The Rain’s Nursery Rhyme

In the outskirts of Cebu City, where the mountains meet the sea, we rented a small, two-story house that had stood for decades. The walls were thick with old paint, and the floorboards creaked with secrets. My daughter, Lila, was three, and our new nanny, Aling Rosa, was a quiet woman with eyes that seemed to hold too much knowledge. My husband, Marco, worked the night shift at the docks, and I had just finished my rest day.

The afternoon had been lazy. I did laundry, hanging our clothes on the line that stretched from the window to a lone acacia tree. The rain came at sunset, a heavy monsoon downpour that drummed on the tin roof like a thousand fingers. I cooked sinigang while Lila played with her blocks, and Aling Rosa set the table in silence.

After dinner, we watched a movie on the old television—Lila’s favorite, about a woman with a shield. By 10:30, she was still humming the theme song, her eyes wide. ‘Can I watch babybus on your phone?’ she asked, her small voice pleading. I handed her the phone, and she curled up next to me on the bed, the screen illuminating her face.

The rain intensified, a watery roar that masked all other sounds. I hugged her close, lying on my side, and she snuggled into my chest. The nursery rhymes played—’Wheels on the Bus,’ ‘Baby Shark’—but I was drifting off, the warmth of her small body pulling me into a deep sleep.

I woke to silence. The rain had stopped, and the room was pitch black. The phone’s screen was dark, and Lila was still in my arms, but her breathing was too slow, too regular. I felt a chill. Then I heard it: a soft, high-pitched humming coming from the corner of the room. It was Lila’s voice, but she was asleep. The humming grew louder, morphing into the melody of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’—but distorted, with extra notes that were wrong, sinister.

I tried to move, but my body was paralyzed. The sound seemed to come from everywhere, from the walls, from the ceiling. Then I saw a shape—a tall, thin figure standing by the window, its head tilted, as if listening. It was drenched, water dripping from its hair, but it had no face. Just a blank, pale oval.

I squeezed my eyes shut, praying it would go away. But then I felt a cold hand on my shoulder, and a voice, like wet leaves rustling, whispered directly into my ear: ‘Sing with me.’ Lila’s voice joined in, a clear, childish ‘da da da’ that made my blood run cold. I forced my eyes open, and the figure was gone. But on the ceiling, there was a dark, wet patch in the shape of a handprint, slowly dripping.

The phone buzzed. It was a message from Marco: ‘Stuck at work. Be home by 3.’ I glanced at the clock—2:58 AM. And then I heard the front door creak open below.

Footsteps on the stairs, heavy and deliberate. But Marco always used the back door. I clutched Lila, her tiny body now awake, her eyes staring at the door. ‘Mommy, the rain is talking,’ she said.

A knock on our bedroom door. Three slow knocks. Then a singsong voice, in a mockery of a nursery rhyme: ‘Open the door, let the cold in. We have a song for your little kin.’ I grabbed the crucifix from the nightstand, my hands shaking. ‘Who’s there?’ I demanded.

Silence. Then the sound of water dripping, as if the figure was melting. Our bedroom door began to swell, the wood bending inward, as if soaked. I screamed for Aling Rosa, but I heard her cries from her room, muffled, frantic.

The phone’s screen flickered on by itself, displaying the babybus app. But the characters on the screen were distorted—their eyes were black voids, their mouths stretched into grins. And they were singing a song I had never heard before:

‘Little girl, little girl, what a treat, come dance with us in the rain’s street. Your mother’s tears will be our sweet, and we’ll never leave, never retreat.’

Lila began to hum along. I shook her shoulders. ‘Lila, stop!’ But she just smiled, her eyes glazed, and said, ‘It’s my friends, Mommy.’

The door burst open, and there stood the figure, now with a wide, impossibly long grin filled with needle-thin teeth. It reached out a long, skeletal hand, dripping black water, and pointed at Lila. ‘Time to sing the final verse.’

Aling Rosa burst into the room, clutching a massive old book—the Deipnom of Mactan, my grandmother’s. She began shouting in Cebuano, waving the book like a weapon. The figure recoiled, hissing, its grin widening. ‘Away, spirit of the unwashed dead!’ she yelled, and the walls shook.

The figure vanished, leaving only a puddle of black water. Aling Rosa fell to her knees, panting. ‘It was the Ibu sa Ulan,’ she whispered. ‘A vengeful spirit born from the rain. It seeks children to drown in its song.’

Marco came home at 3, finding us huddled in the corner. We moved out the next week. But last night, as it rained again, I heard a soft humming from Lila’s new room. I rushed in, but she was asleep, her mouth closed. Yet the humming continued, from the window, where raindrops traced a handprint on the glass.

And now, as I write this, I see Lila in the corner, playing with an invisible friend. She turns to me, her eyes wide and innocent, and says, ‘Mommy, the rain wants to know if you can sing with us again.’

The phone starts playing babybus on its own, and the song begins. I don’t know how much longer we’ll last. But the rain, it never really stops. Not in this house. Not ever.