The Hollow Hearth

I remember the summer I turned twelve, when the heat made everything feel slow and sticky. My friend Chloe and I were bored of the same old games, so when she suggested we explore her old farmhouse instead, I agreed without thinking. Her family had moved in only a month before, and the house still smelled of dust and old wood.

Chloe had been hearing things. At first, it was just a whisper of sound, like a distant radio. But then she swore she heard a cat meowing inside the walls. She said it was most clear in the bathroom, behind the medicine cabinet, and in the cavernous fireplace in the living room. I thought she was imagining things, but I was curious.

We started in the bathroom. The light switch was loose, and when Chloe pressed it, the plate popped off with a sharp crack, revealing a dark gap in the plaster. We grabbed a flashlight from the kitchen and shone it inside. Dust motes swirled in the beam; there was nothing but empty space and a faint, musty smell. No sound. I shrugged, but Chloe insisted she heard it earlier.

Next, we went to the living room. The fireplace was huge, a gaping black mouth with a hearth of cracked stone. Chloe knelt and put her ear to the opening. Her eyes went wide. ‘There,’ she whispered. ‘Listen.’ I knelt beside her, and this time I heard it: a thin, reedy meow, echoing from deep within the flue. It was pathetic and hungry, like a lost kitten.

Chloe grabbed the flashlight and shone it up into the chimney. I watched her face as she peered into the dark. Her expression shifted from curiosity to confusion, then to something like horror. She let out a gasp and dropped the flashlight, then bolted across the house. I chased her, calling her name, until I found her in the corner of her bedroom, curled up and shaking.

I knelt beside her, trying to calm her down. ‘What did you see?’ I asked. She wouldn’t look at me. Her voice was small and trembling. ‘There’s something up there,’ she said. ‘It’s not a cat. It’s… it’s watching me. It has eyes, but they’re not cat eyes. They’re too big, and they don’t blink.’

I didn’t believe her at first. I thought it was her imagination, the dark playing tricks on her. But that night, I couldn’t shake the image from my mind. I lay in my own bed, staring at the ceiling, and I swear I heard a faint scratching from the walls, followed by a low, guttural sound that was nothing like a cat.

A week later, I went back alone. I brought a ladder and a heavy flashlight. I climbed up to the roof and peered down the chimney, expecting to see nothing but soot. What I saw made me lose my grip and nearly fall.

At the bottom of the flue, where it opened into the fireplace, there was a nest. It was woven from hair and bones and bits of fabric. And in that nest, watching me with too-wide, unblinking eyes, was something that wore the skin of a cat like a mask. Its mouth was open, showing rows of needle-sharp teeth, and it let out a sound that was half meow, half scream.

I ran. I ran all the way home, and I didn’t stop until I was safe inside with the door locked. I never told anyone what I saw. Not even Chloe. But sometimes, late at night, I hear that same meowing sound coming from my own walls. And I know it’s not a cat. It’s something that learned the sound from a cat, and it’s still hungry.