The Ceramic Lid

I was seven the winter we moved into the old farmhouse outside of town. My father had inherited it from a great-uncle he barely remembered, a man who, according to family lore, had been a recluse and had died alone in that very house. The place was drafty and vast, and the basement stairs creaked like old bones, but to my sister Rosa, it was an adventure.

Rosa was twelve, and she never showed fear. She’d explore the attic, poke at the creepy portraits, and laugh at me when I begged her to check the closet for monsters. We shared a room at the top of the stairs, in what had once been the servants’ quarters. The room was small, with a single window that looked out onto the endless, frozen fields. The only furniture was our iron bedstead, a rickety wardrobe, and a ceramic chamber pot that my mother insisted we use at night, because the outhouse was a hundred yards away and the wind could freeze your tears.

I hated that chamber pot. It was a heavy, white, glazed thing with a thick porcelain lid, and its hollow echo when I set it back down was like a bell tolling in the dark. But more than the pot, I hated the night. Both because I was afraid of the dark, and because I had the weakest bladder in the county, as my father would teasingly say. So every night, I would hold it in as long as I could, until my back ached and my legs trembled, and then I would nudge Rosa awake and whisper, ‘Rosa, please, walk with me to the pot.’ She’d grumble, but she’d always sit up and light the candle, and I would brave the cold air to squat over the ceramic mouth, while Rosa hummed a nonsensical tune to keep me company.

One night, the frost had painted the window in ferns of ice, and the house was silent except for the groaning of the timbers. I woke from a dream about drowning. My bladder was a hot, urgent pressure. I listened for the familiar sound of Rosa’s breathing, but it was shallow and even, as if she were still asleep. I reached out to touch her shoulder, but just as my fingers brushed the flannel of her nightgown, I heard a noise from the floor at the foot of the bed. It was a sharp, definitive clink— the sound of the chamber pot lid being set down on the wooden planks. My heart lurched. I sat up straight, my eyes wide, straining to see into the pitch-blackness. The room was so dark that I couldn’t see my own hand, let alone the shape of the pot. But I knew that sound. I’d heard it a thousand times. It was the heavy, solid thud of glazed ceramic meeting wood.

I held my breath. The dark was absolute. I could hear my own pulse like a drum in my ears. I waited for the sound of company— the shuffle of feet, the rustle of clothes— but there was only the hiss of silence. Rosa was still asleep beside me; I could tell by the steady rhythm of her breathing. Then a terrible thought wormed into my mind: if Rosa was asleep, who had moved the lid?

Fear flooded my veins like ice water. I wanted to scream, but my throat was locked. I wanted to leap out of bed and turn on the lamp, but my legs had turned to stone. All I could do was stare into the void where I knew the chamber pot stood, my eyes burning with the strain, trying to discern a shape, a shadow, anything. Nothing. The darkness was a solid sheet. And then, I heard a soft, breathy whisper, so faint that I might have imagined it. It said my name. ‘Eddie.’ It was not Rosa’s voice. It was not my mother’s. It was a voice I had never heard before, dry as dust, with a trembling, cadaverous quality.

I scrambled backward, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I pulled the covers up over my head, but the blanket was too thin and my body was shaking so violently that the whole bed trembled. I tried to call out to Rosa, but all that came out was a high, thin whimper. I stayed like that for what felt like an eternity, huddled under the blanket, my eyes squeezed shut, listening for any sound beyond the pounding of my own blood. The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. And then, I felt a breath of cold air on the back of my neck. A slow, deliberate exhale, like someone leaning close to my ear.

I sat bolt upright, a scream finally tearing from my throat. Rosa bolted awake, flailing. ‘Eddie! What is it?’ she cried, fumbling for the matches on the bedside table. The flame sputtered to life, and golden light flooded the room. I looked around wildly. There was no one else in the room. The door was still closed, the window was frosted over, and the chamber pot sat innocently on the floor, its lid firmly in place. But when I looked at it, I saw the faint outline of a handprint on the dusty porcelain. A handprint that was far too large for a child, and far too small for an adult.

From that night on, I never slept alone in that room. I would beg Rosa to keep the lamp burning until dawn, and she would, grumbling about the cost of oil. But the fear never went away. I would lie awake, staring at the lid, waiting. And as the years passed, and I grew up, I would sometimes hear that same clink, in the dead of night, coming from the room across the hall where the guest bed stood. And I would see, out of the corner of my eye, a thin, hunched figure disappearing through the doorway, carrying a white, ceramic pot.

Now, at thirty-two, I have returned to that farmhouse to put it on the market. The place is old and rotten, and the realtor refuses to step inside alone. I am sitting in the same bedroom, on the same iron bed, and the chamber pot is still there, chipped and stained with time. I am waiting. I hear the creak of the floorboards in the hallway. I hear the soft, shuffling approach. And then, the sound of the lid being lifted. The voice, dry as dust, whispers, ‘Eddie, I’ve been waiting for you.’