The Dried Mud on the Cistern

In the autumn of my eleventh year, I lived in a rented farmhouse on the edge of the county. The yard was a dusty patch of dirt, ringed by a low stone wall, and beyond that, golden cornfields rustled like dry whispers. My cousins and I, along with the neighbor kids, would chase each other until the sky turned from orange to indigo, and the porch light flickered on as a signal for us to come inside. That evening, the air was sharp with the smell of fallen leaves, and the ground was crunchy underfoot. We were playing a game of hide-and-seek, and I was ‘it’, counting against the old oak tree, when a familiar pressure began in my bladder. I was six years old, and I didn’t want to lose my turn. So, instead of running the two hundred yards to the outhouse, I darted behind the house, to the old cistern we used for watering the vegetable patch. The cistern was a concrete box maybe four feet square, with a heavy iron cover that had a rusted hinge. The light from the porch cast long shadows, but I could see well enough. I lifted the cover, leaning it against the side, and looked down into the dark water. As I was about to unzip, I reached for the rope handle on the bucket to pull it up, thinking I’d rinse the stone trough afterward. But as my fingers touched the rough hemp, the porch light shifted slightly, and I caught a glimpse of the right side of the cistern’s rim. There were footprints. Not animal prints, not the bare footprints of a child my size, but tiny ones, the size of a newborn’s foot, but with distinct toes and the arch of a heel. They were made of mud, dry and cracked, and they led from the inside wall of the cistern, up over the edge, and then… they just stopped. There was no trail leading away. They just ended. I stared, my heart thumping against my ribs. The mud was a dark, earthy color, not like the gray dust of our yard. It looked like the clay from the creek bottom, deep and rich. And they were dry, which meant they’d been there for hours. But who could have made such prints? They were too small for my baby cousin, and too perfect. I felt a cold wash of fear, and I didn’t need to pee anymore. I slammed the cover back down and ran inside, not looking back. I never told anyone, because I thought they’d laugh. But for weeks after, I couldn’t sleep without a candle lit, and I would check under my bed every night. Years later, after I’d grown and moved away, I returned to that farmhouse to collect some old boxes. The place was abandoned, and the yard was overgrown. The cistern was still there, the rusted cover half off. I walked over, my heart racing, and looked inside. The water was gone, replaced by a pile of rubble and leaves. But on the inside wall, near the top, I saw them again: the tiny footprints, still there, now lifeless and dusty. And I noticed something new: they were not just on the inside wall. They were on the ceiling. A trail of them, walking upside down, leading to the edge. And as I stared, one of them, in the corner, seemed to move, just a fraction, as if a foot had been lifted and placed again, leaving a fresh print in the dust. I backed away, and I never returned. To this day, I don’t know what made those prints, or why it would leave them on a cistern, waiting for a child to look in. But sometimes, when I’m alone at night, I hear a faint scraping sound, like tiny feet on concrete, and I see that image: a small, mud-covered thing, climbing out of the dark, leaving its marks on the world.