The Raven

There was that sound again. Tapping. Coming from the boy's room. In my groggy stupor, I try to search for my glasses on the nightstand by clumsily fumbling my hand about. When I finally curl my fingers around their frame, I pick them up and put them on. At that point, I turned to see if the noise had woken my wife or baby daughter up, but they were both very much asleep, according to their slow, deep breaths. My sight slowly adjusted and they met with my wife's slack jaw and closed eyes. I smiled a bit at how silly she looked. I wiped a bit of drool with her blanket from the corner of her lips gently, as to not wake her. As I finished, without missing a beat, the tapping noise came again, reminding me of the reason why I woke up.

I sighed while I got up and stretched, my bones cracking in certain places. It was the fourth night in a row that Sebastian was up and doing something... odd. The first time, he was looking out the window and talking to someone who wasn't there. The next night, he screamed and refused to fall back asleep, terrified to even come out from under the covers. We finally did quiet him down and soothe him. But last night, I caught him tapping at the window. When confronted, he didn't want to explain his behavior and pressed his lips together as tightly as he could. Seemed this time, it was similar.

I made my way out of my bedroom door and down the hallway a bit. The first door on the right, his room, was cracked open. Strange. I remember shutting it after saying goodnight. Slowly, I edged toward the open door, glimpsing through the gap, trying to spot anything unusual. The window was barren. Sebastian wasn't even there! I gently pushed the door open and urged myself in a bit further, flipping on the light switch and looking around the room. There he was, nestled in his bed, blankets wrapped tightly around him. "What the hell..." I thought to myself. Just then, the bedsheets rustled.

"Papa?" Sebastian sat up slowly, yawning and stretching. He looked confused. I must have matched his expression.

"Were you tapping at the window again?" I asked a little firmly. My voice came out a bit harder than I had anticipated. As soon as the words left my mouth, my gaze went back to the window. I searched for hints of his presence near it, but with no luck. No condensation of his breaths on the glass, no fingerprints that I could see against the pale moonlight... nothing.

"Nuh-uh..." he said as he let out yet another yawn. This one was contagious and I did my best to stifle it. "It must've been the raven..." he said as he rubbed his eyes. The way he said it. So casually and so sure of himself. It made me consider a possibility where it could've been a bird. Soon enough, though, my senses came back to me. There's no chance a bird could've made Sebastian create such a commotion for four nights in a row now.

"What are you talking about?" I asked him, genuinely curious as to what could prompt him to say that so seriously.

"The raven, papa. He knocks on my window sometimes."

I brushed a hand through my jet black hair and scoffed slightly. "Get back to bed, Seb." My words came out tired and soft. He seemed disappointed at the fact that I didn't take him seriously. He nodded slowly and covered himself back up. "Goodnight, Dad." He mumbled quietly.

I woke up to the sun's rays casting directly onto my eyes from in between the cracks of the blinds. I groaned and stretched, waking my body up for the day. It was a sunny Saturday morning and I could smell breakfast already. Looking to my left, I saw my wife's side was empty, the bed done neatly on her half, and the baby absent as well. I sat up and made my way into the kitchen.

"He's finally up." Jasmine smiled and said this with a little chuckle. I smirked back at her and did my best to fix my hair, knowing already I probably looked like a caveman sleeping out in the rough. I watched as she slid an omelet next to a pair of bacon strips onto a plate. She pointed at the food with the spatula and smiled. "Are you gonna just sit there and stare or will you join us for breakfast?" I looked around the table at Jasmine who was taking a seat, Sebastian, swirling his cereal around, and baby Addy, holding onto an applesauce covered spoon with her chubby, little fingers.