw lots the next day if it worked for her as well as it had worked for me. So, the next day, when they were late, we didn’t know how the experiment had gone. Joan had had the nightmare again but it didn’t hit so hard because I’d had a good sleep the night before and was better off than the others at any rate. Then Marge came in, with her little one. They looked like I felt the previous day, not quite chirpy, but better rested, that’s for sure. She said it was the best sleep they’d had in ages but her little girl didn’t want to give the doll up. I told her Joan hadn’t wanted to either but she pointed out that we didn’t realise the connection then. I wondered what she would offer as a solution, but our girls came up with the idea themselves. They could all sleep over at one house so Lucille could look after them all.”

Audrey stopped speaking and took out her hankie. She wiped her eyes and took a sip of her tea.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t often think about that time, it’s a struggle to tell it, but I must, I don’t have much time left and I have to warn you.”

“Warn us?” Sammie said in a higher pitch than usual.

Audrey flapped her hand in an effort to make her calm down. “Shh,” she said.

The old lady took another drink of tea and the women could hardly contain themselves, but they managed with nudges, and little kicks under the table.

“So, they all came to my house because I had the biggest bedroom for the girls to sleep in. We stayed there until past a decent time for the other mothers to go home. The girls were all tucked up in makeshift beds on Joan’s floor and they were asleep as soon as their heads touched their pillows. We were too worried to sleep though. We drank coffee, strong and black, to keep ourselves awake and as it got closer to three in the morning, the more worried we became. The screech coming from Joan’s room had us all fighting to get upstairs first. Of course, my husband, Jim got to the room first because he was sensible and went to bed. The girls were screaming their hearts out because Joan wasn’t breathing. She’d had the doll in bed and must have lay face-down on it or something. The girls screamed about the little girl in the corner and I looked and I swear I saw her. She was grinning with a mouth full of teeth and she laughed and pointed at Joan. She died a week or so later, she never woke up but she did thrash about in her sleep but the doctor said he had no explanation why she wouldn’t wake up.” Audrey blew her nose quietly and the women didn’t know what to do.

Claire looked over to the children, they were playing with something at the tea-service table they had taken over. A flash of yellow wool made her gasp.

“The doll from Audrey’s story…” she said, and pointed.

The four friends ran through the child-safety gate and into the play area. They scooped up their children and checked them over before looking for the doll.

“Can I take Lucille home with me tonight, Mummy?” Tara said.

That one sentence made the four women’s hearts shudder in their chests.

“Where’s the dollie, Tara?” Jules said, trying to keep her voice steady.

Tara pointed at a shelving unit but the doll wasn’t there.

“Oh good grief!” Deb shouted, she put her hand to her mouth in horror and then pointed. Everyone in the two rooms looked at her, then followed the direction she was pointing. A small figure ran across the room in an oddly jerky gait. It’s arms and legs were stiff and didn’t lend themselves to graceful motion, as though they weren’t jointed. Arms swinging wildly, yellow wool hair bouncing, the doll ran across the room towards the door. Parents grabbed their children as they began screaming, “The little girl from my bedroom!”

The door to the outside opened and the doll ran through it. Its head turned 180 degrees as it left the building. The black button eyes gleamed and one winked. The red sewn mouth grinned an evil leer and a cackle emanated from it.

No one wanted to follow the doll outside, they guessed it was long gone.

Jules looked over to the table they’d been sitting at. Audrey was gone.

“Where did Audrey go?” Claire said.

“There she is, outside! Oh god, I hope that bloody thing doesn’t scare her!” Sammie said.

They watched Audrey, she had something in her hand. It was a set of old-fashioned laundry tongs and she’d got hold of the doll with them.

The doll swung about on the end of the grey wooden tongs, bleached of their colour from years of use. It looked like it was trying its best to kick and punch at Audrey. They could hear a high-pitched scream of fury coming from it. Audrey clutched the laundry tongs with both hands and marched as best she could across the gardens attached to the playgroup.

Audrey tossed the doll into a large oil drum the gardener was using to burn up the dead leaves he’d raked up.

The women sighed in relief as the doll went into the drum, throwing up dust, embers and plumes of smoke. Then Audrey leaned forward to push the struggling doll back down into the fire.

The gardener saw what she was doing and rushed across to her with his pitchfork. He stabbed the pitchfork down into the drum and held it there.

It took quite a while but when they were satisfied the doll was burned to a cinder and wasn’t coming back, they turned towards the playgroup building.

Audrey came into the room, followed by the gardener.

“This is my husband, Jim,” she said.

Audrey didn’t come in to work the next day and the friends were worried about her.

Deb looked for Jim in the gardens too, but couldn’t find him to ask after his wife.

The following Monday, a notice caught everyone’s attention. Audrey’s funeral would be held the following Monday, the sixty-sixth anniversary of her daughter’s death.