The camera had moved again.

She sighed as she stared into her phone. She was tired. SO tired. Everyone is quick to tell you the horrible birth stories, and the magic of unconditional love. No one talks about the everyday fatigue, constant demands, unending attention. She felt that was the hardest part. The camera was a blessing at first – she could see her daughter from any room in the house, anywhere on the property, actually. She felt like she was finally getting her life back when the baby slept. But now, as it had done every day for the past week, the camera had drifted from her sleeping daughter and over to the small lamp in the corner they used as a nightlight.

She had reset her password. She had her husband check the wall mount. But still, every afternoon during nap time, the camera would drift off into the corner. She never saw it moving. One moment it was on her daughter, the next, on the lamp. “Fuck it,” she thought. A storm was moving in, and the overcast sky was begging for a nap. “I can still hear her,” she mused, pulling the covers around her.

She woke to thunder shaking the house, and something else. She listened for a cry, a wail, but heard nothing. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t fall back asleep. Checking her phone, she noticed her daughter’s room was dark. Very dark. Save for the flickering lamp in the corner. And then, movement. She could just make out the shape of her daughter crawling on the floor, towards the lamp. She had never done that before, never gotten out of her crib, and as she ran down the hallway staring down at her phone, a man’s voice stopped her cold.

“What a pretty girl! You are so pretty….I’d hang you like a lantern!”

The lamp flickered out.