The Hollow Floorboards

I never knew silence could be so loud until we moved into the bungalow on Cedar Lane. It stood at the end of a cul-de-sac, its porch tilted like a tired smile, and the paint peeled in long, thin strips that whispered in the breeze. But inside, it was quiet. Too quiet. My parents—Dad and his new wife, Sera—loved that. They’d been fighting about clutter for weeks, and the place was practically empty, like a skeleton waiting for flesh.

I’m Liora, thirteen, and I’ve always heard things others can’t. Not just whispers or footsteps, but the weight of emotions pressing against my skin like static. My twin brother, Felix, is the only one who knows—he’s seen me freeze mid-sentence, staring at a corner where an old man in a cardigan used to rock. But at Dad’s house, I felt nothing. The air was clean, almost sterile. I thought maybe the gift had gone dormant, or that the house was simply new, untainted by years of living.

Then Dad’s friend, Marcus, came to stay. He was a big man with a loud laugh, escaping a messy divorce. He took the guest room at the back, the one with the window that never quite closed. He joked about the draft, about the creaky floorboards, but I saw the way his smile didn’t reach his eyes. The first night, I heard him talking on the phone, his voice low and angry. I tried to sleep, but the house felt different—like it was holding its breath.

It was the third day. I was in the computer room, the only space with a door that locked, scrolling through photo edits. Marcus had gone to bed early, muttering about a headache. Around midnight, I heard a soft tapping from the wall behind the desk. Steady, rhythmic—three taps, a pause, then three more. I ignored it, thinking it was the pipes. Then the tapping grew louder, and I felt a cold spot seep under the door, like a hand trailing along the floor.

I opened the door a crack. The hallway was dark, lit only by the pale glow of the nightlight in the bathroom. Marcus’s door was ajar. I heard sobbing—low, muffled, like someone trying to keep quiet. I crept to the doorway and peeked inside. Marcus sat on the edge of the bed, facing the window, his shoulders shaking. The moonlight caught his face, and I saw that his eyes were closed, but his mouth was moving, forming words I couldn’t hear. On the floor beside him, his phone was on, the screen lighting up a photo of a woman and a child.

Then the sobbing stopped. Marcus turned his head slowly, his eyes still closed, and smiled. A wide, unnatural smile that stretched too far. ‘She’s here,’ he said, his voice childlike, not his own. ‘Under the floor. She’s been waiting.’

I ran back to my room, locking the door. My heart hammered. The gift had spoken to me before, but never like this—never with such wrongness. I lay in bed, listening. The tapping resumed, now from under my bed. Three taps. Pause. Three taps. Then a whisper, so soft I almost missed it: ‘Let me out.’

The next morning, Marcus was gone. His bed was made, his suitcase empty, but his phone was left on the bedside table. Dad said he’d gotten an urgent call, left early. But when I looked at the phone, the screen was black. I picked it up, and it turned on by itself. There was a single photo open—the same woman and child. But behind them, in the background, I saw the guest room. And in the reflection of a mirror, a girl my age, pale, with hollow eyes, standing at the foot of the bed.

I didn’t tell anyone. But that night, as I lay in my room, I felt a weight press on the mattress beside me. Something cold curled into my back, like a child fitting into a hug. And a voice whispered in my ear, in a language I didn’t know but understood, ‘Thank you for finding me.’

The bungalow grew quiet again, but now I knew the silence was a lie. There was a girl under the floorboards, and she had been waiting for someone who could hear her. I didn’t know if Marcus had brought her or if she’d been there all along, but I knew one thing—she was not going to let me go. Not now. Not ever.