My 6-year-old son wandered off into the woods behind our house.

I thought he was in his room, playing with Legos. But when I checked on him twenty minutes later, he was gone.

After tearing apart the house looking for him, I noticed the back door was unlocked. No. He ran out and… someone took him.

I went catatonic. I called the police, my husband came home, and an all-out search began. When we looked at our security cam footage, it showed little Parker simply walking across the backyard… and wandering into the forest.

"Okay," I breathed. "So he's just lost. As long as we find him soon, everything will be okay."

And it was the happiest moment of my life when, three hours later–right after dusk–one of our neighbors in the search party found him.

"Parker," I sobbed as I held him. So happy that he’d come home safe.

But that evening, my happiness started to fade.

You see, my son Parker is neurodivergent. He’s high-functioning, but he still has a lot of quirks that aren’t normal for a kid his age. He’s obsessed with birds—he can identify everything from the northern mockingbird to the downy woodpecker, and would rather do that than hang out with other kids any day. Food textures bother him to no end, especially dairy, and even just watching me drink a cup of milk or eat yogurt makes him retch in disgust. He throws a fit if anything gets wet—even a drop of water on the tablecloth will send him spiraling.

So imagine my surprise when I spilled a glass of water at the dinner table—and Parker didn’t react at all.

Normally he’d be grabbing the tablecloth and running over to the dryer, screaming at me to get it dry. But instead he just sat there, oddly still, eating his chicken nuggets.

I guess he’s just too wiped out to care.

But as I mopped up the water, I couldn’t shake that horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.

***

Later that evening, I sat next to Parker’s racecar bed, perusing the bookshelf for a book. It was a hard choice—a favorite, like There’s a Wocket in Your Pocket? Or should I make him up one of my silly tales about Iris the Ibis?

I felt like this night wasn’t real. Like I was dreaming that Parker was here, safely tucked into bed, and that soon I was going to wake up to him being still missing, still gone. I swallowed that thought and focused on my beautiful boy’s face, fighting back the tears welling in my eyes.

“Do you want Dr. Seuss, or a story about Iris?” I asked him.

He tilted his head. “Dr. Seuss,” he said after a second.

“Okay.” I opened the book and began to read. He didn’t notice the tears rolling down my cheeks.

Soon it was over and I was turning out the lights. But as I turned on my heel, he called after me. “Can I have milk?”

I stopped in the doorway.

Parker hated milk. Another one of his ‘quirks.’ Even watching me drink it made him retch in disgust.

“Uh… sure,” I said, my heart pounding in my ears.

***

Something woke me in the middle of the night.

3:26 AM, read the time on my phone. Still 3 hours before I have to be up. I sighed, pulled the covers around me, and rolled over—

I froze.

The door was open.

And there, peeking around the corner—

Was Parker.

He was just standing there. Watching me sleep. Watching us sleep. And maybe it was my imagination… but in the darkness, it looked like he was smiling.

“Parker?”

He dipped out of view and began to run down the hallway. “Parker—wait!” I called out, jumping out of bed. “Parker!”

I ran out of the room just in time to see him disappear into his bedroom. But I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.

Because he’d been running down the hallway…

On all fours.

***

I woke up before Parker did. Unable to shake the jittery feeling in my stomach, I busied myself by mixing up some from-scratch pancake batter and dusting off our waffle maker. Parker’s safe. This calls for a special breakfast, I told myself.

Then why did I feel like something was so horribly wrong?

I poured the thick batter into the waffle maker. It sizzled on contact. As I closed the lid, though, my phone began to ring.

FRANKLIN POLICE, read the caller ID. Huh. “Hello?”

“Mrs. Zimmerman?” a deep voice asked.

“Yeah?”

“This is the Franklin Police Department,” the voice replied. “And I’m thrilled to tell you: we found your son.”

Every muscle in my body froze. “… What?”

“Someone apparently found him in the development on the other side of the woods, only an hour after he went missing. They’ve been trying to get in contact with us, but we only just got a hold of them now. He’s here at the police station. Would you like to talk to him?”

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. The phone was slippery in my sweat-covered hands. “I—I don’t understand,” I said finally. “We… a neighbor… found Parker… last night. But—but you’re saying… Parker’s with you at the station?”

Before he could reply, I heard a soft footstep behind me.

I whipped around to find Parker was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, his ice-blue eyes fixed on me.

“Mommy,” he said softly, “who’s on the phone?”