But Olivia was unharmed and in one piece.
I let myself breathe. Mark flipped on the lights.
Olivia was standing in the center of her bed, clutching Big Dog to her chest, her little face red and contorted as she screamed. She was so hysterical, she didn’t even seem to see us. And for half a second, I barely recognized her. It was as if a wild, feral child had slipped into my daughter’s bed, put on herNutcrackerpajamas. Her eyes looked huge, glazed with tears. Her covers and stuffed animals were off the bed on the floor.
“Olivia? What is it?” Mark asked. “What’s wrong?”
She continued to scream. It was as if she were in some other place, the land of fear, and couldn’t hear us.
A bad nightmare? A sleep terror?
What were you supposed to do for a sleep terror? Wake the child? Not wake her? I tried to remember and couldn’t.
“Look at me, Liv,” Mark said, his voice firm and calm. He walked toward her. She turned to him. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Olivia pointed to the floor, where some of the stuffed animals we so carefully tucked in around her each night had fallen off the bed and lay in a pile. There was Freddy the pink teddy bear, Trixie the brown rabbit, Hedgie the hedgehog, Samuel the skunk, and others beneath.
But something was wrong.
One of them was moving.
“Mark!” I yelled, jumping back and pointing.
“The Rat King!” Olivia sobbed.
It was not (as far as I could tell anyway) the King of the Rats, but an actual common gray rat with a long naked tail and glistening coal-black eyes. It emerged from under the pile of cute plush animals, then turned and crawled back into the heap. It looked so grotesque there, slithering over the face of Olivia’s beloved pink bear.
I’d caught glimpses of rats before but had never seen one this close. I was surprised by its size. The head and body must have been about ten inches, and its tail added another good six inches. It was so much larger than the mice we sometimes caught in the kitchen or the pantry, chewing holes in boxes of saltine crackers and bags of maple granola.
Olivia had forbidden us to harm the mice (and Mark was a firm believer in not killing any living thing), so we had a little metal catch-and-release trap. We’d capture a mouse, bring it out to the field behind the barn, and let it go. I was convinced it was the same mouse showing up again and again. That once it had tasted the organic Vermont maple granola we kept in our pantry, there was no keeping it away.
The creature that was now slinking over Olivia’s stuffed animals would not have fit in the little metal mousetrap.
Its fur was a dark gray, nearly black, and shiny as an oil slick. It moved like oil too—viscous and flowing, its body seemingly more liquid than solid.
“Get me something to catch it with!” Mark ordered, staring down at the rat. “Stay up on the bed, Liv.” Olivia had stopped her ungodly screaming, although she was still crying, her whole body heaving with sobs.
Looking desperately around the room, I spotted the pink plastic wastepaper basket under Olivia’s desk, dumped the crumpled papers it contained out on the floor, and passed the solid plastic bin to Mark. I noticed Izzy was standing in the doorway with her camera in front of her, recording. How long had she been there?
Mark held the pink bin over the rat, moving it as the rat moved. Then, in one quick motion, he flung it down, trapping the rat beneath it.
“Nice, Dad!” Izzy cheered.
“I need something to cover the top,” he said. “A board or thick cardboard or something.”
Catching sight of the oversized hardcover picture book ofThe Nutcrackeron Olivia’s desk, I grabbed it and brought it over. The image on the cover showed Clara watching while the Nutcracker and the Rat King had swords drawn on each other. The Rat King had glowing red eyes, a red cape, and a spiky gold crown.
“I’m going to gently lift the edge, you slide the book under,” he said. I got down and followed his instructions, keeping my fingers away from the edge as he lifted and I carefully slid the book beneath, imagining a vicious creature with long yellow teeth that probably carried rabies or some terrible plague.
“Excellent,” he said. “We got him.” He reached down and held the book in place while he gently turned the pink wastepaper basket right side up. We could hear the rat scrabbling frantically inside, flinging its heavy body at the slick sides of the trash can.
Olivia let out a little sob. I went to her, knelt on the unmade bed, and wrapped my arms around her. She sank down and clung tightly to me, her little body finally starting to relax.
“It’s okay,” I whispered to her. “Daddy got him.”
“I’ve gotta ask the obvious question here: How did a rat get into Olivia’s room?” Izzy asked, still holding the camera, filming.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Rats are good at fitting through little spaces. It’s cold outside and our house is nice and warm.”
