The Feather Pillow

Alicia was young, blonde and shy. She married Jordán in April. Jordán was tall and serious. He loved her very much, but he never showed it. He could walk beside her for an hour without a word. Alicia loved him, but sometimes she looked at his cold face and she felt a little afraid.

They lived in a big white house. Everything was marble: the courtyard, the columns, the statues. The walls were high and white and shining. When you walked from one room to another, your steps echoed through the whole house. It felt like a palace — a cold, empty palace.

Alicia lived all autumn in this house. She tried not to think. She waited all day for her husband to come home.

She started to lose weight. She had a small flu that never went away. She looked thinner and thinner. One afternoon she went out into the garden on Jordán's arm. Suddenly he touched her hair, very gently — and Alicia started to cry. She cried and cried, with her arms round his neck, for a long time.

That was the last day Alicia got out of bed.

The next morning Alicia fainted. The doctor came. "I don't understand," he said quietly to Jordán at the door. "She is very weak, and I don't know why. Call me if she is the same tomorrow."

The next day she was worse. More doctors came. They said: "She is losing blood. But we cannot see where." Alicia lay in bed all day with the lights on. The house was completely silent. Jordán walked up and down the living room, hour after hour, and never spoke.

Then Alicia began to see things. She lay with her eyes wide open and looked at the carpet next to the bed. One night she screamed: "Jordán! Jordán!" He ran in — and when she saw him, she screamed again, in horror. "It's me, Alicia! It's me!" She looked at him, looked at the carpet, looked at him again. Then she smiled and held his hand.

She often saw a strange animal on the carpet, like a monkey, with its fingers on the floor and its eyes on her.

The doctors came again. They took her pulse. They looked at each other. "It's serious," her doctor said. "There is very little we can do."

Every night Alicia got worse. Every morning she woke up more pale, more weak. In the daytime she was a little better; at night, her life went out of her. She felt as if a million kilos were pressing her into the bed. She could not move her head. She did not want anybody to touch the bed — not even the pillow.

For two days she talked in her sleep, very quietly. Then she died.

The servant came to take the sheets off the bed. She looked at the pillow. "Sir," she said to Jordán, "there are marks on the pillow. They look like blood." Jordán looked. There were small dark spots, on both sides of the place where Alicia's head had been. "They look like bites," said the servant. "Lift it up to the light," said Jordán.

The servant lifted the pillow — and dropped it at once. She was white and shaking. "What is it?" said Jordán. "It's very heavy," she said.

Jordán picked it up. It was very, very heavy. They took it to the dining room, and Jordán cut it open with a knife. Feathers flew into the air. The servant screamed. At the bottom of the pillow, among the feathers, there was a monster: a fat, wet, hairy ball with slow-moving legs. It was so full that you could hardly see its mouth.

Every night, while Alicia slept, it had put its mouth to her head and sucked her blood. The bite was so small that nobody could see it. In five nights, it had emptied her.

These animals live on birds. Usually they are very small. But sometimes, in the right conditions, they grow very big. Human blood is very good for them — and they are sometimes found in feather pillows.