The Story in Which a Baby is Kidnapped

By Thelma Mary Caroline

We were walking in the woods.  I like going back there, and being part of nature.  There's a small trail that goes all the way down to a river (a spring, actually, though it looks like it's been infected with something).  We play there.  She plays.  She's only three, so of course she does.  But I'm twenty one, so I just watch.  Not because I think I'm too old, but because I have no desire to.

She's pretty, the child.  In a pink calico dress, and white long sleeved shirt.  She had beautiful blond curls that make her look just like a baby dall.

But I'm always afraid there will be some kind of psycho, hiding in the trees or the bushes.  So as the baby plays, I study the plants, watching for any movment that can't be explained.  I have a knife in my pocket, just in case.

Suddenly I do see something.  A movement in the trees.  I pick up the baby and hold her to my chest.  She complains; she doesn't understand.

A man comes out of the woods and rips her from my arms.  A man who's tall, with a wild look in his eyes.  His clothing, his hair, wrinkled and unwashed. 

Like me, he has a knife.  As I reach to get her back, he cuts my hand with it.

It hurts, but only a little.  There's too much adrenilean(sp?).  Besides, I used to be  cutter.  I used to cut my own skin, much worse than he had just done.

But I was angry.  He was not going to do anything to that child.

She wasn't even my child, mind you.  I was not her mother.  Oh, sure, I helped raise her.  But I was just her aunt.  That's all.

Still, fury overtook me and I couldn't think.  I felt like the child's mother, overcome by hormones.  I felt like there was only one option.  One course of action.

I grabbed the knife out of his hand.  I screamed as I jabbed it into him.  He almost dropped the child, but I grabbed her and run.

Oh my god. 

Oh my god.

It hit me what had happened.  What I'd done.  What could I say or do to excuse it. 

I hadn't killed him, at least I didn't think so.  No one had ever died from a stab wound in the arm.

But my mind didn't rest.  Maybe it never would.  And what would I tell my co-workers?  What would I tell the child's mom?

What could I do?

I woke up then, shivering.  Turning over, I curled up, trying to get warm.  I closed my eyes.

Then it hit me.  I remembered the man and the child.  Had it really happened?  In my sluggishness, I couldn't remember.

I glanced at my hand where there should have been a cut.  But only a scar, from long ago.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  Just a dream, that was all.  Just a dream.