The Fourth Floor

I was the kind of man who laughed at fear. Six feet two, two hundred twenty pounds of muscle earned from years of hauling cement bags at my uncle’s construction site, I walked through the darkest lanes of Mumbai at 2 AM without a flutter. My name is Arjun Deshmukh, and I used to think that all the gods and ghosts people prattled about were just stories for the weak-minded. I didn’t even bother with the little shrine my mother kept in the kitchen, and I made fun of my sister for crying at horror movies. That was before we moved to the old bungalow in Pune, and before the fourth floor showed me what I was really made of.

Our new home was a beautiful three-story colonial house with a courtyard and a crumbling stone well in the back. The realtor said it had been vacant for a decade because the previous owner, an old British army officer, had passed away and his heirs fought over it. We got it cheaper than market, and my father was thrilled. He was a practical man too, but a few days before we moved in, he insisted on performing a housewarming puja, a havan to cleanse the space. I rolled my eyes at the saffron powder and the chanting priest, but I didn’t object. It was my father’s way.

The house had three floors. We set up our bedrooms on the second floor, with the living room and kitchen on the first, and a study on the third. My sister was given the room at the end of the hall, my parents took the big one, and I took the one next to the stairs. It was all fine for the first few weeks. The house had a strangely cool atmosphere, even in the scorching June heat, and the sound of the old well’s pulley creaking at night made me smile.

One evening, I was returning from work and saw from the outside that there was a fourth floor to the house, a small attic window I had never noticed before, tucked under the eaves. The house was only three floors, I was sure. But there it was, a circular window with a rusted iron grille, throwing back a dull light from within. When I entered the house and asked my mother if she had been to the attic, she looked at me blankly. ‘What attic, beta?’ she said. ‘There is no attic in this house.’ My sister, too, said she had never seen any stairs leading upward from the third floor.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. The image of that window stuck in my mind. Around 2 AM, a sound woke me, a heavy dragging, like furniture being moved over a wooden floor, coming from directly above my room. But there was nothing above my room except the flat terrace. I convinced myself it was the neighbor’s house, or a stray cat on the roof’s edge. I put on my earphones and forced myself to sleep.

The next night, the dragging sound returned, and this time it was accompanied by a faint, rhythmic tapping on the ceiling, directly over my bed. I sat up, angry, and pounded on the ceiling with my fist. To my shock, the tapping stopped for a second, then resumed with double intensity. I pulled on my pants and marched to the stairs, determined to go up and see what the hell was up there. The stairs led to the third floor study, and there, stopped at a landing, was a narrow, wooden staircase I had never seen before. It was covered in dust, and the wood looked old and splintered, leading up to a door that was slightly ajar, leaking a dull yellow light.

My heart started to beat fast, but fear was for cowards. I clenched my jaw and climbed the stairs. The door creaked open to reveal a room that was completely unexpected. It was a bedroom, fully furnished with a brass bed, a dressing table with a tarnished mirror, and old trunks along the walls. The floor was dusty, and in the center of the room, a woman was standing, her back to me, dressed in a white saree. She was combing her long, black hair in the mirror, but the mirror reflected only the room, not her. I saw the reflection of the bed, the trunks, the window, but she was absent from it.

I froze. My legs turned to lead. I wanted to run, but my body wouldn’t obey. The woman slowly turned around, and her face was young and beautiful, but her eyes were completely black, like voids. She smiled, a too-wide smile, and took a step toward me. I finally found my voice, and I screamed. The scream was torn from my lungs, a sound I had never made before, high and pathetic. I stumbled backward, falling down the stairs, and I didn’t stop running until I was in the courtyard, gasping for air.

My parents and sister rushed out, alarmed. I told them what I had seen, but they dismissed it as a nightmare. My father went up to check, and he came down after a few minutes, saying there was nothing there, that the stairs were just a forgotten closet. But I saw it. For the next three days, I didn’t sleep in that room. I slept on the sofa in the living room, and I made sure the lights were on.

On the night before our housewarming puja (which my father decided to do over again, to be safe), I heard sobbing from the direction of the stairs. It was a woman’s voice, weeping softly. Despite my terror, something in me felt a pang of pity. I made my way to the bottom of the attic stairs, and I saw a pair of bare feet on the landing above. The sobbing continued. I spoke, ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ The crying stopped. A voice, thin as dry leaves, whispered from above, ‘He threw me down the well. I cannot leave until someone knows.’

Suddenly, the memory of the old well behind the house flashed in my mind. I ran to the well, which was now covered with a heavy granite slab. I called my father and uncle, and with their help, we pried the slab off. Inside, deep in the murky water, they found a bundle of bones and a tarnished silver bracelet. The police were called, and they found that the bones belonged to a young woman who had been reported missing twenty years ago, during the time when the British officer lived there. The house had a secret history of violence.

That night, I went to the attic again, but this time I was not afraid. I offered a small prayer, asking for forgiveness for the intrusion and for peace for the woman. In the morning, the attic stairs were gone, replaced by a solid wall. The house felt lighter, and I no longer sensed any presence. Since that day, I have never mocked a puja, never laughed at someone’s belief in the supernatural. I now have a small shrine in my room, and I light a lamp every evening. Respecting the rituals isn’t about being weak; it’s about acknowledging that there are forces beyond our understanding, and sometimes, they need to be heard.

I still live in that house, but now with a sense of reverence. The fourth floor is no longer there, but every time I pass the well, I touch its rim and whisper a thank you to the restless soul I helped set free. I am still strong, but strength is not just about muscle—it is also about knowing when to bow your head.