The Lorelei Signal
The Forgotten
Written by Hannah Greer / Artwork by Marcia Botell
Amid the bustle of a community united, I am alone.
My mother told me to make friends, then left me in a corner of the sanctuary so she could greet the other women. The children here have been friends as long as they’ve been alive; they don’t want me around. I begged her to let me stay home. I’d rather spend my Sunday exploring the nearby woods, like I did back home. But since we’re new in town she wants to join the community. She wants everyone to admire what a good mother she is, bringing her daughter to church.
The first time we visited, a priest praised her devotion and promised to guide me on a “righteous path.” He hasn’t spoken to me since. No one has.
I hate this building, large enough to get lost in. I hate how people look through me, as though I don’t matter. As though I’m not here.
It’s the same way people look at the door to the basement. I hunch my shoulders and keep my head down, trying to emulate them. But I can’t stop my gaze from slipping past the pews to rusted hinges, dark wood, and the plank nailing the door closed.
Before I realize I’ve moved, I’m in front of it, so close I can make out a musty, earthy scent. I could reach out and touch it. So I do. A shiver creeps down my spine and goosebumps erupt across my skin. I can hear their whispers, muffled and indistinct, a conglomeration of sound that holds no meaning. Something lurks behind this door, even if no one else seems to notice.
I turn away. Mother says monsters hunt those who stray. It’s why children who misbehave tend to disappear. I push away thoughts of sneaking out or following the whispers because it's better to behave than risk evoking the monsters.
#
Weeks pass, and I can’t forget the whispers. Though I couldn’t make out the words, they sounded helpless and lost.
In my dreams, the owners of the voices take form; a crowd of children spread out in a sea of darkness. Their whispers take shape next.
“Please,” a little blond boy says into the dark.
“Take me home,” cries a little girl with a pink bow.
A little brunette with freckles like stars across their nose is the first to look at me. “You’re like us.”
In my mind, they are children lost, in need of someone to believe in them. But I know better. These aren’t their real words any more than these are their real bodies. It’s just my imagination filling in the gaps. Or maybe they are manipulating my thoughts. Because outside my mind, they are monsters who will hunt me if given the chance. I won’t give them the chance.
But even when I wake, I can’t shake the image of the children or the sound of their pleas. They crowd out my thoughts until I can think of nothing else. They take over my mind.
Mother always said my wild imagination would get me in trouble one day.
~ * ~
The effects of the voices spread. Over the weeks, as Mother integrates with the community and I hide away, my skin begins to gray and my hair loses its shine. I spend more time in bed, too tired to traipse through the woods and flip rocks in search of lizards or snakes. I can barely make it through the school day without falling asleep at my desk and dreaming of the children who are not real children.
One day, on the way home from school, I lose myself in such a dream. The children see me and acknowledge me. They ask me about my day, just like my friends used to before they forgot about me. No one has called since we moved.
When the children bid me farewell and I wake up, it’s dusk. I’m in front of the church where protective gargoyles stare down at me. The whispers are deafening, but I still can’t make sense of them.
I peer at a window near my feet, crisscrossed by metal bars. It’s dark within, and within the darkness there’s movement, slow and creeping. I shiver. It’s certainly not the children from my dreams. I wish I had friends, instead of these monsters. Maybe that’s why I indulge my imagination more than I should. But those children are just my mind playing cruel tricks on me. Inventing friends where I have none, as Mother would say.
I step back. It’s past time to be home. Mother must be worried.
But she’s not. When I sneak in through the open back door, she’s already asleep in her room. A cold bowl of stew sits on the table. She ate without me.
I sigh. She tries, but I was an accident, and accidents are easily misplaced.
When I reach for the stew, my fingers pass through the bowl. I blink and try again but there’s no surface for my fingers to grab. My stomach growls and I try to slurp straight from the bowl, but I can’t. My heart beats fast. At least I can still feel my heart. But I can’t touch the stew. I can’t touch the flowers I put in a vase yesterday, or the dishes in the sink, or the ugly old painting over the fireplace. I can’t touch anything.
I race to my mother’s room. Her door is cracked open, but it’s not quite wide enough. When I slip in, my shoulder passes through the wooden doorframe. I shriek and rush to her side.
“Mom! Mom, something’s wrong,” I cry. She doesn’t wake. I wave my hands in front of her face and try to touch her cheeks, but she doesn’t even shrug me off. It’s like she doesn’t sense me at all.
The realization is enough to turn my knees to liquid and I drop to the floor. This must be how misbehaving children disappear. The monsters turn them into ghosts.
I was good, I tried my hardest to be good. But maybe I wasn’t.
~ * ~
By the time morning comes, I’ve given up trying to be seen and sit by the fireplace, wiggling my fingers through the flames. They don’t burn. They don’t even feel warm.
When Mother wakes, I give a halfhearted attempt to catch her attention but it’s no use. She can’t see me.
The phone sounds and she catches it on the second ring. Though she holds it close to her ear, the volume is high and I can make out Dad’s greeting.
“When will you be back?” she asks, without so much as a hello.
His voice is worn out, and I know his answer before he says, “I don’t know.”
“You promised we’d raise the girl together,” she says.
“I’m making money so you don’t have to work. I’m doing my part.”
“Like hell you are. We’re supposed to be partners, that was the deal. But here I am, a single parent.”
“That’s a bit extreme, don’t you think? I’m still her dad.”
She huffs. “You want to talk to your kid then?”
“Not now,” he says. My insides twist.
“Not ever, you mean.” He says nothing. “That’s what I thought.” She hangs up, wipes at her eyes, and shouts for me to wake up. It’s time for school. I hunch on the rug, knees to my chest, and try not to cry.
When I don’t come at her call, she huffs some more and makes her way to my room, where my bed is empty. At least she finally notices my absence.
But she doesn’t go to the police, or priests, or the school. She just sighs and shakes her head.
She won’t help me. No one will. I have to fix this myself.
~ * ~
I pass several priests, but none notice me. One even walks right through me. At least they can’t stop me from reaching the basement door.
I press my hand to the wood and it phases through, as though nothing is there. With a deep breath, I gather my courage. I will confront the monsters and find out what I did wrong and how to do better. I will regain my life.
Before my resolve can fail, I slip inside and down a dusty staircase.
The basement is dark, only a hint of light coming from the barred window high above. It smells of mildew and forgotten things. I feel eyes on me. Dozens, maybe more. But I see none.
Before I can lose my nerves, I shout into the shadows, “Show yourselves.”
The brunette from my dreams steps into the shaft of light. I stumble back a step. No. The monsters don’t get to take that form.
I ball my hands into fists. “Stop it! I know that’s not what you look like. Show your true form.”
“This is my true form,” they say. “I’m not what you think. I’m like you.”
“No. This is all wrong.” This is not what monsters are supposed to look like, small and serene. I tremble. The brunette’s eyes are soft, as though they pity me.
I don’t need their pity. “I’ve been good and I’ll be better, just fix me. Undo whatever you did.”
“We didn’t do this to you,” they say.
I glare. “Of course you did. Who else would?”
“Everyone who never noticed you, who dismissed you, who didn’t care if you were there. It’s how we all became what we are. We were all forgotten by those who were supposed to care.”
I shake my head. “No. No, you’re the monsters who make children disappear.”
“We’re only as monstrous as you.”
“I just wanted someone to see me so I wouldn’t be alone anymore. I didn’t want this,” I say.
“You’re not alone now, Lyra. We see you.”
I look at them, really look at them, for the first time. They’re right. We are the same. The forgotten, the lost. The ones no one will remember when we’re gone.
We are not the monsters.
Hannah Greer’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in PseudoPod, Solarpunk Magazine, and Radon Journal. She is a first reader for Fusion Fragment, hoards books, and competes in combat sports. She resides in North Carolina with her partner, a trio of cats, and a small flock of pigeons.
Find her on Bluesky @hannahgreer.bsky.social or on her website, hannahgreer.carrd.co