The Counterweight

The first week of October 2019, I was housesitting for my aunt in her old farmhouse outside of Crows’ Nest, Kansas. She’d been staying with my cousin in Topeka for the month, and I needed a change of scenery to finish my dissertation on early American millwork. The farmhouse had been in the family for generations; it was a two-story timber-frame with a wrap-around porch and a windmill that creaked like a lost soul. I was deep in a chapter on water-driven sawmills when the clock in the hallway struck three. I hadn’t noticed the time, my laptop screen glowing in the dim parlor, the only light besides the gas lamp I’d lit against the autumn chill. I was wide awake, my mind churning with diagrams and axle ratios, but my back ached from the hard wooden chair. I closed the laptop with a click and stood, stretching my arms over my head. The parlor was dark except for the single lamp, and the rest of the house was pitch black beyond the doorway. I lit a candle stub I found on the mantel—the power had gone out earlier from the storm, and I’d been too absorbed to notice—and made my way to the kitchen for a glass of water. The floorboards groaned under my steps, a familiar complaint. The kitchen was colder, and I could smell the damp earth from the cellar. I filled a glass from the pump, the water tasting of iron. As I drank, I heard it: a rhythmic thumping, barely audible, coming from the cellar door. Thump-thump. Pause. Thump-thump. I froze, the glass at my lips. The cellar was unusable; the stairs had rotted through a decade ago, and my aunt had warned me never to go down there. But the thumping was distinct, like someone knocking from below, or something heavy being moved. I set the glass down and crept toward the door, the candle casting shifting shadows. The door was a plain wooden slab with a brass knob, and the thumping was definitely behind it. I reached for the knob, but hesitated. In the candlelight, I noticed the door wasn’t latched; it was ajar by a hairline crack. I pulled it open, revealing the black well of the cellar stairs. The thumping stopped. I stood there, heart thudding, and that’s when I saw it: a shape at the bottom of the stairs, just at the edge of the light. It was short and stocky, like a barrel wrapped in a dark cloth, and it had no head. No discernible features. Just a lump of darkness that seemed to absorb the light. I felt a twinge of primal fear, the kind that makes your stomach drop. I had the distinct impression it was male. It stood there, unmoving, and the air grew colder. I slammed the door and backed away, my hand finding the wall. I told myself it was a shadow cast by the candle, a trick of the light. But I had seen it clearly. I spent the rest of the night on the parlor sofa, the lamp lit, my eyes on the kitchen door. I didn’t sleep. By the next morning, the storm had passed, and the sun streamed through the windows, making the house look almost cheerful. I forced myself to open the cellar door. The stairs were intact, covered in dust, and no footprints save my own from earlier. I even went down, my heart racing, but found only old canning jars and a rusty furnace. I chalked it up to exhaustion, to the gloom of the storm, to my anxiety about the dissertation. But that was only the beginning. Three nights later, I was in the parlor again, hunched over my notes, when the clock struck two. The power was on now, and the house was fully lit, but as I looked up from my work, I saw it standing in the doorway to the kitchen. Same shape, same darkness, but this time I could make out a slight tilt to its posture, as if it were inspecting me. I blinked, and it was gone. The next morning, I noticed the kitchen table had been moved—not by much, but it was off a few inches from its usual spot. I had the eerie feeling that it had been watching me, learning me. I called my aunt, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘Aunt Martha, did you ever see anything strange in the cellar? A shadowy figure?’ There was a long pause. Then she said, ‘That’s just the old well. It’s under the kitchen floor. Everyone in the family knows it. But you mustn’t go down.’ I asked what she meant, but she changed the subject and said she’d be home next week. I felt a chill, not from the house, but from her words. That week, the figure appeared more often. Sometimes I’d catch it out of the corner of my eye, slipping behind a door. Once I woke from a doze to find it hovering at the foot of my armchair, close enough to touch. Its form was more defined now: a rounded torso, stubby arms, and a faint impression of a face—blank, but somehow sad. It never moved quickly, but it was always there. One night, I decided to confront it. I left the parlor light on and the front door open, inviting a draft. I stood in the hallway, my back to the light, and waited. Sure enough, around two in the morning, I heard that thumping again from the cellar, but this time it was coming from under the kitchen floor, directly beneath my feet. I walked to the kitchen, my heart pounding, and stood over the worn linoleum where the well was said to be. I could feel a faint vibration. The thumping became a rhythmic beat, like a pulse. I knelt and pressed my ear to the floor. That’s when I heard a voice, muffled but clear, as if from a deep pit. ‘It’s not time yet,’ it said. I scrambled back, my breath ragged. The voice was low, masculine, resigned. I didn’t sleep that night. The next day, I tried to find the well cover in the cellar. I moved the jars, swept the floor, but there was no trapdoor, no ring. The floor was solid concrete, poured at some point. I called my aunt again, frantic. ‘Tell me about the well,’ I demanded. She was quiet for a long time. Then she said, ‘There was a man, years ago. He came to the farm looking for work. He stayed in the cellar, fixing the pipes. But he fell into the well. We tried to save him, but it was too late. We sealed it up. But some things shouldn’t be disturbed.’ I told her I saw him, that he was still there. She gasped. ‘Whatever you do, don’t open the well. He’s waiting for his weight to be lifted. That’s what the thumping is. He’s trying to balance the scales.’ I didn’t understand, but I knew I had to get out of that house. I packed my things and left the next morning. But as I was driving away, I saw him in the rearview mirror, standing in the doorway of the farmhouse, small and dark against the vast Kansas sky. And I knew that no matter how far I drove, I had taken something with me. That night, in my motel room, I heard the thumping again. It was coming from under the bed. Thump-thump, pause, thump-thump. I didn’t sleep. And that was over a year ago. I still hear it, sometimes, especially at night when the house is quiet. I’ve seen specialist after specialist, but none of them can explain the shadow that follows me, the small dark figure that stands at the foot of my bed, waiting. Last week, I found a scale in my kitchen, an old balance scale my mother used for baking. I had never seen it before. It sits on the counter, its pans level. But sometimes, when I’m not looking, they tilt—just a little—as if something is being weighed. I don’t know what the counterweight is, or why he’s waiting. But I suspect that when he finally tells me to step on, I’ll have no choice.