The Flicker of Green

The first time I saw it, I thought it was a trick of the light. A soft, green shimmer in the corner of the nursery, just above the crib. My son, Leo, was only six months old then, and he would coo and reach for it, his face breaking into a gummy smile. My husband, Marcus, joked that we had a friendly ghost. We both laughed it off, chalking it up to the way the morning sun filtered through the leaves of the old oak outside his window.

But then the other one came. I don’t know when exactly, but it was around the time Leo turned nine months. This one was different—darker, angrier. I never saw it directly, but I would feel a sudden drop in temperature, a prickle on the back of my neck. Leo would go quiet, his eyes fixed on the corner of the room, and then his lower lip would tremble. He’d reach out, as if trying to touch something, and then jerk back with a scream that chilled me to the bone. One day, I was holding his hand to steady him, and when he reached out, I felt a sharp jolt, like static electricity, right before he cried. That was when I knew something was truly wrong.

We moved to a new town after that, hoping a change of scenery would help. Our new house was a modest split-level on a quiet cul-de-sac, with a gas fireplace and a state-of-the-art security system. We thought we’d left the old shadows behind. But the first night in the new house, Leo started babbling happily at the ceiling in the living room. Marcus followed his gaze and saw nothing. Yet Leo pointed and laughed, and I caught the faintest glint of green reflected in his eyes. And that night, I woke to the sound of Leo screaming from his room. When I rushed in, he was pointing at the same corner, his face a mask of terror. The next day, I called a friend who dabbled in the paranormal. She gave me a device that supposedly measures electromagnetic fields. She told me to watch for spikes.

The device became my obsession. I carried it everywhere. In the kitchen, it would flutter near the toaster and the coffee maker. In the living room, it went wild near the entertainment center. But the most consistent readings came from Leo’s room, especially near the smoke detector and the mini-fridge I kept in there for his formula. The EMF spikes were massive when Leo was happy, accompanied by a faint green glow, and even stronger when he was upset, but then the glow was an ugly, oily black. Marcus started calling them ‘light sabers’ as a joke, because Leo’s reactions reminded him of our son’s obsession with his toy lightsabers. The green one always made Leo laugh and wave his hands. The dark one made him cry and recoil as if he were being burned.

Today was the worst. I was seeing a pale, shimmering outline in the corner of the living room, next to the plasma TV. Leo was on the floor, playing with his blocks. He stopped, looked up, and his face contorted. He reached out, and I swear I saw a crackle of electricity in the air. He touched something invisible, and his body went rigid, his scream piercing my ears. Then he fell back, hitting his head on the coffee table. I rushed to him, cradling him, my heart pounding. The EMF reader in my pocket was screaming. And that’s when I saw it—a black, spider-like crack in the air, just for a split second, before it vanished. I know it sounds insane, but I think it was a doorway. And something on the other side is trying to get in.

Now, I keep the green light on at all times. I’ve replaced the light bulbs in Leo’s room with green LED ones. It seems to calm him. But tonight, I heard a scratching from inside the wall, right behind his crib. And the green light flickered, just for a moment. I held my breath, waiting for it to stabilize. It did. But I know it won’t last. Whatever is on the other side is getting stronger. And I’m terrified that one day, the green light won’t be enough to keep it out.