The Empty Drawer

I was eight when we moved into the farmhouse, a sprawling Victorian relic with peeling wallpaper and a cellar that always smelled of damp earth. There were four bedrooms: mine, my parents’, my grandmother’s, and the one we called ‘Aunt Hattie’s Room’ after my great-aunt who had stayed with us one summer before she passed. She’d been a kind old woman with a fondness for lavender sachets and stories of the old country. After she died, my grandmother kept her room just as it was, a shrine to a woman I barely remembered.

For some reason, my grandmother insisted on keeping my clothes in the old oak dresser in Aunt Hattie’s room. ‘It’s good to keep the room lived in,’ she’d say, patting my head. I didn’t mind. My own room was small, and the extra space was a blessing. Every morning I’d skip down the hall, open the heavy door, and pick out my outfit from the musty drawers that smelled of lavender and mothballs.

One autumn evening, we returned late from the county fair. I’d eaten too much cotton candy and was sticky with sugar. My grandmother had already gone to bed, and my parents were still outside bringing in the last of the Fair prizes. I ran to the bathroom at the end of the hall, the lights off to avoid waking anyone, and decided I’d just change in the dark. I stripped off my clothes, kicked them behind the door, and padded naked down the hallway toward Aunt Hattie’s room.

The floorboards creaked beneath my feet, and the air was cool. I pushed the door open—it always stuck a little—and stepped inside. The room was pitch black, the heavy curtains drawn. I knew the dresser was against the far wall. I reached out, my fingers brushing the worn wood, and I pulled open the top drawer. But instead of the familiar stack of jeans and t-shirts, my hand met something else—something cold and smooth, like leather, but with a texture that felt like old skin.

I recoiled, my heart hammering. ‘Grandma?’ I called out, but my voice was swallowed by the silence. I tried to find the lamp, but my hands fumbled over unfamiliar objects. I felt a glass jar, a wicker basket, and then something that jingled like keys. Panic set in. I stumbled back, but the door had swung shut. I couldn’t find the knob. I pressed my palms against the cold wood, feeling for the light switch, but it wasn’t there.

Then I heard a rustling from the direction of the bed. It was the sound of sheets being pulled back, of a body shifting on old springs. A voice, dry and crackling like dead leaves, whispered, ‘Who’s there?’ I wanted to scream, but no sound came out. I crouched down, covering my mouth, praying it was just my grandmother. But her voice was higher, sweeter. This was the voice of an old woman, but not any voice I recognized.

The bed creaked again, and then I heard footsteps—slow, shuffling steps moving toward me. I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing I could disappear. Then I felt a cold hand brush my shoulder. My body went rigid. The hand was papery and thin, with long nails that scratched my skin. ‘Little one,’ the voice said, so close I could feel its breath, smelling of lavender and rot. ‘You’ve come back.’

I didn’t know what happened next. I remember bursting through the door, tumbling into the hallway, and racing to my room. I locked the door and hid under the covers, shaking. In the morning, I told my grandmother about it, but she just smiled and said I must have had a nightmare. She opened the door to Aunt Hattie’s room, and everything was exactly as I remembered—my clothes neatly folded in the dresser, the bed made, the air still.

But I never went back in that room again. I moved my clothes into my own room, and I refused to even pass by the door at night. Years later, after my grandmother died, we were cleaning out the house. I opened Aunt Hattie’s room for the first time in a decade. The room was unchanged, but there was a new addition: a framed photograph on the nightstand. It was a picture of me as a child, standing in front of the farmhouse. On the back, in a shaky, unfamiliar handwriting, were the words: ‘My little one, always welcome.’ I dropped the photo and ran. To this day, I don’t know who wrote it, but I know that in the dark, that room is still waiting.