The Child Who Knows Too Much

It started out innocently enough, as most peculiar things do.

My son, Aarav, had just turned three. Like every toddler, he spent his days lost in imaginary friends, pretend adventures, and stories that no adult could fully understand. And at first, I didn’t think much of it, just cute, innocent, a sign of his growing imagination.

But then… he started saying things that no child should know.

One evening, I was folding laundry in the living room when Aarav suddenly stopped playing. He pointed to the corner and said clearly:

"Papa. the man says he wants to come in."

I laughed nervously. "Who, beta?"

"The man who fell down the stairs. He's very sad."

My blood ran cold. A few months ago, a neighbor in our building died due to a terrible accident- he fell down the stairs. I had told Aarav it was unfortunate, children usually forget such things fast, yet here he was, describing the man's feelings as though he had been present.

I brushed it off nervously. “He’s gone now, beta. Don’t worry about him.”

That night Aarav couldn’t sleep. He kept pointing at corners of the room, muttering to himself.

"She's standing there. She wants her doll back."

I asked him what he meant. He pointed to my late mother-in-law’s porcelain doll that had been packed away months ago. Aarav had never seen the doll before. We had never told him stories about her death or about her belongings. And yet, he knew that “she” wanted it back.

The doll sat neatly on the edge of Aarav's crib the next morning.

I tried to rationalize it-maybe he moved it himself in his sleep. But over the next few weeks, the stories became stranger and more precise.

He described how the neighbour's cat had jumped onto the roof the night he died. He went on to describe exactly how my grandfather's cane had broken when he fell—something none of us had ever told him. He pointed to corners of the house and named relatives who had died years ago—people Aarav had never met.

I was terrified, not of him, but of what he was saying.

One evening, I asked gently, “Aarav… how do you know all this?”

He looked up at me with his big innocent eyes and said simply:

"Because they talk to me. They're lonely."

I couldn't sleep that night, nor the nights afterwards. Sometimes I hear him in his sleep, mumbling, whispering names, giving warnings, and narrating fragments of stories that make my skin crawl. And every morning, he remembers them perfectly, repeating exactly what he said in his sleep.

One night, I woke to see him standing in the middle of his room, staring at the wall.

"Papa… the lady is here. She's very sad. She wants you to fix the chair."

My mother-in-law's old rocking chair was still in storage; it had broken months ago, and I hadn't even thought about getting it repaired. Yet Aarav insisted she wanted it fixed.

The strangest part of all was his tone. Calm. Certain. Not a child playing at being spooky.

Over time, I started noticing little weird things in the house: shadows in the corners, objects sometimes rearranged slightly, and a general feeling of being watched-especially when Aarav would be silent. It was as if the spirits he saw were interacting with the world through him.

One morning, I found him on his knees beside the crib, tracing lines in the dust on the floor. He was muttering names I didn't know. I asked him what it was, and he said, "It's their map. They want to go home."

I started keeping a journal of everything he said. And shockingly, nearly every detail matched real events-sometimes decades-old stories, family history, or neighborhood facts we had never told him.

It became too much. I realized that I could not just consider him a child with an active imagination anymore.

He knew things… things that no one should know.

Some nights, I wonder about spirits guiding him. Are they harmless? Are they warning us? Or are they using him for something I can't understand? I try not to show any fear, but the truth is, I'm terrified. Aarav does not look scared at all, but almost happy as if he had a purpose I couldn't understand. But I, as his parent, am left to ponder the impossible truth: My three-year-old knows things that only the dead could tell him. And each day, I wonder—what is he going to tell us next?