There was nothing particularly out-of-the ordinary on the Sunday Mary had chosen to go to the park with her children. The sky was grey, threatening to rain despite the low sun. The autumn breeze rustled the orange and red leaves on the trees that lined the streets. Cars came and went, commuters hurrying about their day.

Poor Mary couldn’t have known that on that average-looking day in that average-looking park, that things thereafter would never be quite the same for her and her family.

Mary stopped the pram in front of a park bench and carefully moved the pink spotted blanket to cover her sleeping daughter. She marvelled at her sweet round face sleeping so peacefully and smiled with a warmth that spread from her heart. She looked up at her son who had been trailing behind.

‘Eddie,’ she said, ‘are you excited to go off and play?’ She motioned to the playground in front of them. ‘I’ll be right here if you need me.’

Little Edward looked sullenly at the playground and gazed at the handful of other children who were either busy on the climbing frame or squealing with delight down the three slides.

‘Why did we have to come here?’ He wailed, kicking at a stone on the ground and scuffing his feet so hard that small plumes of dust rose into the air. He picked up a grey rock and started carving into the park bench. Mary frowned.

‘Well…’ she paused for a moment, sat down on the park bench and reached into her bag for her mobile phone. ‘It’s good to go outside and get some fresh air and - I really needed it too,’ she said lightly. ‘And Bella needs her sleep so we’ve got to let her sleep, haven’t we?’ She didn’t expect him to answer and he didn’t. The sullen expression hadn’t left his face. She could feel his resentment.

Five going on fifteen, Mary thought to herself, wincing inwardly. She sat down while Eddie stood staring at his baby sister. He grabbed the pram handle and started to shake the pram with vigorous might.

‘Eddie!’ She hissed, seizing his arms. ‘Stop that! What do you think you’re doing? Why would you do that?’ Alarm rose within her but baby Bella had only stirred a little.

He looked at her then, unblinking. Silent. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking but his eyes conveyed no emotion. He shrugged.

‘Don’t ever do that again,’ she reprimanded him, ‘that was not a good thing to do and you should be feeling sorry for what you did.’ His face conveyed no expression. She bit her lip to stop herself letting out a scream of frustration.

‘But mummy, when she’s asleep she looks dead,’ Eddie protested.

Mary gritted her teeth, her frown furrowed tightly. ‘What a strange thing to say,’ she exclaimed. ‘Don’t ever say that again, Eddie. It’s not a nice thing to say.’

He shrugged his shoulders slightly in response. ‘But you want her alive don’t you?’

She blinked, taken aback and stared at him. She could feel her face was contorted in a scowl that clearly showed her disapproval.

‘Go,’ she commanded, at a loss for what else to say. Truth be told, she felt a little unnverved. She jerked her chin in the direction of the playground, then took a deep breath in a bid to exhale her frustration. She took out her mobile phone. Eddie hadn’t moved. He was watching her silently.

‘Go!’ He took that as his cue and meambled off.

Mary shook her head, exasperated.

The uneasy feeling lifted when her phone blinked with so many notifications that she instead started to feel overwhelmed. She squinted at the striking glare that fell upon the screen from the low autumn sun. She hadn’t replied to her best friend Katie in at least a week.

Glancing up, her eyes quickly found her son. He had made his way to the swings and was sat next to another little boy with hair that matched the orange hue of the October leaves. The little boy couldn’t have been more than four years old. It was good to see Eddie being independent and socialising.

Her thumb flicked up on the screen absently.

Doomscrolling, she thought, berating herself for not yet getting to the dozens of messages and notifications while chuckling at another relatable motherhood comedy post. Every now and then she glanced up to check her son’s whereabouts.

Swinging as high as he could go. She noted there was no look of exhilaration like the little boy on the swing next to him; in fact quite the opposite. Her son’s eyes were devoid of any joy. She noticed he was still holding the grey rock he had been carving with earlier.

Moody boy, she thought to herself.

Another meme. Some helpful parenting tutorial post about how to handle your child who won’t eat.

Swinging slowly now, legs resting and coming to a stop.

Another meme. Another relatable parenting post.

Her thumb flicked up faster as she scrolled idly and glanced up again.

Eddie was helping the little boy to swing and the little boy was giggling away. Mary felt pleased to see her son doing something kind and making a new friend. She and Jack had been a little concerned after his recent parents evening when they found he didn’t have a whole lot of friends in school and rarely spoke in class. In fact, he didn’t speak to anyone, not even the teacher. Just floated around the school like he was a little ghost who didn’t want to be there.

‘Oh he’s probably just an introverted lad,’ Jack had said when Mary brought up the subject one night. ‘It’s probably tough for me an’ you, us being extroverted an’ that. Y’know. With loads of friends. Don’t worry love, he will grow out of it an’ find his own way.’ Mary thought he was probably right and perhaps she was worrying too much. She watched Eddie pushing the boy on the swing with interest. It was good to see him interacting with another child although she noticed he still had that same blank expression.

The playground had emptied out a bit now. There was a man sat on the park bench opposite her in a dark green hoodie, leaning forward with his forearms on his legs scrolling avidly on his phone. Judging by the matching orange hue of his hair colour she assumed he was the father of the little boy whom Eddie was playing with.

With renewed energy, she summoned the will to check the notifications blaring at her.

And that’s when she saw it.

A small movement. The little boy flying through the air.

He landed with a thick thud a few metres away from the swings. A pause. Was he..?

Mary jolted up, pram in tow and rushed over to the little boy. The man who she had assumed was his father, was already there. The boy broke the silence and started screaming and crying in pain. He was laying face down on the ground, he hadn’t gotten up and Mary could see why. His arm was at an odd angle. His father looked panicked and helpless and kept muttering and mumbling to his son. He went to pick his son up, to give him a reassuring cuddle.

‘No- don’t!’ Mary urged, ‘Leave him. I think he’s broken something. I’ll call an ambulance.’

Her thumb hit 999. As her call went though and she relayed the injury details and their location to the emergency operator, her eyes found the blood. She hadn’t noticed it before. A small thin horizontal stain on the lower back of the boy’s blue t-shirt, growing wider by the minute.

‘He’s bleeding,’ she said to the operator as much to herself as to those around her. ‘On his back.’

Her eyes darted in the opposite direction and settled on a thin sharp rock.

The hand holding it belonged to her son.

She looked up at him, the phone still to her ear. He stood rooted to the spot behind the swing the little boy had flown from, still with traces of his typical sullen expression but with his interest now piqued. She saw him observing the little boy and his injuries. It dawned on her that he was absorbing the scene; committing every single detail to memory.

Mary glanced from her son, to the little boy and back again.

She relayed to herself what she had witnessed, her mind racing.

It had only taken a split second, yet she knew. She had seen everything.

The cold fingers of nausea began to grip her insides and grew tighter as she knew for certain what her son had done. She felt like she was going to be sick.

He noticed her then; noticed that he too was being observed. As she looked upon her son and he looked back at her, she saw a small smile that tugged at the edges of her son’s lips. His eyes were pinned on hers when he flashed her a wide grin and gave her a thumbs up.

Horrified, Mary could only stare at her son. She could not hear for the roaring in her ears.

As she marched over to Eddie, she was dimly aware of the rush of spectators and passer-bys who had come to crowd around the little boy and of the accusing eyes that followed her back as she made her way over to her son. She grabbed the wrist holding the grey rock.

Blood. There was blood on the edge of it and on the sharpest point.

‘What did you do?’ Her voice screeched. She didn’t think she could contain herself. The tears were prickling at the corners of her eyes. Crouching down, her other hand reached for his shoulder. ‘What did you just do?’ She repeated, shaking him slightly as though to will the answer out of him as her hysteria grew.

Her son stood motionless, not taking his eyes off the little boy. His eyes drifted to hers and he smiled a smile she had never seen before. A chill ran over her arms, one that had nothing to do with the cool autumnal breeze that whipped gently around the park.

‘He wanted to play, mummy,’ he said. ‘I told him to stay still and I told him he could fly like a superhero.’

His voice the tone of innocence. His little boy voice. Mary could only look at him then, speechless, her mouth a silent ‘O’ shape as she tried to process what was happening.

‘It was a really good game, mummy. I like making new friends.’

His empty eyes flashed with something dark,a sickening shadow then fell across his young face.

Shock froze Mary in its vice-like grip. It began to reverberate through her entire body.

For the first time she didn’t feel love for her son.

All she felt was fear.