The Cerulean Visitor

In the summer of my twenty-third year, I found myself back in the drafty Victorian my grandmother had left to my parents, perched on a hill overlooking the town of Graywood. The house had always creaked and groaned, but that summer it seemed to have a life of its own. I was staying in the converted attic, which my mother had turned into a makeshift studio for her painting, and the only other occupant was my cousin, Theo, who crashed on the fold-out couch below. Theo had begun to complain about the sounds: footsteps on the stairs, the subtle click of the door to the attic, always when we were alone. I chalked it up to the house’s old bones, the wind, the plumbing. But Theo was insistent, and his unease began to wear on me.

One night, I had drifted into a fitful sleep, the air thick with the scent of dust and oil paint. I was awakened by a peculiar sensation: the blanket around my legs was being tugged, as if someone were pulling at the hem. I thought it was Theo, playing a prank, but when I peered over the edge of the bed, there was nothing. I pulled the covers back up and tried to settle, but the feeling persisted, and soon I felt as though the blanket was being molded around my lower back, pressing me down. I sat up, heart hammering, but the room was empty.

I lay back, my eyes closed, trying to rationalize. But within minutes, the blankets moved again, this time more insistently, and then I felt a weight on my chest, as if someone had sat on me. I couldn’t breathe. My lungs screamed for air, and I forced my eyes open. There he was: a small figure, perhaps three feet tall, with skin of a deep cerulean blue, sitting squarely on my sternum. He smiled, a grin that was far too wide, and his eyes were like black marbles. I tried to punch him, but my fist passed through him like smoke, and the pressure increased. I was about to black out when he vanished, and I gasped for breath.

I lay there, trembling, drenched in sweat. The figure was gone, but I knew it was real. I didn’t sleep that night. The next morning, I told Theo, and he paled. He admitted he had seen something similar a few nights ago, a blue glow at the foot of the couch, but he thought it was a dream. We decided to investigate the house, looking for any clues. We found an old diary in the attic, hidden behind a loose floorboard, written by my great-grandmother. She described the same figure, calling it the ‘Cerulean Visitor,’ and said it came to her in times of stress, stealing her breath, but never harming her permanently. She believed it was a guardian of the house, but one that fed on fear.

That night, with the diary as our guide, we set up a plan. We would confront the Visitor, but this time, we would not fight back. Instead, we would acknowledge it, speak its name. As the clock struck midnight, the attic grew cold, and the air thickened. I sat on the bed, Theo behind me, both of us chanting quietly, ‘We see you, Cerulean Visitor. We welcome you. What do you seek?’ The figure materialized at the foot of the bed, more substantial now. Its smile faded, and it pointed a slender finger toward the window. We followed its gaze to the graveyard across the field, the one that bordered our property. It then pointed to the old oak tree in the yard, where a stone marker was nearly buried in weeds.

We dug there the next day, and found a small iron box. Inside was a locket containing a photograph of a young woman, and a parchment with a name: Elara Whitfield. The Visitor had been trying to tell us something all along. We placed the locket on the mantle, and as we did, a cold wind swept through the house, and we heard a faint sigh. The Visitor appeared one last time, nodded, and dissolved into motes of blue light. From that night on, the house was silent. We had finally given the Visitor its due, and in return, it had given us peace.