The Nameless

I can feel my bun creeping down the back of my sweaty neck. It distracts me just enough for me to bump the box I’m carrying into the frame of Max's door. It's fine. This one looks big, but it only has stuffed animals and a few blankets inside.

“Mom, look! Our new place comes with a cat!”

I balance the stuffy box on top of the storybook box and join my six-year-old son beside his closet. The creature inside resembles a cat, mostly. The size, shape, and shiny black coat all give a housecat-adjacent impression. It stands upright, though. I'm tempted to think it had “human eyes,” but I’ve never seen a human with such large pupils or such faint yellow irises.

I have way too much going on right now to troubleshoot a supernatural apparition, too. “How unusual,” I say, as casually as I can.

Max asks, “Can we keep him?”

“I’m really not sure,” I hedge. “Give me a moment alone with him, okay? You can go find your water bottle. I think it’s in the living room.”

“I am thirsty,” Max agrees. He steps out. I can hear him making sword-slashing and explosion sound effects as he plays his way down the stairs. His life is almost constant make-believe.

“Do you know what I am?”

It’s a demon, or a little eldritch horror, or maybe one of those old-fashioned toothy fae who drag children to bloody ends. I respond with, “Do you know what I am?”

It blinks with confusion.

I step closer to it, then kneel. I still tower over it, but now our faces are much closer. “I don’t care what you are. I have zero curiosity about your true name or whatever story you have to spin about your history. I am a very busy mom. I get shit done. And if you do or say one thing that hurts my kid, or even makes him uncomfortable, I will banish you so hard your head will break the 360-degree spin speed record.”

It bares its fangs—too many fangs—in indignation. “You come into my home and—”

I interrupt with, “My home. I’m renting this place by human law and claiming it with power you can’t win against. You may remain here if, and only if, you intend no harm. Do you understand?”

It nods.

I insist, “Do you understand?”

“I understand,” it says out loud.

I continue unpacking.

I’m hanging up clothes in my own new closet when Max knocks politely on the open door.

“What’s up, Sweet Pea?”

“Mom, look! 7|-|3|\|@|\/|3¿355 looks just like me now!”

The word or name Max uses slips out of my mind so fluidly, it’s almost like it had never been spoken aloud. In any case, I turn and see two Maxes in my door. My Max is very obviously my Max. The other one looks identical to him, from the brown curls down to the Pokémon socks.

The only visual difference are his eyes: huge black pools rimmed with faint yellow.

Discomfort twists in my throat and clenches my shoulders. This thing looks almost exactly like Max. I’m actually relieved that I can feel its otherness beyond my lying eyes.

“What have you two been getting up to?” I ask. “Is your new friend helping you unpack?”

“We’ve been playing lots,” Max declares with a grin.

“All right.” I check my watch. It has an hour hand, a minute hand, and shapes around the rim. “We’re coming up on lunch time. Max, |\|a|\/|3¿3ss, do you want PB&J or tuna sandwiches?”

“Tuna!” the boys chorus.

The kitchen is fully unpacked, but I still have to navigate between stacks of cardboard boxes.

I stick to an almost-strict vegan diet. I don’t make a fuss when someone offers me cookies that they made with eggs and butter, but I don’t keep animal products in my pantry. I open my cupboard and find it full of canned meaty stews, beef chili, and all sorts of the foods I was raised on.

I open two cans of tuna. I mix them with mayonnaise, salt, and pepper. The bread is my preferred whole grain white. I set up two identical plates with tuna sandwiches, baby carrots, and Oreos.

“Boys! Lunch is ready!”

My son and his best friend eat together.

That night, I tuck my twin boys into their bed. They’re growing so fast. I really should get them separate beds. Hopefully, their dad won’t fight me too hard. My lawyer says that he doesn’t expect I’ll have to pay alimony, but a drawn-out legal battle could keep us in this too-small two-bedroom hole for too long.

I settle in to my own bed, comfortable, alone. I have my own space now. It feels like power.

In the morning, there is only one boy.

He has huge black pupils and faint yellow irises.

I grab him by the shoulders. “Where is he?” I demand. “Where is Max?”

Confusion and fear flood his face. “Mom? I’m right here.”

“You can’t fool me,” I snarl. “You aren’t my son. You’re T|-|e |\|a|\/|eless. Where is he?”

“My name is Max,” he cries. It. It cries. It is not him.

I grab him roughly by the wrist and drag him from room to room in this tiny, temporary home. “Max? Sweet Pea, where are you? Max!”

It’s Max’s voice that whimpers and begs, “I’m right here, Mom. You’re scaring me. Can’t you see me? Mom! Please!” It’s Max’s little wrist between my fingers, and his other little hand scrabbling at mine. “Mommy. I’m right here. You’re hurting me. Please.”

It’s Max.

It isn’t Max. Those eyes are all wrong. The way it feels is wrong.

“Is he somewhere inside you?” I ask. “Or did you take him somewhere.”

“I don’t understand,” the boy whimpers. The thing. The thing whimpers. It is not a boy. It is not Max.

I drag it outside.

This is not the suburban dead end I saw when I first toured the apartment.

I drag the thing across a creaking porch that is not attached to my real new apartment and onto a street that isn’t paved. There are no other houses in sight, just trees with bare branches. A black carriage speeds towards us, drawn by four creatures that could easily be mistaken for horses, driven by a headless masculine body.

Max, no not Max, T|-|e |\|ameless yelps with fear as the carriage nearly hits us. I leap back to avoid it, then check that my hostage is unharmed.

Max trembles.

Oh, no. Please, no. I really am losing my mind. I’m going to make headlines for subjecting my son to my psychosis. Max will live with his emotionally abusive father and I’ll be lucky if I get every other weekend… after I’m out of inpatient care…

No. Those eyes. This is not Max. It is The Nameless.

I laugh.

“Mom?” The Nameless asks in Max’s voice.

“If you’re called The Nameless, you aren’t nameless. ‘The Nameless’ is, in this usage, a name.”

The boy/not-boy falls silent. Tears slip from his wide eyes. He looks so much like my son that I want to comfort him.

“No.” I repeat it as firmly as I can. “No. You can’t replace Max. I was gaslit for a longer time by a cleverer beast than you. I’m divorcing him. I’ll do worse than that to save my son. Where is he?”

The not-boy stares at the rocky ground with Max’s face. “He’s… down. He was dragged into 7|-|3 P17. They said you were my mom now.”

“Bring him back,” I demand.

“I don’t know how.”

“Then we’re going into ‘the pit’ to get him.”

I stomp on the ground. Nothing happens. I refuse to let nothing happen. I stomp on the ground and it splits open.

The Nameless screams. “I can’t go back. I can’t go back.”

I keep hold of his wrist. I jump, dragging the not-boy down with me.

I wake with little hands pressing against my back. I’m face-down on a carpet.

Max’s voice says, “Mommy? Mommy, wake up!”

I push myself from lying to sitting. A boy climbs eagerly into my lap. He stares at me with scared, confused eyes. Brown eyes. Max’s eyes.

“Mom, why did you sleep on the floor?”

It’s an excellent question.

I have no idea.

I say, “I must have been too tired to go all the way to my room.”

“You could have slept in my bed with me,” Max says sensibly.

“I should have thought of that,” I agree. “Are you hungry, Sweet Pea?”

“Yes! Breakfast time!”