The Floor Below

When I first moved into the top-floor flat of a converted Victorian schoolhouse, I felt a sense of quiet pride. The high ceilings, the arched windows, the way the afternoon light slanted through the grimy panes—it all felt like a fresh start for me and my daughter, Lily. We moved in last October, and for the first few weeks, the only sound was the distant hum of the city and the creak of the old building settling. The landlord had assured me that the entire conversion was brand new—electrics, plumbing, even the floorboards had been sanded and varnished. I was the first to live in my unit, and I liked that.

It wasn’t until January, when my boyfriend, Marcus, came to stay, that the first strange thing happened. We were lying in bed, facing each other, the room lit only by the orange glow of the street lamp outside. We were just drifting off, our breathing slowing, when a voice spoke right between us. It was a deep, male voice, rough as gravel, and it simply said, ‘Oy.’ The sound was so close that I felt the vibration in the air, and Marcus’s eyes snapped open in the dark. We both lay frozen, staring at each other, and then Marcus whispered, ‘Did you hear that?’ I could only nod. We lay there, listening, but the only sound was the thud of our own hearts. We tried to rationalize it—maybe a neighbor’s TV, maybe the old pipes—but it had been too close, too deliberate. Eventually, we fell into an uneasy sleep, and by morning, we had almost convinced ourselves it was nothing.

A week later, Marcus had given me a beautiful wooden picture frame with a photo of us from a weekend trip to the coast. I placed it on my bedside table, next to a smaller frame with Lily’s school photo on the other side of the bed. The first time I noticed something off was on a night when I was alone. I went upstairs, turned on the bedside lamp, and saw that the frame with Marcus’s photo was face down on the table. I picked it up, thinking it must have fallen, and set it upright. But the next morning, it was face down again. And the next night. And the next. It became a nightly ritual: I would set it upright, and by morning, it would be face down, no matter how carefully I balanced it. I even placed it in the middle of the table, away from the edge, but it still happened. It unnerved me, but I didn’t want to alarm Lily or Marcus, so I kept it to myself.

One night, I woke to the sound of a soft thud from the living room. I lay still, listening, and then I heard it again—a sound like footsteps, but slower, heavier, as if someone was walking on the ceiling above. But I was on the top floor. There was nothing above me but the roof. I slipped out of bed and crept to the living room. The moon cast a pale light through the tall windows, and I saw that on the floor, right in the center of the room, was a single silver coin. I hadn’t put it there. I picked it up—it was cold, and on its face was a date: 1923. The school had been built in 1923, I remembered. I felt a chill run down my spine, but I told myself it was just an old coin, maybe dropped by a worker during the renovation. I put it in a drawer and went back to bed, but I didn’t sleep well.

The next day, I found the coin on my pillow, as if someone had placed it there. I was about to throw it away, but something made me keep it. I showed it to Marcus when he came over, and he tried to laugh it off. ‘Maybe it’s a prank,’ he said, but his eyes were uneasy. We searched the flat, but found nothing else unusual. That night, as we lay in bed, the picture frame fell again, and this time, we both saw it—it seemed to slide off the table on its own, as if nudged by an invisible hand. ‘Did you see that?’ I whispered. Marcus nodded, his face pale. ‘We need to get out of here,’ he said.

We didn’t leave, of course. I couldn’t afford to break the lease, and Lily loved her room. But the occurrences began to escalate. I would find the bathroom door open when I knew I’d closed it. Lily would complain that she heard ‘a man singing’ in the walls. And one night, I was woken by the sound of a child crying—a soft, hiccupping sob coming from the wall behind the headboard. I pressed my ear to the plaster, and I could hear it clearly, as if something was trapped inside. I told Marcus, and he said, ‘This is too much. We have to do something.’ He suggested calling a medium, but I was terrified. I didn’t want to acknowledge that something was truly wrong.

Then, on a gray February afternoon, I was sitting on the sofa when I felt a cold spot in the room, a patch of air that was unmistakably cold, even though the heating was on. I walked to the kitchen to make tea, and when I returned, the picture frame was on the floor, shattered. The glass was broken, and the photo of Marcus and me was torn down the middle, exactly dividing our faces. I felt a prickle of fear. I knew then that whatever was here didn’t want me to be happy. It wanted me alone.

I finally called a local historian, a woman named Mrs. Vance, who knew the building’s history. She told me that the school had been built on the site of an old workhouse, and that during the war, it had been requisitioned as a hospital. There had been deaths, yes, but nothing violent. She said, ‘The top floor was the nursery. During the flu epidemic, many children died there. Some say their spirits lingered.’ I felt sick. I thought of the crying sound, the coin dated 1923, the deep voice saying ‘Oy’—as if it was trying to get my attention, to make me notice.

That night, I lay in bed, unable to sleep. At 3:33 AM, I felt a presence in the room. I didn’t dare open my eyes, but I could feel someone standing over me, breathing. And then, a voice—the same deep male voice—said, ‘Get out.’ I gasped and shot up, but the room was empty. Yet on the wall, someone had written in what looked like old-fashioned chalk: ‘LEAVE NOW.’

I couldn’t take it anymore. I gathered Lily, and we went to a hotel. I left a note for Marcus, telling him I’d explain later. But that night, in the hotel room, I got a text from him: ‘Is this your idea of a joke?’ He had gone to the flat to collect a few things and found the entire place in disarray—furniture overturned, drawers pulled out, and on the wall, newly written in the same chalk: ‘SHE LEFT.’

I never went back. I broke the lease, and I lost a lot of money. But even now, in my new place, behind a new locked door, I sometimes feel a breath on my neck when I’m alone. And sometimes, in the dead of night, I hear a deep voice whisper my name, as if calling me back to that floor. But I have learned to ignore it. I pretend I don’t hear. Because I know that if I answer, it will never let me go.