We hired her in early spring.
A quiet, respectful 24-year-old named Lidia, with kind eyes and a soft voice that melted the tantrums out of our hyperactive seven-year-old, Aiden. She didn’t say much, but she smiled often, always on time, always polite. We were just relieved to have someone who managed Aiden’s endless energy with grace.
My son adored her. Within days, he clung to her like a shadow. He laughed louder, played longer, and begged for more time with her. He began to draw her in his pictures — a stick figure with long hair beside a smiling boy. At first, it was sweet. Then it started to feel… excessive. If she missed a day, he’d cry himself to sleep.
“She’s the best ever,” he’d say. “She keeps the bad dreams away.”
I brushed it off as childish attachment.
Until yesterday.
It had been a normal morning. I’d asked Lidia to tidy Aiden’s room while I prepared breakfast. She agreed, as always, with that quiet nod. I noticed she’d left her bag on the dining room table — something she never did. It was unzipped.
I wasn’t snooping, I swear.
A small laminated photo had slipped halfway out of a side pocket. I recognized Aiden’s school portrait immediately — he wore that goofy sweater he’d begged to wear on picture day. Smiling bright. I smiled too, thinking maybe she kept it because he meant so much to her.
But then I turned it over.
Two words were written in fine black ink on the back. Tiny, almost like a whisper:
“He remembers.”
A chill swept over me.
What was that supposed to mean?
I stared at the words. I read them over and over. He remembers. Who? What?
Lidia came downstairs, humming. She stopped when she saw the photo in my hand.
Her eyes changed. Something flickered behind them — not fear, not guilt. Something… ancient.
“You shouldn’t have looked,” she said softly.
I stiffened. “Why do you have this? Why did you write this?”
She took a step closer. “It’s complicated.”
“Make it simple.”
She glanced toward the stairs, then back at me. Her voice dropped. “Sometimes children forget what they’re not supposed to see. But sometimes, one remembers.”
My grip tightened around the photo. “What are you talking about?”
Lidia looked tired then — not 24, but older. Worn. “Your son saw something. A long time ago. Before he was here. He shouldn’t remember. But he does.”
I stared, heart thudding. “This is insane.”
“He told me things. Names. Places I’ve been but never told him. He described a tree I buried something beneath — from when I was a child. A tree that doesn’t even exist anymore.” Her voice cracked. “He described the dream I had the night my brother died.”
My knees weakened.
“He doesn’t know what he’s saying,” I muttered. “Kids make things up.”
“Not this,” she whispered. “No child invents what they couldn’t possibly know. No child should know how it feels to drown in a well and then wake up screaming.”
I stared at her.
Then I remembered: Aiden’s nightmares. The ones that started just before we hired her.
He’d cry out in the night, shouting names we didn’t recognize — whispering about a cold forest, about water, about a girl with blood on her dress.
Lidia leaned in, eyes shining with something between fear and awe. “He remembers being someone else. Someone who saw me do something. Long ago.”
I took a step back, shaking my head. “You need to leave.”
“He’s not safe,” she said flatly. “If he keeps remembering…”
She trailed off.
“If he keeps remembering what?” I demanded.
Her face went blank. Her voice lost its softness. “Things like that don’t stay in one mind forever. Memory spreads. Like rot. You have no idea what kind of door he’s opened.”
I called the agency that afternoon. Fired her on the spot. She left without resistance.
Aiden cried for hours.
That night, he told me something in a whisper, eyes wide, almost like he was in a trance. He said:
“She used to be someone else too. A long time ago. I saw her in the water. She put a rock in her brother’s mouth so he’d sink.”
I asked him where he heard that.
He said, “I remember.”
I haven’t slept since.
I keep the laminated photo in a drawer, hidden beneath old bills.
Sometimes I take it out and look at the back.
He remembers.
I think… I’m starting to remember too.
And I don’t know what’s worse.