The Baby’s Voice

When Myra Thom and her mother stepped from a corner bakery back onto the streets of Sikatuna, Philippines, Myra expected them to walk to the next store for their weekly shopping trip.

She didn’t expect a paranormal encounter to burn itself into her memory.

“The encounter happened quite a long time ago, back when I was 18,” Myra, a 38-year-old book editor and transcriptionist from Cainta, Rizal, Philippines, said. “But it stands out vividly in my mind, just like it happened a couple of hours ago.”

As the women walked out of the bakery and turned to their left, Myra heard a tiny voice.

“We both distinctly heard the voice of a small child calling my name,” Myra said. “My name was pronounced clearly, as if by an adult, but when my mother and I turned, we saw that it was a very small child, not even two years old, maybe just a little over a year old. He could not walk on his own yet.”

Two women walked toward them, each holding one of the child’s little hands.

“(They were) two seemingly identical women,” Myra said.

The boy, with chubby cheeks and curly light brown, almost blonde hair, was “rather unusual in this part of the world,” Myra said. “It wasn’t entirely Caucasian. You could say he was a mestizo, but at that time I remember being struck by his appearance for some reason.”

The women, dressed in identical blue jeans and white shirts, didn’t seem to notice Myra as they approached, but the child did.

“The little boy was looking straight at me with a knowing, absolutely unchildlike gaze,” Myra said. “It was as if he knew something about me that I did not know.”

The baby smiled faintly at Myra, never moving his gaze from her.

“The most unusual or strange thing about him was the expression on his face. It was definitely, absolutely not something you would expect to see on the face of a child that young,” Myra said. “It was a knowing look, almost malicious, and it was made even stranger by the fact that it was coming from a child that looked like the very depiction of the cherubim in the church.”

The women Myra calls the “nannies,” both appeared to be typical Filipino women, but she didn’t get a chance to see their faces. As the “nannies” walked past, chatting about something indiscernible, Myra’s eyes were fixed on the child.

“They both had their backs turned,” Myra said. “The baby was twisting its head and body all the way around just to stare at me, and it stayed that way all the way to the corner until they disappeared from our view.”

Although the encounter unnerved Myra, her mother’s account of the events reassured her the odd baby lead by the strange, identical “nannies,” had said her name – and something was wrong with the child.

“My mother corroborates this,” Myra said. “What really struck her about the child is that weird look on its face that was very unchildlike and the fact that it did not remove its gaze from me while we were within viewing distance of each other.”

This encounter has occupied Myra’s thoughts for 20 years. The identical “nannies,” the blonde, curly-haired baby not yet old enough to walk by himself, and her name spoken from this strange child’s lips.

“I do not know why I did not rush up to him and ask him how he knew my name,” Myra said. “I have always wondered at my reaction. My mother and I just stood there and watched the child and its ‘nannies’ walk away and round the bend. I guess we were both in shock.”

Although the encounter still baffles Myra, it does provide her with some comfort.

“I consider it a gift from the universe, for it gave me what I consider to be my first real proof that there is something out there beyond what we normally believe to be absolute reality,” she said. “But at the same time it has also always worried me. Was the child an angel, a demon, an alien, a ghost, an elemental? What was its purpose in calling my name?”

Copyright 2010 by Jason Offutt

Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”

Jason’s newest book on the paranormal, “Paranormal Missouri: Show Me Your Monsters,” is available at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.