The Chalk Sun

The day we moved into the house on Meridian Lane, I found a child’s drawing taped to the inside of the fuse box. It showed a stick figure family under a bright yellow sun, but the sun had a face with a wide, toothy grin, and the family’s eyes were all X’s. I laughed it off as a prank, but my wife, Elena, frowned. ‘Someone’s got a dark sense of humor,’ she said, and tucked it into her pocket.

That night, our daughter, Mia, who was only six months old, woke screaming. Not her usual hungry cry, but a piercing, terrified wail. She was in her crib, pointing at the far corner of the room, her tiny finger trembling. I followed her gaze and saw nothing, but the air in that corner felt impossibly cold. Elena, a practical woman, dismissed it as a draft.

The next day, I found another drawing, this one taped to the back of the bathroom mirror. It was the same stick family, but now the sun was smaller, and a new figure had appeared behind the family—a tall, thin shape with long arms and no face. The X’s on the family’s eyes had been replaced with tiny, desperate tears. Chills ran down my spine. I showed Elena, and she finally agreed something was wrong.

We tried to ignore it, but the house began to change. Doors would creak open on their own at night. Mia would wake at the same hour, every night, staring at the same corner. One evening, I heard a faint scratching from the nursery walls. I pulled back the drywall and found a patch of scrawled crayon: the same sun, but now its grin was jagged, and it was swallowing the family whole.

Elena, raised in a devout household, began to pray. She lit candles and sprinkled holy water in the corners. The scratching stopped, but the silence that followed was worse. The next morning, Mia was quiet, too quiet. She sat in her high chair, staring at the door to the basement, which we never used. I went down to check, and found the walls covered in the same drawings, layer after layer, like a desperate child’s plea. In the center of the room, a fresh drawing lay on the floor: a single figure, alone, with the sun’s face, but its eyes were blank.

I tore it up, but that night, I heard a child’s voice from the nursery. ‘You’re not supposed to be here.’ I bolted up the stairs. Mia’s crib was empty. The window was open, the screen pushed out. I screamed her name, but only the wind answered. Elena and I searched the house, the yard, the woods behind the property. Nothing. No trace.

When the police came, they found a drawing in Mia’s crib, taped to the mattress. It was the same sun, but now it had a body—a lanky, shadowed figure—and it was holding the stick figure of a baby. The baby’s eyes were X’s. I collapsed in grief.

We moved out after that, but it didn’t help. Last week, I found a new drawing on the fridge. It showed two figures, a man and a woman, under the same grinning sun. And in the corner, a faint stick child, waving goodbye. I drove to the old house, hoping to find answers, but the front door was unlocked, and on the living room floor, a fresh drawing: the sun, with its grin now wider, and below it, a single word in crayon: ‘Home.’

I haven’t slept since. I keep seeing that yellow grin behind my eyelids, and sometimes, at night, I hear a child’s laughter from the attic of our new house. I’m starting to think we brought it back with us.