The Turnip Man

“What are you making?” I ask my child.

“It’s The Turnip Man,” she says, holding up her needlework for my inspection.

I say nothing. I have seen The Turnip Man too many times in my dreams of late, his rooty fingers reaching for me.

“He lives underground,” she tells me. Her voice is strangely neutral, as though this information is of great indifference to her.

“Have you seen him?” I ask, more afraid of the answer than I care to admit.

“I see him all the time,” she says, as though this is perfectly normal. “Don’t you see him?”

“Only in dreams.”

“He wants you to see him, but you have to let him in through your eyes,” she explains.

I do not want to let him in.

“He is cross with you,” my child continues.

“What must I do?” I ask in a frightened whisper.

My child considers this question carefully. Almost as though she is listening for the answer. I have never heard The Turnip Man speak. When he opens his mouth in my nightmares, I hear only the sound of my own screaming.

“He wants you to feed him,” she says. Then she smiles up at me. Her eyes are black holes, her skin the leathery texture of dried turnip skin. Her mouth opens slowly, revealing the rows of tiny, sharp teeth.

I wake up screaming, to find my child standing over the bed, holding a piece of cloth depicting The Turnip Man.

I remember that I do not have a child.

(Text by Nimue Brown, Turnip Man image and concept by Allison Kotzig.)

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