The Crowing in the Walls

The farmhouse sat at the edge of a birch wood, its white paint peeling like sunburned skin. I’d bought it cheap—too cheap, I realized, when the realtor handed me the keys with a pitying smile. But the land was good, and the summer was short here in the northern prefecture, and I’d convinced myself that the peace I craved could be bought with timber and soil. My name is now Kenta, a name I chose for its clean syllables, a shield against the long vowels of my past. The chickens—two white silkies, their feathers soft as dandelion fluff—pecked at the yard, and their six chicks followed like a drifting snow. My cat, Nori, a gray tabby with eyes the color of old moss, had claimed the attic as her kingdom. She’d dart up the narrow stairs and vanish into the gloom, only her tail flicking from the crack of a door I swore I’d barred shut. But I was tired, and the storm that night promised upheaval.

The wind came first, a low moan through the eaves, then rain like flung gravel against the windows. I’d just finished collecting the eggs—six, warm as tiny suns—when the power blinked out. The house swallowed me into its dark belly. I lit a lantern, the flame casting my shadow into a hulking beast on the wall, and called for Nori. Her voice answered from the attic, a plaintive mew that sounded less like play and more like a question. I climbed the creaking steps, the wood complaining under my weight, and found the attic door open. The closet stood at the far end, its paint blackened with age, its carved cornice suggesting a craftsmanship I didn’t trust. Nori sat before it, her tail lashing, her ears flat. She stared at the crack in the door—a crack I knew was closed.

I reached for her, but she darted inside the closet, and the door swung shut with a soft click. My heart hammered. I called her name, but only the storm answered. Then I heard—not a meow, but a cooing, low and guttural, like a pigeon with a broken voice. It came from inside the wall, somewhere behind the closet. I pressed my ear to the wood, and the cooing shifted into a whisper, a dry rustle of syllables that almost formed words: *Kenta… Kenta…* But it couldn’t be Nori. She was silent, and the sound was too deep, too human. I grabbed the iron handle, but it was cold as ice, and the door wouldn’t budge. In panic, I beat on the paneling, shouting her name, until the cooing stopped. Then a harsh crowing erupted—not my chickens, but something raucous and triumphant—and the door swung open on its own, revealing only dust motes dancing in the lantern light. Nori was gone.

The next morning, the storm had passed, leaving the world rinsed and steaming. I found Nori in the chicken coop, unharmed but trembling, her fur stiff with what looked like white ash. The chicks huddled around her, their tiny peeps harmonizing with something else—a low hum I could feel in my teeth. I searched the attic thoroughly, but the closet was empty, its walls reeking of ammonia and old feathers. I tried to rationalize it: a rat, a draft, a trick of my exhausted mind. But that night, as I lay in bed, I heard the crowing again—not from outside, but from within the wall beside my head. It grew louder, then muffled, as if buried, then rose to a shriek that thinned into a woman’s laugh. I didn’t sleep. Nori yowled from the kitchen, and when I rushed down, she was scratching at the basement door, which I had never opened. The handle was warm.

For a week, I tried to ignore it. I buried myself in chores—feeding the silkies, mending the fence—but the sounds followed me. The chicks began to peck at the ground in strange patterns, spiraling like a summoning circle. Nori refused to enter the attic, instead watching the basement door with unblinking obsession. My dreams were filled with images of a woman in a ragged kimono, her hair a black tangle, her hands moist and leathery, pressing against a window from the inside. She whispered my chosen name, but in her voice, it sounded like a curse. On the seventh night, I finally broke. I took the lantern and a crowbar, and I pried open the basement door.

Stairs descended into a pit of cool darkness. The air was thick with the smell of damp soil and old blood. I descended, and at the bottom, I found a room—a cellar, but not for storage. On the earthen floor, a circle of feathers, white and black, marked the center, and in the middle lay a bundle of cloth. It was an old kimono, embroidered with cranes, but the cranes had been torn and resewn with black thread, their necks twisted. As I knelt, the bundle moved. I stumbled back, and the fabric unfurled to reveal a hollow—a space shaped like a body, but inside was a single, glossy black egg, larger than a chicken’s, pulsing with a faint light. The crowing erupted behind me, and I spun to see a figure silhouetted in the doorway—a woman, but her head was tilted at an impossible angle, and her mouth opened wider than any human’s, and from it, a cascade of feathers poured out, choking the air.

I ran. I don’t remember the climb, only the slam of the door and the sound of nails scraping on the other side. I barricaded it with a chest of drawers, but the crowing didn’t stop. It came from the attic now, from the chimney, from the foundation, a chorus that grew until I thought my skull would crack. Nori fled into the night, and I didn’t blame her. I called the nearest neighbor, a farmer named Yamada, who came at dawn with a hunting rifle. He saw the state of my house—the black tar like vomit seeping from the walls—and he crossed himself, despite his Shinto shrines. He told me, in a hushed voice, that the attic closet was built over the site of an old well, and that the previous owner had drowned her newborn daughter there, wrapped in a kimono to appease the spirits. But the spirits had been hungry, and the well had never sealed. He advised me to burn the house to the ground.

I couldn’t. The silkies and their chicks had become my only anchors to sanity, and I wouldn’t abandon them. But that night, as I sat in the kitchen, the lantern sputtering, I saw the chicks in the yard, positioned in a perfect line, facing the house. They began to crow—all at once, a horrid, broken crow that was too deep and too knowing. And in the glass of the window, I saw the reflection of the woman from the basement, standing behind me, her hands reaching for my shoulders. I didn’t turn. I closed my eyes, and I felt her fingers—not cold, but warm, as if she had been waiting to touch me. She spoke my name, and this time, it wasn’t a curse. It was an invitation.

I haven’t left the farm since. The chickens are gone—I let them loose, and they fled into the woods, their crows echoing like fading cries. Nori returned, but she sits in the attic, mewing at the closet door. I’ve grown accustomed to the sounds: the cooing, the crowing, the whispers that form my name. The basement door is open now, and I know that soon, I will descend again. Not out of fear, but out of curiosity. The kimono wrapped around my shoulders fits perfectly, and the black egg has found a nest in my laundry basket. It pulses with a warmth that matches my own heartbeat. I’ve stopped calling it a monster. I’ve started calling it a child. And every night, the walls speak to me in a language that feels like home.