The Anonymous Signal

Prologue

The baby pulled on a string and the toy’s small disk chimed. A lion roared and birds tweeted. A dog barked, and the disk stopped spinning. The baby giggled and pulled again.

The room was dark except for multicolored stars projected onto the ceiling. A window was cracked open, letting in crisp spring air. Across the room, a tired-looking woman rested, eyes half-closed, in a rocking chair, watching the child.

The baby grew bored with his toy, and turned to a mobile above. A panda-headed cord dangled there, and he could just reach it. Lights blinked and a tune played. The baby smiled.

He pulled himself up awkwardly, legs wobbly. With one hand the baby grasped the panda, with the other the thick string hanging from the disk. With jerky movements, he pulled back and forth on each, nearly stumbling as each mechanism activated in succession. A light shone on the child’s face, an obsessive gleam in his eyes as they darted between the two chiming toys.

Jenny smiled and suppressed a laugh. Even so late at night, when really all she wanted to do was crawl back into bed with her husband, watching her son play was magical. She’d suffer tomorrow for another interrupted night, but it was worth it. He was so happy!

She rubbed her eyes and sat up stiffly in the chair, getting a better view into the crib. Her expression clouded as the toys continued to chime, her son now sitting again on the mattress, bouncing lightly as the racket continued.

Shivering, Jenny draped a shawl around her shoulders and stood up, stumbled to the window and closed it. She turned to the crib, and yawned. “How you reaching them down there, pooh-bear?”

She stopped and stared as the baby pulled on the string to the animal disk again. The mechanism clicked and the heads began to rotate. At the same time, the mobile above lit up and played its little tune. The baby smiled and giggled.

“How did you do that?”

The string with the panda was wrapped around one of the animal heads of the disk, so as the disk advanced slightly with each pull, the tug on the mobile activated the second toy, the mechanisms now linked. There wasn’t any slack left in the mobile string, and she detached it from the lion head the string had looped behind.

“There,” she said. “You’ll break it, silly boy.”

The baby pulled on the animal disk string and it moved. He stared at the mobile expectantly. Nothing happened. He pulled on the string again. His lip quivered, and he began to cry.

“Shh. Sorry, pooh-bear, but you got it all tangled.” She smiled and cooed at him. He didn’t seem to notice her and continued to tug on the string in frustration. The woman sighed. “We got to get some sleep, sweetie. Mommy’s tired.”

She walked back to the rocking chair. “Mommy’s just going to close her eyes for a few minutes.”

She slumped down and exhaled deeply, the chair swallowing her whole like an ocean pulling her down into slumber.

And then the sounds again. Animal noises followed by the little tune. Dancing, dancing together in her mind one after the other. The patter of them landing on her like rain. Where had she heard them before? Oh, yes. But the string would break…

Jenny snapped awake and knuckled at her eyes. Sure enough, the baby had done it again. The string from the mobile was fixed to the other toy disk mounted on the side of the crib.

She got up slowly and walked to the bed, reaching in to untangle the devices again. The baby began to cry.

“Sweetie,” she began and then stopped, staring quizzically at the child. She reached up and slowly detached the string, letting the panda head drop downward back under the mobile. She watched her son closely. His complaining slowed and then he toddled up, reaching deliberately over to the panda head to pull it to the side, and yanked the string clumsily to the disk. After several failures, the string latched around one of the animal heads. The baby squealed and dropped back down. He pulled the string and the two toys danced in unison.

She repeated the process to the same effect.

Then she ran from the room.

“Look, Henry, just look!”

Jenny stood beside the crib, Henry, the boy’s father, yawning. He watched his son.

“See? He’s hooked them together. They both play when he pulls one string!”

“Okay, Jenny? So he tangled them up. We just undo it and it’ll be fine.”

“No. Don’t you get it? It’s on purpose.”

His forehead creased. “On purpose?”

“Yes! He likes it when they both play. He figured out a way to link them together.”

“At nine months? Jenny, come on. You need sleep.”

“No, listen! I undid it like three times. He keeps putting them back together.”

“Honey, how about I take over tonight and you get some rest?”

She pushed forward, the wild look in her eyes causing him to backpedal unconsciously. “Henry, do you know what this means? Do you?”

The man shook his head.

“It means he’s a genius, Henry.”

The father had reached the doorway, yet she pursued him, grasping the folds of his robe and pulling him toward her.

“Our baby is a genius!”