Chaneque: A Baby Story

Photo by Tengyart on Unsplash

Today, I’m doing something a little different: publishing a short story instead of my usual non-fiction essay.

I currently have 20 or so short stories without a home that I’m still not sure what to do with, many of them an attempt, at least, at my favorite literary style, magical realism. Since I basically wrote about Mexican ghost stories this week for Mexico News Daily, I decided to go into my old folder and dust this one off.

Chaneque came about from the convergence of three intertwining ideas: a fascination with the Mexican figure of the chaneque, a version of this particular culture’s “trickster god” in elf form, a then-recent viewing of Jordan Peele’s movie Us, and my own baby’s apparent inconsolable anger at having been born a human when she’d been absolutely sure she was on her way to Nirvana.

***

Babies don’t do a whole lot. They sleep, they eat, they defecate, they hit themselves in the face because they haven’t yet pruned the vast number of neural connections that allow them to make specific, intentional movements rather than random flailing ones. People can scowl about wrapping them tightly all they want, but it’s either that or letting them look like they’ve been in the ring with Muhammad Ali.

Eventually, they start opening their eyes more and looking around. They keep sleeping, and keep eating, and keep defecating, and they eventually stop hitting themselves in the face as much.

This was the story of my baby Claire. For a while.

Then one sweltering night, we decided to leave the window open overnight to let the cool breeze float over us and lull us to sleep, mosquitos be damned. I can only imagine that this was the night it happened.

Thinking back on it now, I did hear something. But who’s to really say? Sunk in the half-conscious dream world, none of us can be sure about anything. Besides, we had a dog, a couple of cats, and too many people living in that small house. It could have been anything. And wouldn’t the animals have noticed and made a scene?

We woke the next morning to a screaming, grouchy, baby. It wasn’t the first time, so nothing seemed quite off. Diaper change, bottle, rocking, singing, nursing, bath, lavender-scented powder. All that got us was unnervingly steady eye contact from our previously cheery Claire Bear. No smiles, no laughter. Just an intense, flat, affect during the times she’d catch her breath.

She never did go back. The pediatrician called it colic, which is what pediatricians always call it when a seemingly healthy baby doesn’t stop crying or ever seem to get out of its bad mood. “Give it time,” she said. “She’ll bounce back.”

There’s a large, empty, lot in front of our house. It’s no enchanted forest, but on summer nights the fireflies gather back near the flimsy rows of trees. I’d fantasized before about taking lawn chairs out to sit in the evenings while my Claire, older now, would run around trying to catch them.

The window to our bedroom faced it. Since the night of “the change,” Claire would often stare blankly toward it, occasionally with the hint of a smile. “You must be a nature lover!” I’d say brightly, long having decided that if there was any child-like sense of enthusiasm and wonder to be had, it would have to be provided by me. Once in a while, she’d point out the window and start making sounds. I would always look, but I never saw anything.

On the summer day she turned three, I took her out there, ready to live out my firefly fantasy with her even if she didn’t seem very excited about it. I smothered my indifferent daughter in child-safe DEET and grabbed a blanket. I was cheery and enthusiastic. She alternated between blank-faced and fussy.

As the fireflies began sparkling, I saw how she became very still and intent, focused not on them, but on something behind them among the trees. I followed her gaze and, for a second, I thought I saw something, too. Were they animals? I could have sworn I’d glimpsed something on two legs, but it was much too small to have been a person. As I was frowning, Claire stood up and took off. I smiled, assuming at first that she wanted to catch fireflies. But she passed them and kept running. I bolted after her, surprised that a toddler could be this quick on her feet.

When I finally got to her, she was staring intently at a large tree trunk. Was it my imagination, or did I see the faint outline of a door? I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, sure the lack of sleep was getting to me. Claire and I looked at each other. She pointed. “Sister!” she said. A chill ran up my spine.

We got closer. The sound of happy baby laughter – the kind I used to hear from my Claire Bear – seemed to drift toward us on the wind. I decided to move closer to the tree to push the inside of the outline, if nothing else, to try to pop myself back into reality.

A small door opened.

A scene of tiny beings was laid out before us. I froze. Had I started a mushroom trip this morning and then forgotten I’d take anything? I was sure I hadn’t, but I was also sure that what I was seeing couldn’t have been real.

The inside of the dwelling looked like our own bedroom. One of the little people looked just like Claire. That Claire was smiling, happy, and playing. She turned to look at us and waved. “Sister!” said my Claire.

“Claire, we need to go home now,” I said, backing away. I grabbed my now screaming child’s hand and started walking briskly back toward the front of the lot, back toward our house. I couldn’t imagine what kind of witchcraft this was, but I was sure that I wanted no part in it.

Had it been real?

By the time Claire was older and could communicate better, she had no memory of “her sister” or anything else from that time. She remained a serious child, but “perfectly normal,” her pediatrician insisted to us. She played. She had friends. She did gymnastics.

As time passed, I began to wonder if it had been a dream. I never could find that tree again. But just in case – just in case my real child somehow returned and took her place back from the changeling that had been laid in her crib – I always left the windows open on summer nights.