The Felt Moth

The year was 2007, and I was staying in a rented cottage on the Isle of Pines, a remote Scottish island where the wind never fully ceased its moan. The cottage, called ‘Craobhach,’ sat on a cliff overlooking a cove that the locals called ‘The Cold Embrace,’ a name that felt less like a nickname and more like a warning. The previous tenant, an old fisherman named Doyle, had died there the winter before, his body found on the rocks below, an apparent fall. The islanders whispered that he’d been ‘listening to the sea’ too closely, but their words carried a weight that suggested they knew more than they said.

That particular night, the storm had whipped the sea into a frenzy, and the cottage’s thin walls creaked in protest. I’d gone to bed at eleven, exhausted from a day of sketching the relentless waves, but after thirty minutes, I was jolted awake by a sound that didn’t belong. It was a soft, repetitive thud, like wet cloth being struck against a wall, followed by a dragging noise that seemed to circle my bed. My room was pitch black, the only light a sliver of grey from the window, where the moon was hidden behind clouds.

I lay frozen, my pulse thrumming in my ears. The thud came again, closer, and then I felt a pressure on the foot of my bed, as if something heavy had sat down. The air grew cold, and I could smell salt and something else, something sweet and rotten, like seaweed and decay. I tried to convince myself it was the wind, or a loose shutter, but the sounds were too deliberate, too human. And then, I heard a voice, not a word, but a low, guttural hum, a sound that seemed to vibrate through the floorboards.

My instincts screamed to run, but my body refused to obey. I was pinned, as if by an invisible weight. The humming grew louder, and I felt a cold, damp hand brush against my ankle, leaving a trail of moisture that felt like ocean water. I squeezed my eyes shut, repeating the fisherman’s prayer I’d learned as a child, but the memory of Doyle’s death surfaced unbidden. Had he heard these same sounds? Had he been drawn to the edge?

The pressure on my bed lifted, and I heard the thudding retreat toward the door. But just as it seemed to leave, I heard a new sound: a sharp, metallic click, like a key turning in the lock. My bedroom door, which I’d left ajar, swung open on its own, revealing the dark hallway beyond. And there, outlined against the faint glow of the living room, stood a shape, tall and gaunt, its arms hanging loosely at its sides. It took a step into my room, and the sickly smell intensified.

In that moment, a memory surfaced from my childhood: a story my grandmother told me about the ‘Felt Moth,’ a creature that was said to mimic the sounds of clothing dropping to lure the lonely to their deaths. It had the body of a man and the wings of a moth, and it fed on the warmth of the living. I had always dismissed it as folklore, but now, as the shape stepped closer, I saw a glint of something like the edge of a wing folded against its back.

It reached out a hand, and I finally managed to move. I rolled off the bed, hitting the floor with a thud that knocked the breath from my lungs. I scrambled backwards, pressing myself against the wall, and the creature tilted its head as if curious. It opened its mouth, and I saw rows of needle-like teeth. ‘You are not him,’ it hissed, its voice like the scrape of barnacles.

Then it vanished, leaving only the lingering smell and the sound of my own ragged breath. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night, nor the next. I left the island the following morning, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was waiting for me to come back.

Years later, I returned to Scotland, driven by a need to understand what I had seen. I spoke to the islanders, and they told me that Doyle had been a collector of moth specimens. His cottage was filled with them. And on the night he died, he had written a single word in his journal before falling: ‘felt.’ I knew then that the creature was real, and it was tethered to that place, waiting for its next victim. I fear that one day, I will hear that hum again, and I will walk to the cliff, unable to resist.