The Hollow in the Attic

Long ago, before I could tie my own shoes, I lived in a crooked house at the edge of a forest that swallowed the sun by late afternoon. My name is Elias, and this is what I remember.

I awoke one night to the sound of floorboards groaning above my room. I was four, maybe five, and my bed was a small ship in a sea of darkness. A figure stood at the foot of my bed—tall, with shoulders like a coat rack, and a face I couldn’t quite see except for a thin smile that caught the moonlight. I thought it was my father, come to check on me after a bad dream. I whispered, ‘Papa?’ but the figure only tilted its head, and then it was gone.

In the morning, I told my mother about the man who smiled at me. She laughed and said I had a vivid imagination. But years later, when I was ten, she went to a fortune-teller at a county fair, a woman with a glass eye and a caravan of painted stars. The fortune-teller said, ‘Your son has a guardian. An old man with a crooked finger and a love of cherry tobacco.’ My mother paled and asked who it was. The woman said, ‘He says he’s your husband’s father. He says he always wanted a granddaughter, but he’s happy with the boy. He says he visits the boy at night to keep him company.’ My mother never told me this until I was older, but when she did, I felt a cold draft that had nothing to do with the wind.

That house—my grandmother’s house, really, where we moved after my parents inherited it—was a rambling Victorian with a attic that no one ever entered. The door was always locked, and the key was lost. I used to press my ear to the wood and hear something shifting inside, like a large animal turning in sleep. My cousin Mira, who was six, had a bedroom right below the attic. She started waking up screaming, and when my aunt asked her why, she said, ‘The man in the ceiling has no feet. He walks on his ankles.’

When I was eleven, I found the key. It was under a loose floorboard in my closet, wrapped in a yellowed receipt from a store that had closed before I was born. I crept up to the attic one afternoon while my parents were out. The door swung open with a moan, and I stepped into a room filled with dust and broken furniture. But in the corner, under a tarp, was a rocking chair. It was rocking by itself, back and forth, as if someone had just stood up. On the seat was an old photograph—a man with a mustache and a stern face, standing next to a woman I didn’t recognize. On the back, in pencil: ‘To my son, with love, from your father.’

I took the photograph downstairs and showed it to my mother. She cried, because it was the only picture of my grandfather she’d ever seen, and she’d always wondered what he looked like. But when she looked at it, she pointed to the woman and said, ‘That’s his sister. She died young.’ I didn’t ask how she knew.

That night, I had a dream that felt more real than waking. The man from my childhood stood at the foot of my bed again, but this time I could see him clearly. He had my grandfather’s face, but his eyes were not kind. They were hollow, like the spaces behind a doll’s eyes. He smiled, and his mouth didn’t move when he spoke. He said, ‘You have my picture. Now I can stay.’

I woke up with a start, and something was different. The air in my room was cold, and the mirror on my dresser was fogged over, though the day was warm. I ran to my mother’s room, but she wasn’t there. I found her in the kitchen, staring at the photograph I had given her. She turned to me with a terrified expression and said, ‘Elias, look at the date on the back.’

I hadn’t noticed it before. It said: ‘1943.’ My mother whispered, ‘Your grandfather died in 1942.’

I never went into the attic again, but sometimes I hear the rocking chair creaking overhead, even when no one is home. And when I pass by a mirror, I catch a glimpse of a figure behind me, with a smile that should be warm but isn’t. My best friend, Hank, lives in a house that was once a funeral parlor. He’s told me about the sounds he hears at night, the weeping in the walls. And my cousin Mira—she’s grown now, but she still won’t sleep without a nightlight. The last time I visited her, she showed me a drawing she made as a child. It showed a man with no feet standing over her bed, and underneath she had written: ‘He’s waiting for you too.’

I still live in that house, because I can’t afford to leave. The photograph sits in a drawer, face down. But every night, when the house settles, I hear a slow, rhythmic creak from the attic. And I know that one day, I’ll unlock the door again, because he wants me to. He always wanted a daughter, but he’ll settle for a son. He’ll keep me company, the way he did that first night, until I’m as hollow as he is.