The Footfalls Above

I never minded the old house, not at first. It had that hollow, creaking feel of a place that had seen better decades, and the girls—Mara, who was four, and little June, just turned two—seemed to fill its dusty corners with laughter. Their mother, Delia, was a long-haul trucker, gone for weeks at a time, so I often stayed over, helping with the girls and tidying the cluttered rooms. When they moved into their late great-uncle’s place, a sprawling Victorian on the edge of a dying town, I thought it was quaint. I thought the peeling wallpaper and the smell of mothballs were just part of its charm.

That particular night, Delia was on the road, and the rest of the family—Uncle Ray, his teenage daughter, and June—had gone out to rent some movies. It was just Mara and me, and she’d been restless all day, her little face flushed with that cranky heat of a toddler who’d skipped her nap. So I carried her upstairs to the guest room, the one with the faded floral curtains and the bed that sighed when you sat on it. She usually insisted on sleeping alone, proud of her independence, but tonight she clung to my arm. ‘Stay, Mia,’ she whispered, her voice already thick with sleep. I switched off the lamp, lay down beside her on the narrow mattress, and she curled into me, her breath evening out almost instantly.

I must have drifted off too, because the sound of heavy footsteps yanked me awake. They came from directly above—the attic, I guessed—slow, deliberate, like someone pacing in boots. I held my breath, listening. The ceiling creaked. Dust sifted down from the cracked plaster. My heart hammered, but I told myself it was just the house settling. Old houses do that, right? I even managed a faint smile, thinking of Uncle Ray’s stories about the place’s creaky bones. But the footsteps didn’t stop. They moved to the corner of the attic, paused, then stomped back, heavier this time. The rhythm was all wrong—too heavy, too rhythmic, like a giant’s heartbeat. And then they stopped, right above the bed.

I didn’t move. I could feel Mara’s warm weight against my side, her small fingers curled into my shirt. The silence that followed was thick, suffocating, broken only by the tick of a clock somewhere downstairs. Then I heard a noise I’ll never forget: a low, guttural scrape, as if something was being dragged across the floor above. It lasted for a full minute, then stopped. My throat tightened. I wanted to believe it was a raccoon or a loose shutter, but the sound was too heavy, too human. I carefully slid out of bed, my bare feet hitting the cold floorboards, and crept to the door. The hallway was dark, but a sliver of moonlight came through the window at the end, illuminating a thin ladder that led to a trapdoor in the ceiling—the attic access.

The trapdoor was slightly ajar. A cold draft leaked through the gap, carrying a smell like rust and old earth. I should have gone back to bed. I should have woken Mara and taken her downstairs. But something pulled me forward, a horrible curiosity, like when you press on a bruise. I climbed the ladder, my hands shaking on the rungs. The trapdoor swung open easily, and I pulled myself up into the blackness. The air was stale, heavy with dust. I fumbled for a light switch, found a pull chain, and yanked it. A single bulb buzzed on, revealing a cluttered attic: boxes, old furniture, a dressmaker’s dummy draped in a moth-eaten gown. And then I saw the footprints.

They were embedded in the dust on the floor, leading from a small window to the center of the room. They were huge—easily twice the size of my own feet—and they weren’t normal footprints. They had no toes. Just a solid, flat oval, like the feet of a statue. The trail stopped at a spot directly above the bedroom, and there, in the dust, was a circle, as if something had been standing there for a long, long time. My blood went cold. I backed away, and as I did, I noticed something else: a locket on a chain, lying near the circle. It was old, tarnished, and I picked it up without thinking. It opened easily, revealing a faded photograph of a man in an old-fashioned suit, his face partially obscured by a shadow. But it was his feet that caught my eye—he was barefoot, and his feet were long and flat, just like the prints.

I didn’t hear the footsteps again. But as I climbed back down, the trapdoor slammed shut above me, so hard the whole house shuddered. Mara woke with a scream, and I rushed to her, holding her trembling body. She kept pointing at the ceiling, mumbling something I couldn’t understand. The family came home an hour later, and I told them about the noise. Uncle Ray just laughed. ‘Old houses, Mia. They’ve got their own song.’ But I saw his eyes flick to the ceiling, and for a moment, his smile looked forced. The girls and I slept on the couch that night, and I didn’t go back to the attic. But every night since, I hear those footsteps above, pacing, pausing, as if waiting for me to make a mistake. And sometimes, when I’m alone in my own apartment, I hear them in my head, and I know they’re not just in the house. They’re in me.