The Fifth of May

The night the power flickered was the first strange thing, but I put it down to the storm brewing over Lake Carmody. My name is Evelyn, and I live in a converted warehouse on the third floor, with my partner, Marcus, and our gray tabby, Juniper. It was late, around half past ten, and I was at my desk, finishing a report for the clinic, while Marcus was sprawled on the couch, half-watching a documentary about deep-sea creatures. Juniper was curled on my lap, purring, and she batted at my fingers as I tried to type. I smiled at her, feeling that warm, mundane Sunday-night peace.

Then the lights flickered. Not long, just a blink, and Marcus said, ‘Storm’s messing with the power.’ I felt Juniper tense. Her ears flattened, and she stared toward the hallway that led to our bedroom, her eyes wide and fixed. I followed her gaze. The hallway was dark, the nightlight on the far wall casting long, liquid shadows. Then I saw it: a shape, darker than the surrounding black, about three feet high, crouched at the end of the hall, like a child huddled. My heart seized. I blinked, and it was gone.

‘Marcus,’ I whispered, ‘did you see that?’ He looked up, his face puzzled. ‘See what? You’re pale. You okay?’ I tried to laugh it off, but my skin prickled. I set Juniper down, and she darted under the couch, her tail twitching. A chill ran through me, and I felt a cold draft wrap around my ankles, as if a window had opened somewhere. But all the windows were shut.

Later that night, after we had checked every room and found nothing, we tried to sleep. Marcus was snoring, but I lay awake. Juniper was on the foot of the bed, her eyes glowing in the dark, and she would not stop staring at the closet. A low growl rumbled in her chest. That’s when I felt it: a small, cold hand on my back, just below my shoulders. It pressed, then slid down slowly, leaving ice in its wake. I gasped and sat bolt upright, my skin covered in goosebumps from head to toe. My legs felt wrapped in wet sheets, numb and heavy. And then I felt a pressure behind my eyes, a welling of grief so foreign and deep that tears leaked down my cheeks, though I felt no sadness. I was terrified.

Marcus woke at my gasp. ‘What is it?’ he mumbled. I couldn’t speak. I just pointed at the closet, tears streaming. He turned on the lamp, revealing an empty corner. Juniper hissed at the ceiling, her fur raised. Then the room went cold, and we heard it for the first time: a faint, rasping sound, like the scratch of dry leaves, coming from inside the walls, moving from the closet toward the window, then fading. Marcus went pale. ‘We need to leave,’ he said, ‘right now.’ We grabbed our shoes and coats and ran out into the rain.

The next night, we stayed at a neighbor’s apartment. Our neighbor, Mrs. Pell, a retired nurse, noticed our distress and, over tea, asked what had happened. She listened, her face growing grave, and then she told us that the warehouse had once been a foundling home, a place for orphaned children, until a fire in 1957 killed over thirty kids. The official report cited a faulty furnace, but the locals whispered that a caretaker, a bitter woman named Ruth, was the one who set it before taking her own life. ‘They say their spirits never moved on,’ Mrs. Pell said, ‘especially the little ones who never got a name.’ A chill ran through me, and I remembered my eyes crying.

We couldn’t just leave, though. We had to go back for our things, and to face what was there. The next afternoon, with the sun high and the rain gone, we returned. The apartment felt merely old, not sinister. But as we packed, Juniper began to meow piteously at the back wall in the bedroom. Marcus pried off a loose floorboard and found a small tin box. Inside were yellowed photographs: a row of children in white shifts, and in the corner, a girl of about four, with hair like a black curtain, standing apart from the others. On the back, in fading ink, was the name ‘Maeve.’ My heart raced. That night, I placed the box on the hall table, as if an offering. And I said, ‘Maeve, I’m sorry.’ The lights flickered, and for a moment, I saw her again, not as a shadow, but as a faint, pale girl in a white shift, her eyes black, and her mouth open in a silent wail. Then she was gone.

That was the last time we saw her. But every May, on the anniversary of the fire, a cold spot forms in that hall, and we hear a scraping, like little feet dragging. We called it the Fifth of May, and we understand now that some sorrows are so deep, they linger like a bruise on the world. We never forgot that small hand, that borrowed grief. And sometimes, when I hold Juniper, I feel a faint pressure on my back, as if something is still trying to get in, to be seen. We still live there, but we have learned to leave a light on in the hall, and to speak to the quiet. Some nights, I swear I hear a child humming through the walls, and I know her name is Maeve.