The Last Lullaby

My grandmother, Abuela Rosa, had a voice that could soothe the ocean. Even after my grandfather, Papá Tomás, was taken from us in that senseless hit-and-run, she would hum the same lullaby she’d sung to my mother as a child. I was only four when he died, but I remember the way his hands smelled of sawdust and mint, and how he’d let me ‘help’ him in his workshop, handing him nails that were too big for my small fingers. After he was gone, Abuela Rosa and I became inseparable, two halves of a broken whole.

We lived in a creaky old house on the edge of a town that seemed to forget us. My parents worked long hours, so Abuela Rosa was my world. She’d tell me stories of the old country, her eyes twinkling with mischief, and she’d always end them with a kiss on my forehead and a whispered, ‘Sleep tight, mi cielo.’

When I turned eleven, my mother started waking me up for school by gently stroking my hair and murmuring, ‘Time to rise, my love.’ It was a sweet, familiar ritual. But one Sunday, something was off. I awoke to the soft caress, but the voice that accompanied it was not my mother’s. It was a low, raspy whisper, like dry leaves skittering across pavement, and it said, ‘It’s time, little one.’

My eyes flew open, but the room was empty. The curtains billowed though the window was shut, and the air had a chill that sank into my bones. I told myself it was a dream, but the phantom sensation of fingers in my hair lingered.

That evening, I told Abuela Rosa about it. She grew quiet, her face pale. She took my hands and stared into my eyes with an intensity I’d never seen, her voice barely a tremor. ‘There are things in this world, mi amor, that do not rest. And there are gifts, or curses, that run in families. Your grandfather, he had the sight. I have it too, and now you.’ She went to her dresser and pulled out a small, velvet pouch. Nestled inside was a pendant, a tarnished silver locket engraved with an intricate spiral. She clasped it around my neck. ‘Wear this always. It will keep you from straying too far.’

I didn’t understand, but I wore it. For a week, nothing happened. But then the whispers began. At night, I’d hear them from the hallway—soft, sibilant murmurings in a language I didn’t know. And sometimes, I’d wake to find the faint impression of a handprint on my window, as if someone had pressed their palm against the glass from outside.

On the second week, I saw it. I had crept out of bed to get a glass of water, and there, in the hallway mirror, stood the reflection of an old woman. Her face was a mask of wrinkles, her eyes black as voids, and her hair was a tangled white web. She mouthed words, and though I couldn’t hear them, I felt them brush against my mind like cobwebs. ‘Come to me.’

I screamed, and Abuela Rosa came running. When I pointed at the mirror, she clutched me tight, her heart pounding against my ear. ‘She is the Weeper,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘She was a woman who lost her child centuries ago, and she now seeks to take other children to ease her grief. Your grandfather, he saw her too, and it drove him to madness. He tried to warn me, but I didn’t listen. When he died, I thought she was gone. But she’s been waiting for you, because you have the sight.’

The next day, Abuela Rosa took me to a place I’d never been: the old, abandoned church at the edge of the woods. The floorboards were rotten, and the altar was covered in dust. In a hidden crypt beneath, we found names etched into stone, children’s names, each with a date of death. The most recent was from ten years ago. ‘She grows stronger with each one,’ Abuela Rosa whispered. ‘We must seal her away.’

That night, with the full moon overhead, Abuela Rosa performed a ritual that involved candles, salt, and my blood. She pricked my finger and let three drops fall onto the locket. As she chanted, the air grew thick and the shadows writhed. The Weeper appeared, more solid than before, her form shimmering with malice. She reached for me, but the locket burned white-hot, and she recoiled with a shriek that shattered the windows.

Abuela Rosa fell to the floor, exhausted. ‘It’s done,’ she gasped. ‘But she is not gone. She is bound to you, as long as you wear the locket. She will wait, and she will try again, especially on the anniversaries of your grandfather’s death. That is when the veil is thinnest.’

For years, I lived in fear, but the Weeper never returned. I grew up, moved away, and the locket remained around my neck ever still. I almost convinced myself it was a childhood nightmare, until my grandmother died last spring. When I inherited her belongings, I found a letter she’d written to me, to be opened after her death.

In it, she revealed the truth: the Weeper was not just a ghost, but an aspect of death itself, drawn to those with power to see beyond. She also wrote that the only way to truly banish her was to offer her a soul in exchange—one that belonged to our bloodline. ‘I have made my peace,’ she wrote. ‘Take my final lullaby, and let her be my last song.’

I sobbed, clutching the letter, when I noticed a P.S. at the bottom: ‘Destroy this letter. Burn the locket. And never let the Weeper hear you sing your child’s lullaby. She will come for it.’

Just then, my phone buzzed. It was a text from my husband: ‘Can you pick up our daughter from her first overnight camp? She says she had a nightmare and wants to come home.’

I looked at the locket, still warm against my chest. And from the bedroom, I heard a faint, familiar humming—the tune of my grandmother’s lullaby, but with a half-tone off, a wrong note that made my blood run cold. The Weeper had found me again, and this time, she was not waiting.

I don’t know how long I can keep her away. But I know that if she takes my child, I will follow her into the depths of the world and sing the lullaby myself, one last time, for a soul I cannot save.