The Reverse Lullaby

We had been living in the old farmhouse for eight years, ever since we inherited it from my husband’s aunt. The place was drafty and creaked with every gust of wind, but we had grown accustomed to its quirks. At first, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, just the usual settling noises and the occasional scamper of field mice in the walls. But as time passed, I started to notice small, unsettling things: a door that would creak open on its own, a cold spot in the hallway that never warmed, and a lingering smell of rot in the pantry despite our best efforts to clean it. I dismissed these as the pains of an old house, until one afternoon in early autumn when I was overcome by a sudden, inexplicable exhaustion.

I decided to lie down in the spare bedroom, the one we rarely used because it always felt darker and colder than the rest. I pulled the heavy curtains closed and collapsed onto the musty mattress, my eyes heavy. Just as I was drifting off, a wave of dread washed over me, so intense it felt like a physical weight pressing down on my chest. My heart raced, and I instinctively began to hum a hymn my mother used to sing to me, ‘Amazing Grace.’ As I hummed, a sound emerged from the corner of the room—a high-pitched, wailing noise that seemed to be a baby’s cry played in reverse, distorted and unnatural. My breath caught in my throat, and then I felt a rush of air, as if something swooped directly over my head and out the window, leaving the room suddenly silent and peaceful. I immediately fell asleep and didn’t wake until morning, feeling strangely rested but haunted by that sound.

A few weeks later, I was driving out of our gravel driveway to go to the market. It was a misty morning, and the fields on either side of the long drive were barely visible. As I reached the end, I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw a small figure standing at the back corner of the house, near the old oak tree. I slammed on the brakes and turned around, but there was nothing there. I rubbed my eyes, thinking it was just a trick of the fog. But then, just as I was about to pull away, I saw her again: a little girl in a tattered white dress, her face pale, and she was smiling at me. A wide, unnatural smile that stretched too far. I felt a chill run down my spine and quickly drove away, not daring to look back.

From that day on, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched. My husband, Mark, would often find me staring out the kitchen window, searching the yard. He thought I was being paranoid. But then, odd incidents began to escalate. One evening, I heard light footsteps in the hallway outside our bedroom, and when I opened the door, there was no one there. Another time, I found a child’s handprint in the dust on the attic stairs. I started having nightmares, dark and suffocating, where I would hear that same reversed cry and see the little girl standing at the foot of my bed, her smile never faltering.

Things came to a head one stormy night. Mark was away on a business trip, and the wind was howling, rattling the old windows. I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to make some tea in the kitchen. As I waited for the kettle to boil, I heard a tapping sound coming from the pantry. I opened the door slowly, and there, in the dim light, stood the little girl. She was just a few feet away, and her eyes were pitch black. She tilted her head and mouthed the words, ‘Let me play.’ I screamed and slammed the door shut, leaning against it, my heart pounding. But then I felt a cold hand on my shoulder. I spun around, and she was right there in front of me, her smile now gone, replaced by a look of pure malevolence. She raised a small, pale hand and pointed at me, and from her mouth came that horrible reversed cry.

I ran to the phone and called my husband, but the line was dead. I grabbed my keys and ran to the car, but as I opened the door, I saw her standing in the backseat, grinning. I backed away, stumbling, and ran out into the storm, the rain pelting my face. I ran toward the neighbor’s house, but when I reached the driveway, I looked back. The little girl was standing at the front door of the farmhouse, watching me, and then she slowly faded into nothing, leaving only the empty porch. I stood there, soaked and shivering, until Mark arrived home the next day. We never spoke about the incident, but we sold the house a month later, and we never looked back. To this day, I still hear that sound sometimes, just before I fall asleep, a faint, backwards cry, as if she followed me.