A story about fear
Shivvy and the Dark at the Top of the Stairs
The landing light has gone out and Shivvy has to get to bed. A story about being scared, and what bravery actually feels like from the inside.
3 minutes to read aloud · 😰 Anxious
Watch it read aloud · 3 min
The landing light had gone out, and Shivvy's bedroom was at the top of the stairs.
Shivvy stood at the bottom and looked up into the dark, and the dark looked back, the way it does.
Shivvy knows things other fluffs do not. Shivvy notices the creak before anybody else hears it. Shivvy can tell when a shadow has moved. This is useful, most of the time. It is not useful at all at half past seven on a winter evening with a landing light that will not come on.
"I can't," said Shivvy.
Pinky came and stood beside her. Not in front. Beside.
"Would a paw help?"
Shivvy took it and held on very tightly.
"Now," said Pinky. "Name me one thing that makes you feel safe."
Shivvy thought. It was hard to think with a heart going that fast.
"My blanket," Shivvy said. "The one with the hole in."
"Where is it?"
"On my bed." Shivvy swallowed. "At the top of the stairs."
"Then that," said Pinky, "is what is at the top of the stairs. Not the dark. Your blanket, in the dark."
They went up together. One step. Then another one. Shivvy counted them, and squeezed Pinky's paw on every third one, and somewhere around step seven noticed something very strange indeed.
Shivvy was still frightened. Absolutely, completely frightened, heart hammering, ears back.
And Shivvy was also going up the stairs.
Both at once. Shivvy had always assumed you had to stop being scared first, and then you were allowed to move. It turned out you did not. It turned out you could take the scared with you.
At the top, the blanket was exactly where Shivvy had left it, being a blanket, in the dark.
Shivvy got into bed and held Pinky's paw until the breathing slowed down.
"Is anybody there?" Shivvy asked, the way Shivvy always does.
"Yes," said Pinky. "Always."
Of all the fluffs in Candyfloss Land, Shivvy is the bravest. Not because Shivvy is never afraid. Because Shivvy is afraid, and goes anyway.
