Nocnitsa

This story is by Nicole Beeman-Cadwallader and was part of our 2023 Fall Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here.

Most people in Nora’s situation feel some anxiety. Wakeful, tossing and turning, thoughts of parenthood run on a loop. Nora opens her eyes. She shivers with fright at the sight of the wood grain in the corner. She vowed never to live in a home with wood paneling again, and she hadn’t seen it since she was a child. The wood-grain witch used to haunt her. Nora says aloud, “Nocnitsa. What are you doing here? I thought I was done with you.”

“Oh, Nora,” Nocnitsa says in a high-pitched rasp. “You will never be rid of me.” 

“I only reflect back the things that suck your life force, making real and audible the doubts and fears you already have,” says Nocnitsa. Nora lies motionless, as Nocnitsa slithers up the bed and hovers over Nora, face-to-face with her cold presence. 

“Why are you here now?” stammers Nora. 

“Oh, I think you know,” says Nocnitsa. 

Nora shakes her head. “No. Please illuminate it for me.” 

“I am not illumination, Nora. I am darkness. I extinguish the light.” 

“Why do you think I am here, Nora?” asks the witch. 

Nora gets distracted. Her hands travel down her face, landing around her nose and mouth. “Sheesh. Didn’t I brush my teeth?” Nora wonders. The air smells rotten and sour. 

“That smell is me, Nora. You did brush your teeth. When I suck up your life force, I suck up and put in front all that is dead within you.” 

“Gross,” says Nora. Nora hears a poof, like a balloon losing its air. Nocnitsa is gone. 

           The next night is not any better. She opens her eyes and notices a dark shadow in the corner of the ceiling. She startles at the telltale sign on the wall. Knotty wood-grain. “Nocnitsa,” she says out loud. Nocnitsa hisses. Nora feels a surge of nervous energy throughout her whole body. She sits up on the bed, pulls her knees up to her chest, and wraps her arms around her legs. She brushes her fingers across her soft, plush terry robe.

“Isn’t it nice to know you are not alone?” whispers Nocnitsa. 

“Not really,” says Nora, “not when the entity I’m with is a manifestation of my worst fears.” 

Nocnitsa says, “You’ll always have fear, Nora. And because you’ll always have fear, you will always have me. And, I wasn’t referring to me as your company.” Nocnitsa looks at Nora’s abdomen and breathes audibly over it.

Nora responds, “Are you saying that if I can let go of my fear, I can let go of your knotty ass face?” 

Nocnitsa chuckles. “I serve a purpose, Nora. The question is not whether you can rid yourself of me or your fear, but if you can figure out my purpose.”

Nora rolls her eyes. “Right now, in this moment, all I want is sleep.” Nora briefly closes her eyes and then opens them widely again. She says, “Who else do you visit? Do I know anyone else you visit?” 

Nocnitsa says, “That is an interesting question, Nora.” Nocnitsa leaves suddenly. When she leaves, Nora feels almost like she was never there. Nora questions her own reality. 

          Nora succumbs to exhaustion the following night. A grating rub across her ribs wakes her in the middle of the night. She jumps up and is confronted with Nocnitsa’s rotting earth smell. Then Nocnitsa disappears. Nora wonders if she is losing her mind. Nora feels very alone and very afraid. She cannot imagine telling anyone about this interaction without them thinking she is crazy. And to tell them that she is having these hallucinations and might be pregnant feels unfathomable.

          The only person Nora thinks will understand is Kenny, a patron of the library where she works. She circles the library’s main floor and sees him snoozing with his head up against the window, the hat another librarian knitted for him wedged between. The whole library has a soft spot for Kenny.

“Psssttt! Kenny. Wake up, Kenny.” Nora signals. Kenny does not move. Nora raises her volume a little. “Kenny! Wake, up! I need to talk with you.” Still nothing. She looks at the shelves around her and grabs the largest tombe she can find, a text on biblical history. Nora walks over to Kenny, holds the book two feet above him, and drops it on the table. Wham! 

Kenny wakes. “Girl! What you do that for?” Kenny scowls at Nora. 

Nora says, “Come with me.” 

“Ahhh, nawww. You disruptin’ my nap now, see?” says Kenny. 

“Just come with me, Kenny. I don’t want to be alone right now.” 

Kenny looks at her and says, “Fine. Buy me a coffee on the way.” Nora stops at the cafe, orders Kenny a coffee, and hands it to him. 

Nora walks more quickly. They arrive at her work area, strewn with balled-up sticky notes, gum wrappers, and other supplies. “Nora, is this your mess? Awww, nah. I’m not clearing your mess,” says Kenny. 

“I don’t need you to clean my mess, Kenny. Can you just keep me company?” 

Kenny asks, “This is what you woke me for?” 

“No. You’re the only one who gets it, Kenny,” replies Nora. 

“Gets what, Nora?” 

“Kenny, have I ever told you about my hallucinations?” 

Kenny says, “You told me that you had them in the past, but you never told me about their nature.” 

Nora continues, “They’re back.” 

Kenny says, “Back up. Who is they?”

“When I was a little girl, we had wood paneling on the walls of my house. I always had trouble sleeping. It got so bad that I started to see faces in the wood paneling.” 

Kenny whispers, “Psst, Nora. That’s no hallucination.” 

Nora says, “Patience.” 

“One of those faces came to life. She was a witch. It was like one of those Magic Eye puzzles, where the image comes to life in three dimensions as you look at it. Except she came out of the wall and would talk to me.” 

“Whatch she say?” asks Kenny. 

“She would pick up on my fears and magnify them. I had the only room facing my scary neighborhood in the front of the house. She told me there was someone with a gun peeking into my window. Other things, too. She scared me. 

When I told my parents, they thought I was crazy. I started waking up in the middle of our hard floors with bruises I couldn’t explain. She didn’t stop until I was hospitalized. My Slavic grandparents told me she was a creature from their old country. Nocnitsa doesn’t stop until her prey dies.”

“Hmmm,” Kenny responds.

“She’s back. Nocnitsa,” says Nora. 

“Whatch she want? What ya scared of now?” asks Kenny. 

“That’s the funny thing,” says Nora. “She wouldn’t tell me. She said she won’t tell me until we see more of each other.” 

“I certainly had my fair share of demons visit me,” says Kenny. 

Nora says, “That’s why I’m telling you. I needed to tell someone, and you’re the only one who won’t think I’m crazy. I don’t have to worry about you getting me committed.” 

“Whatch you goin’ to do about it, Nor?” 

Nora furrows her brow. “I have no idea. Is there anything I can do? It feels silly to talk about this like I’m trying to avoid a real person. She’s just a hallucination from my own imagination.” 

Kenny says, “That may be true. But who’s to say? And the fact that it bothers you and feels dangerous is real. Sometimes I think, that with all the people who experience quote-on-quote hallucinations that maybe it’s all the other normal people who are wrong. Kids never question it.”

“See, that’s the thing! Nocnitsa only used to bother me when I was a child. Why is she back now?”

Kenny’s brow furrows, and he turns his head. He ponders the question for a moment and says, “Ya gotta wait an see whut she want.” 

Nora is beginning to think she knows what Nocnitsa wants but is afraid to mention it out loud. She could just take a pregnancy test, but Nora’s not ready for the idea of being pregnant yet, much less how to keep her child away from Nocnitsa. She wonders if she would be just as much of a threat to her child’s well-being as the wood-grain witch.

“Kenny, what do you do when you have unusual visitors?” asks Nora. 

“Dat all depends, Nor. Sometimes I fall prey to them. They get too much uh me. Sometimes I keep them away by makin’ sure I’m always around people. But both feel like traps. See how tonight goes. Let’s talk about it again tomorrow.” 

          Nora feels comforted that Kenny understands, and she also knows how the rest of the world views Kenny. She thinks about Nocnitsa’s preference for children. She rests a hand on her lower abdomen with a new sense of dread. She remembers how much terror Nocnitsa brought her as a child. Can she risk that experience for her own?