The Crying of the Third Drawer

Eight years ago, I moved into my great-uncle’s flat in Rotterdam to finish my architecture degree. The flat was a cramped two-bedroom on the fourth floor of a pre-war building, and my great-uncle, a retired clockmaker named Willem, was a stooped, taciturn man who spent most of his days in his workshop, surrounded by the ticking of a hundred clocks. He gave me the smaller bedroom, which contained a sturdy oak bed with a thick mattress, a writing desk, and a wardrobe that smelled of mothballs.

My first night, I was exhausted from the journey, but I lay awake for hours. The flat was oddly silent, save for the distant, rhythmic squeak of a rusty weathervane outside. Just as I began to drift off, I heard a sound that froze me: a thin, reedy voice, like an old woman’s, weeping and whispering in Dutch. It seemed to come from beneath the bed, from the very floorboards. I could make out fragmented phrases: ‘…my bones… my back… you lie on me…’ I was paralyzed with fear. I didn’t move until dawn, when the voice faded with the first light.

The next morning, I told myself it was a nightmare. I didn’t mention it to Willem, who only grunted when I asked if he had slept well. Over the following weeks, the voice returned every night, always at the same hour, always the same mournful pleading. I tried to ignore it, but the bed itself began to feel wrong: the mattress sagged in the middle as if bearing an invisible weight, and the wooden frame seemed to vibrate with a low, cold hum.

One day, a friend of Willem’s, a jovial antique dealer named Pieter, came to visit. Over coffee and jenever, Pieter recounted how he and Willem had acquired the bed from a hospice thrift store a few years back. ‘It was a bargain,’ Pieter laughed. ‘The nurses were glad to get rid of it. They said it gave the staff the creeps. Something about a previous patient, an old woman who had died on the ward.’ My blood ran cold. I stared at the bed, and for the first time I noticed the three drawers built into its base.

That night, I decided to inspect the bed more closely. I pulled out the drawers, one by one. The first was empty, the second contained a few moth-eaten blankets, but the third was stuck. I had to yank it hard, and when it finally came loose, I saw something at the back: a small, yellowed envelope, sealed with wax. My hands trembled as I opened it. Inside was a single photograph of a thin, sad-faced woman in a hospital gown, and a letter written in a shaky hand. It was addressed to ‘The One Who Sleeps Above Me.’ The letter read: ‘Please forgive me. I had no one. They said it was the only place for me, but I couldn’t rest. My back aches from the narrow, hard cot. Now I lie beneath you. The springs press into my flesh. I beg you, find my body. My name is Ida. I was buried in the unmarked grave at the corner of the municipal cemetery. I was not ready to go. Help me.’

I sat on the floor, the letter trembling in my hands. The voice had stopped, but now I understood. I told Willem everything. He turned pale and admitted that he had heard the voice too but had dismissed it as an old man’s fancy. Together, we went to the cemetery and found the grave, overgrown and unmarked. We had a proper headstone placed, and we said a prayer. That night, for the first time, the room was silent.

But as I lay in bed, feeling the mattress yield beneath me as if it had sighed, I felt a cold hand press against my back from underneath. I heard a final whisper, in the voice I knew too well: ‘Thank you. But you’re still lying on me.’ I jumped out of bed, but it was too late. I knew I would never sleep soundly again. The bed is still there, in that flat, and I still hear the creaking of the springs at night, even when no one is in the room.