The Blue Dish

My father and I moved into the flat above his new fish-and-chip shop in the damp, grey town of Whitby, England. The building was old, with creaking timbers and a narrow staircase that smelled of salt and decay. The landlord, a frail man with rheumy eyes, told us the place had once been a chandler’s, and a boy had died in the fire that consumed it in 1927. He said it with a morbid relish, as if he wanted to scare us. I was fourteen, old enough to be skeptical, but the air in the flat felt thick, as if something was living in the walls.

Our first night, I lay in my narrow bed under the eaves, listening to the groan of the roof. The wind off the North Sea rattled the windows. At around two in the morning, I was jolted awake by a prickling at the back of my neck. The feeling was unmistakable: someone was watching me. I turned on the lamp, but the room was empty. The wardrobe door hung open, and my clothes swayed gently as if a draft had moved them. I pulled the duvet over my head, but the gaze felt like a physical weight. Finally, I grabbed my pillow and retreated to the sofa in the front room.

I had just settled, my heart hammering, when a crash exploded from the kitchen. I rushed in and found the cupboards open, every plate, cup, and bowl shattered on the floor. The cutlery drawer was yanked out, spoons and forks scattered like metallic entrails. A single ceramic dish, painted with a faded blue anchor, lay unbroken at my feet. I had not seen it before. My father slept through it all, exhausted from the shop’s opening.

The next day, I tried to rationalize it. The wind, a faulty latch. But that evening, alone while Dad worked the till, I stepped into the shower. The bathroom had one of those motion-sensor lights, and it flicked off as soon as I had soap in my eyes. I heard a click, then the light snapped on, and the door—which I had locked—swung open with a slow creak. The steam parted, and for a moment I saw a small, dark shape in the doorway, barely a silhouette. It was gone as quickly as I blinked, but the door remained ajar, and the cold air from the hallway bit my wet skin.

I fled to the shop below, dripping and shaking. Dad laughed and said it was an old building with temperamental wiring, but he went pale when I told him about the blue dish. He had bought it at an antique shop the previous week, for decoration. He said it had been in the window, as if waiting for him. That night, I could not sleep. I heard the sound of a child humming a sea shanty, and the clink of cutlery, and the soft patter of bare feet across the linoleum. I buried my face in my pillow, and the humming grew louder, until it was right next to my ear.

By the third morning, I was a wreck. I begged Dad to call the landlord, who arrived with a grimace. He told us the story again, this time with details: the boy, Tommy, had been playing with matches in the storeroom, and his mother, the chandler’s wife, had perished trying to save him. But the landlord added a twist: the boy had been blamed, but it was the mother who had lit the candle, and she had watched him burn before throwing herself into the fire. The landlord whispered that the spirit of the boy still sought someone to play with, and sometimes he would take a toy, a dish, or a life. He pointed at the blue dish on the counter and said, ‘He marks his targets.’

I wanted to leave, but my father was stubborn. That night, I slept with a chair propped against my door. At three in the morning, I woke to the sound of the dish shattering. I rushed to the kitchen, and there, in the moonlight, a small, jagged piece of the blue anchor lay on the floor, slick with something dark. The air was icy. I heard a giggle behind me, and I spun, but the hallway was empty. Then the kitchen light flickered, and every drawer in the flat slid open with a violent bang. I screamed for my father, but he was in the shop, closing up. The front door to the flat slammed shut, and the lock clicked.

I was trapped. The humming started, growing into a tuneless dirge. I backed against the wall, and the dishes in the sink began to rattle, then flew at me, breaking against the wall. I covered my head, and through the chaos, I saw the boy. He was small, pale, with black pits for eyes. He smiled, and his mouth was filled with broken glass. He held out a blue shard, stained with blood. ‘Your turn,’ he said, in a voice that was both a whisper and a scream. I grabbed the first thing I could find—a cast-iron skillet—and swung, but my hand passed through him. He laughed, and the lights died.

I stumbled through the darkness, feeling my way along the hall. I found the door to the stairs, but when I opened it, there was no staircase—only a drop into a black void. I screamed and slammed it shut. The humming was everywhere now, in the walls, in the floor, in my own skull. I dropped to my knees, sobbing. I begged for mercy, but the boy just said, ‘Play with me.’ And I realized there was no escape, no waking nightmare. He had been waiting a hundred years, and I was his new playmate.

At dawn, my father found the flat in ruins. He never found me. The police searched, but I had vanished without a trace. They found only the blue dish, cracked but whole again, sitting on the kitchen table. My father moved away, but the next tenant said they heard a boy’s voice calling someone’s name at night, and a girl’s sobs from behind the walls. The blue dish remains in the cupboard, waiting for the next family to come, to play, to break. And in the quiet lull between distant waves, if you listen, you can hear the humming begin anew.