The Damp Spots in the Old Tenant House

Marta had lived in the tenant house on the edge of the cranberry bog for eleven years. It was a sturdy, if damp, structure, its white paint peeling like sunburned skin. She knew its every creak and groan, the way the wind rattled the loose window in the spare bedroom, the smell of bog water that seeped through the floorboards when the rains were heavy. She was alone now, her husband gone to work the night shift at the paper mill, and her two cats, Jasper and June, were her only company.

Three months ago, she started hearing things. At first, it was a faint, rhythmic scratching in the walls, like a branch against the siding. But one night, as she was drifting off, she heard a child’s laugh. It was high and light, coming from the hallway just outside her door. She sat up, heart hammering. The cats were both on the bed, their ears swiveling toward the door. Then, a woman’s voice, soft and pleading: ‘Don’t go down there.’ Marta froze. She had no children, no neighbors within a mile. She chalked it up to the wind and a tired mind.

A week ago, she found the first wet spot. She was sliding into bed, stretching her legs out, and her foot touched something cold and damp. She flicked on the light. The bottom third of the sheet and the blanket beneath it were soaked, as if someone had poured a bucket of water. The top sheet was dry. She thought Jasper had an accident, but he was a clean cat. She checked for a leak in the ceiling, but the plaster was dry. She stripped the bed and put the sheets in the wash. The next day, she found another wet spot on the couch, same as before: top cushion dry, but the cushion beneath and the fabric under it were cold and wet. No smell, and under her blacklight, nothing glowed. It was water, plain and simple.

Last night, she woke to a touch. It was a light, tickling sensation, like a finger tracing a line up the sole of her foot. She jolted upright, heart pounding. It was a dream, she told herself. But as she was settling back down, she felt it again—this time, several fingers, cold and damp, crawling up her foot and ankle. She yanked her legs up and scrambled to turn on the lamp. The bed was empty. The cats were growling at the foot of the bed, their fur bristled, staring at the space where her legs had been.

She didn’t sleep anymore that night. She sat in the armchair with a blanket, watching the door, listening to the wind. The next morning, she called the town hall to see if there was any history of the house. The clerk, a bored-sounding woman, said the house was built in 1920, originally a foreman’s house for the cranberry workers. There was a fire in the 1940s that killed a family—a mother and two children. The father survived, but he went mad. The house had been rebuilt, and many tenants had come and gone.

Marta wondered if that family was still there. She started paying attention to the damp spots. They appeared in the strangest places: inside a kitchen cabinet, on a stack of old magazines, on the bottom of her laundry basket. Always cold, always water. She began to see things out of the corner of her eye—a pale shape in the hallway, a flicker of movement in the window at night. She tried to ignore it, but the dampness increased. The air in the house grew heavy with the smell of wet ash, like something had been extinguished.

One night, she woke to the sound of a child crying. It was muffled, as if from inside a wall. She pressed her ear to the bedroom wall, and the crying stopped. Then the scratching started again, but this time it was frantic, like claws on wood. She backed away, and her foot hit something cold and wet on the floor. A puddle had formed at the base of the wall, spreading outward. She knelt down, and in the dim light, she saw a small, wet handprint on the floorboards—the size of a child’s hand.

She knew she had to leave. She packed a bag and called her husband to come pick her up. But as she waited, she heard the crying again, this time from the living room. She followed it, unable to stop herself. The couch cushions were soaked. The crying grew louder, desperate. Then she heard a woman’s voice, clear and anguished: ‘They’re in the wall. My babies are in the wall.’

Marta stumbled back, her heart racing. She grabbed her keys and ran out the front door without looking back. She drove to the mill, found her husband, and told him everything through sobs. He believed her. They stayed at a motel that night.

But when she returned the next day to get more things, the house was different. The damp smell was gone, the air was dry. The wet spots had vanished without a trace. She searched every room, but there was no sign of the moisture, no handprints. It was as if the house had expelled the remnants of its past. Yet, as she stood in the doorway of the bedroom, she felt a chill. On the bare mattress, in the center, was a small, dark patch, still damp, and it was exactly where she had felt the fingers that night. She took a deep breath, left the house, and never returned.

She sold the house a few months later. The new owner, a young couple with a toddler, says the house is perfect. They’ve never had any issues with dampness.