The Attic Choir

I’d been living with my friend Marcus for six months when I learned why he never went into the attic. The house was an old Victorian, creaky and drafty, but I’d grown used to its groans. Marcus had told me the place was haunted, but in a friendly way – the ghost of a little girl who sang from the nursery at night, or so he said. I’d heard it myself a few times, a soft lullaby that made the hair on my arms stand up, but I’d convinced myself it was just the wind or the house settling.

Then one night, I woke to a sound I’d never heard before: a choir, many voices intertwined in a discordant hymn, muffled, as if coming from behind a wall. I sat up in bed, my heart pounding. The bedroom was bathed in moonlight, and I could just make out Marcus’s silhouette in his bed across the room, a dark lump under the covers. ‘Marcus?’ I whispered. He didn’t stir. The singing grew louder, closer. I saw movement at the foot of my bed – a pair of bare feet, pale and still, just like before, but this time they were attached to legs that vanished into shadow.

I scrambled for the lamp, but my hand knocked it to the floor with a crash. The singing stopped. In the sudden silence, I heard the floorboards in the hallway creak, as if something heavy was dragging itself toward the attic door. A cold draft seeped through the room, and I pulled the covers up to my chin, my eyes fixed on the doorway. A figure stood there, backlit by the dim hall light – a woman in a tattered white dress, her head tilted at an unnatural angle. She pointed a long, skeletal finger at the ceiling, toward the attic.

I shook Marcus awake, but he just groaned and rolled over, muttering, ‘Leave it alone, Derek. Just don’t listen.’ I wanted to ask him what he meant, but the singing started again, more frantic, and I clamped my hands over my ears. Through the noise, I heard his voice, clear and calm, as if from beside me: ‘They’re not ghosts. They’re trapped.’

I stumbled out of bed and into the hallway. The attic door was ajar, a sliver of darkness that seemed to pulse. Against my better judgment, I pulled it open and climbed the creaking stairs. The singing grew into a cacophony, and as I reached the top, I saw them – not ghosts, but people, huddled in the corners, their mouths open in song but their eyes wide and pleading. They were all dressed in old-fashioned clothes, and they had no reflections in the single bare bulb that swung overhead. But the most horrifying thing was that they were all facing a large, ornate mirror at the far end, and in the mirror, I saw myself, my face contorted in terror, standing among them.

One of the figures – a man with a gaunt face and hollow eyes – turned to me and whispered, ‘The house feeds on harmony. Once you hear the song, you join the choir.’ I tried to back away, but my own reflection in the mirror began to mouth words I wasn’t saying. The choir’s song swelled, and I felt my voice rising to join it, involuntarily, as if my body was no longer mine. I saw the attic window, and beyond it, the familiar tree, but the moon seemed to be bleeding into the sky, painting everything red.

I forced my legs to move, stumbling down the stairs, and slammed the attic door shut. The singing cut off abruptly. I leaned against the door, breathing hard, and then I heard a soft knock from the other side – a child’s voice, sweet and clear: ‘Please come back. We’re lonely.’ I ran to my room, shoved the dresser against the door, and stayed up until dawn, shivering under the covers while Marcus snored, oblivious.

The next morning, I told Marcus I was moving out. He just nodded, a knowing look in his eyes. ‘The song gets in your head,’ he said. ‘Some nights, I still hum it, and I left years ago.’ He went to the kitchen to make coffee, and I noticed he was wearing socks on the wrong feet, and his voice was oddly melodic, even when he asked if I’d like cream. I packed my bags in a hurry, but as I carried them to the car, I heard the choir again, faintly, from the attic window. I looked up and saw a face pressed against the glass – mine, but pale and wide-eyed, mouthing ‘Come back.’ I got in my car and drove away, but the song stayed with me, and I caught myself humming it at stoplights, my fingers drumming the rhythm on the steering wheel. That was three years ago. I moved five times since, but every time I close my eyes, I see the attic, and I hear the choir, and sometimes, when I look in the mirror at night, I see movement behind me, and I know they’re still waiting for me to join them for good.