The Chainman’s Lullaby

In the fall of 1988, the old farmhouse on Red Hollow Road had been our haven for two years. I was five, and the world was a blur of golden cornfields and the creaking bones of a house that seemed to breathe with secrets. My older brother, Marcus, had claimed the room next to mine, and after the harvest, he moved his things into the attic bedroom that faced the woods. I was left in the room closest to the kitchen, where the old iron stove stood like a sleeping beast.

It started on a Tuesday, after the first frost. I woke to a sound like a blacksmith’s shop gone mad: chains clanking and rattling above my head, coming from the attic. Then a scream—not a woman’s, not a child’s, but something in between, raw and desperate. I bolted to my mother’s room, my feet cold on the linoleum, and shook her awake. She sighed, pulled the quilt over my shoulders, and walked me back to my bed. ‘It’s just the wind in the gutters, sweetheart. Go to sleep.’

But it wasn’t the wind. Every night, at the same hour—just after the kitchen clock struck ten—the chains would grind, and the scream would pierce the dark. I started sleeping with my teddy bear, Barnaby, in one arm and a flashlight in the other, its beam pointed at the attic door. My mother thought I was being dramatic. My father was always away, working the night shift at the paper mill. And Marcus, when he wasn’t teasing me, would sometimes pause at my door, a worried look on his face, but he never said a word.

Then, in early November, my step-cousin, Lila, came to live with us. Her parents were going through a divorce, and in the way of family, she was shipped to the countryside to escape the city’s noise. She was twelve, quiet, with eyes that seemed to see too much. My mother gave her a bed in my room, and that first night, as we lay in the dark, the chains began their familiar rattle. I clutched Barnaby, but Lila sat up. ‘You hear that?’ she whispered. I nodded, tears already forming. ‘It’s not the wind,’ she said, and for the first time, I felt a chill that wasn’t from the cold.

We started to listen together. The sound wasn’t just chains—it was rhythmic, almost like a pendulum. And the scream, when it came, was followed by a muffled sobbing that seemed to seep through the ceiling. Lila told me that her grandmother, who had lived in this house decades ago, had died in a fire. The attic had been her sewing room, and she had kept an old iron bedframe with chains for the headboard. ‘She used to sing to us, a lullaby about a chainman who carried souls through the dark,’ Lila said, her voice barely audible. I didn’t believe in ghosts, but I believed in Lila.

One night, the sobbing grew louder, and the chains clanked so hard I thought the roof would come down. Lila grabbed my hand and pulled me into the hallway. ‘We have to go up,’ she said. ‘No!’ I cried, but she was already halfway up the attic stairs. I followed, my flashlight trembling in my hand. The attic was cold, filled with old trunks and a rocking horse with glass eyes. In the corner, under the eaves, was the iron bedframe—rusty, with chains hanging from its posts. The sobbing was right there, coming from beneath the bed.

Lila knelt and lifted the dust ruffle. Underneath, there was a trapdoor, half-hidden by a braided rug. We pulled it open, and a draft of cold air rose, carrying the smell of damp earth and something like burnt cloth. Below was a narrow crawlspace, just enough for a child. I didn’t want to go down, but Lila was already descending. I followed, my heart pounding. At the bottom, we found an old tin box, rusted shut. Inside, wrapped in a moldy cloth, was a photograph—a young woman in a long dress, with a baby in her arms, and behind her, the same iron bed. Written on the back was a date: October 1952.

The crying stopped. The chains fell silent. Lila looked at me, her face pale. ‘We broke it,’ she said. ‘Whatever it was, it’s gone.’ We climbed back up, closed the trapdoor, and never spoke of it again. The house became quiet, almost too quiet. But every now and then, I swear I can hear a faint humming, like a mother singing to her child, coming from the attic. And sometimes, when I look at the photo we hid in my dresser, I see the woman’s face change—her smile turns into a frown, and her eyes become hollow. But I never told anyone. Some things are better left buried.