Between the Cradle and the Stove

The first night, Marfa thought it was her son crying. She picked him up - he was asleep. The second night she told herself: it's the wind in the chimney. And on the third she sat with the child at her breast and listened as, from behind the stove, another infant cried. Thinly. Hungrily. As if it were waiting its turn to be held. From wiser folk the woman had heard that a cradle must be shielded from a stranger's eye.

So Marfa strung an old homespun cloth between the cradle and the stove, hoping it would hide the child. Not from people. From the thing that for the third night now had been crying in the dark corner by the stove. The moment the cloth stretched between the cradle and the dark corner, the crying broke off. It didn't fade gradually. Didn't quiet down like a child after the breast. It cut off at once, as if someone behind the fabric had had a hand clapped over their mouth.

Marfa stood in the middle of the house and listened to the silence. In it she could hear the embers smouldering under the ash in the stove. Her son breathing. And, on the far side of the cloth, something very slowly touching the fabric... Once. A pause. Once more. As if a small finger were feeling for where the edge began.

And then the cloth shuddered all at once - from the rope to the very floor, as if that "something" had found what to hold on to. Through the night the cloth shuddered and swayed. Marfa didn't sleep. She lay on the bench, pressing her son to herself, and watched the fabric move all by itself. She heard someone walking back and forth behind it. Barely audible. Shuff. Pause. Shuff. As if a wet foot touched the earthen floor and peeled away at once. Barefoot. Small. Patient.

Then for a moment the cloth strained forward. As if someone had pressed a face against it. Marfa shut her eyes. Now, from behind the stove, came a very, very quiet exhale. Almost childlike. Almost with relief. In the morning Marfa found wet footprints on the floor. Small. A child's. From the cloth to the cradle. She wiped them up with a rag, crossed herself and said nothing to anyone.

Because how do you tell people that a child no one ever gave birth to is walking about your house? And her son kept smiling into emptiness. Not at his mother. Not at the window. Somewhere past her shoulder, as if someone familiar were standing there, silently playing with him with their eyes. The next night Marfa woke not to crying. To a lullaby. The voice was quiet, gentle, almost a mother's. It was singing to her child.

The cloth hung between the cradle and the dark corner, just as it had since evening. But now the lower edge was slowly reaching forward, toward the cradle. Marfa lay motionless, going numb with horror, and watched the fabric move and take the shape of an arc. And behind it someone whispered: "Liuli... liuli..." The cloth suddenly darkened in the middle. Not with a stain. With an outline. First something thin showed through, like an arm. Then a shoulder.

Then the whole cloth slowly leaned forward, as if on the dark side a person had pressed against it and bent over the cradle. In despair Marfa lunged and yanked the cloth aside. There was no one behind it. Only the cradle with her child. But her son was no longer asleep. He was looking into the dark corner and reaching out his little hands. She bent over the cradle. And that was when a whisper came from behind the stove: "Don't pick him up. He already hears me."

Marfa snatched up her son, pressed him to her breast and sat down on the floor with her back to the stove. She didn't open her eyes again. She prayed in a whisper till morning, lost her place, forgot the words, began again. And every now and then the cradle rocked quietly. Creak. Pause. Creak. As if someone were waiting for her arms to tire of holding the child. At dawn Marfa gathered up the cloth, carried it outside and threw it on the ground. Without looking back.

Because from inside the house, someone was already quietly sobbing after her. By evening, stains had come through it, in the shape of small black palms. Many of them. Marfa decided to burn the cloth, but it wouldn't catch. It only steamed and stank of an old damp rag. She left it outside. But when darkness fell, the cloth was hanging in the house again, between the cradle and the stove.

The woman tore it down with one sharp, frightened motion, and at that very moment her son in the cradle suddenly laughed. Quietly. With a child's joy - the boy had recognized someone standing behind the fabric. He stopped crying altogether. Even when he should have been wanting to eat, he only looked past his mother and smiled. In the night Marfa heard whispering behind the cloth again. Not one voice now. Many different voices.

They were gently arguing over who would hold the child first. The woman couldn't bear it. She grabbed her son, wrapped him in a sheepskin coat and rushed for the door. But the cloth was already hanging across the way out. Even. Taut. Without a single fold. Behind it, someone was quietly rocking the cradle. Creak. Pause. Creak. And then a child's voice whispered: "Mama, where are you going?"

She forced the way clear with her shoulder and ran out of the house. Marfa was found in the morning by the door of a long-abandoned neighbouring house. She was sitting on the ground holding her son in her arms; he slept so deeply that he heard neither crying, nor prayer, nor his own name. And she, with empty eyes, went on whispering something. In her house there remained only wet footprints, from the threshold to the corner behind the stove. The cloth was gone.

After that, no one spoke of Marfa's house out loud. Only when a child was born to someone, the old women would come of their own accord, silently walk around the cradle and read prayers. They also said: if a child laughs at a dark corner in the night, the corner has already smiled at it first. "Don't look there. It already knows you can see it."