Watching our son playing in the back garden during the summer months brought us so much joy. The garden came with a fairy fort that I had spent my childhood playing around in, but for some reason, Mary hated Luke going near it.

It was a lovely summers day, and I was too distracted by the aromatic smell of Mary Roses to notice Luke disappearing into the dench, overgrown fort. As I savoured the smell of our beautiful garden, an ear-piercing scream came from inside the fort. I fought my way through thick brambles and hedging only to find Luke sitting there smiling at me.

I brought him back to the house where his mother was waiting to comfort him. When she went to kiss him on his rosy cheeks, she suddenly went cold and backed away from him. “That’s not my son,” she cried.

Something was different about him. His blue eyes had darkened to an obsidian black. A loud screeching sound replaced the words that came from his mouth. Mary spent the next few days crying for her lost son. I tried reassuring her that Luke was our precious boy, but nothing I said would make her think otherwise.

As the weeks passed, Mary began making an effort with Luke. Everything seemed to be going back to normal until I heard Mary scream for me from our son’s bedroom. I ran to the room to find Mary crying and pointing at the ceiling. “I walked in to check on him, and he was crawling across the ceiling, ” she said as the words struggled to leave her mouth.

The antidepressants the doctor prescribed seemed to be working, and over time we slowly became a family again.

Mary was bathing Luke upstairs as I peeled carrots in the kitchen. A strange noise outside the window caught my attention. I looked out to find a group of red, glowing eyes peering out from the darkness of the fort. A sudden feeling of dread washed over me and I ran upstairs and kicked the bathroom door. “He’s not my boy,” she cried as she held Luke’s head under the water.

I grabbed her and threw her across the room before wrapping my arms around our terrified son.

My eyes turned obsidian black as I left out a gut-wrenching screech. I went to the window and left out another loud screech as my brothers and sisters retreated to the fort. Mary coward in the corner as I gave her a menacing smile,

“My mother didn’t want me either, but she soon learned to love me. In the same way, you will learn to love your son.