The Hollow Space Above

The house on Cinder Lane was a sprawling Victorian with a sagging porch and a roof that seemed to breathe. My family—my parents, my brothers Marcus and Eli, my sisters Ivy and Iris, and our elderly beagle, Biscuit—moved in during a wet October. The previous owners had left in a hurry, abandoning boxes of mildewed books and a rusted swing set in the backyard. The realtor had been oddly tight-lipped about the place, only saying that it had ‘character.’

Our first night, we heard it: a slow, rhythmic creaking from the attic, as if someone were walking back and forth directly above our heads. My father shrugged it off as the old wood settling, but the sound was too deliberate, too heavy to be mere contractions. It stopped the moment we all fell silent, and resumed when we spoke, as if it were listening.

The attic itself was sealed off with a padlock we couldn’t open, and the key was nowhere to be found. My mother called a locksmith, but he took one look at the door and refused to touch it, muttering something about ‘the gap.’ When pressed, he said it was a draft—a draft that sounded like a heartbeat through the floorboards.

Weeks passed, and the creaking became a constant companion. It would drift from the attic to the walls, following us room to room. Biscuit would growl at the ceiling, her hackles raised, and refuse to enter certain corners of the house. My brothers, both teenagers, pretended not to be bothered, but I caught Marcus staring at the attic door with a pale face one night.

One afternoon, when my parents were out, Ivy and I were left to babysit a neighbor’s toddler, a cherubic boy named Tommy. He was eighteen months old and usually cheerful, but that day he was fixated on the hallway leading to the back of the house. He crawled to the threshold and stopped, then peeked around the corner, giggling. He’d duck back into the living room, then crawl forward again, as if engaged in a game of peek-a-boo with someone just out of sight. Ivy and I exchanged a look of frozen confusion.

‘Who are you playing with, Tommy?’ I asked, trying to keep my voice light. He turned to me, his smile too wide, and whispered, ‘The man.’ My blood went cold. He pointed down the hallway. ‘He wants us to come up.’

That night, I told my parents about Tommy’s ‘man.’ My father took a flashlight to the attic door and shone it through the keyhole, but there was nothing but darkness. He jiggled the handle, and the lock gave way with a click that made us all jump. The door swung open, revealing a narrow staircase leading up. The air that rushed out was stale and had a metallic tang, like old pennies. We climbed together, our steps groaning on the warped wood.

The attic was empty, except for a single child’s rocking chair in the center, swaying on its own. The floorboards were covered in a thick layer of dust, but there were footprints—barefoot, tiny, and fresh—leading from the stairs to the chair. My father said it was probably the realtor’s kids, but he didn’t sound convinced. As we descended, I noticed a small object on the top step: a silver locket, rusted shut, with an engraving on the back. It read: ‘For Amelia, who never left.’

After that, the creaking stopped. Instead, we heard whispers—soft, unintelligible murmurings that seemed to come from the walls themselves. Biscuit refused to eat, spending her days staring at the attic door with a low whine. My mother started sleeping in the living room, claiming she couldn’t stand the sound of breathing in the bedroom ceiling. Marcus began talking to himself in his sleep, and one night, I found him standing on the landing, staring up at the attic door with a blank expression.

‘She wants to come down,’ he said, his voice flat. ‘She says it’s cold up there.’

The next morning, I found the locket on the kitchen counter, despite having put it in a drawer in my room. I opened it, and inside was a faded photograph of a girl with dark braids, no older than seven, standing in front of a house that looked exactly like ours. On the back was a date—October 12, 1985—and the words, ‘I hide when they call.’

I closed the locket and felt the attic creak above me, as if in answer. That night, I heard a child’s laughter coming from the hallway, and the scuttling of small feet. I didn’t sleep. I stayed in my bed, the covers pulled to my chin, listening. And then I heard it—a voice, clear as day, right beside my ear. ‘Your turn to hide.’

I screamed, and my parents came running. But when they burst in, the room was empty, and the attic door stood open, a sliver of pale light spilling down the stairs. My father climbed up again, and this time, he found the rocking chair overturned, and a new footprint in the dust—larger, like a man’s. He didn’t speak for the rest of the night.

The next morning, we called a realtor to list the house. But every time we tried to take a photo, the camera would malfunction, or a shadow would appear in the frame. The whispers grew louder, and the creaking returned, but now it was accompanied by a rhythmic thumping, as if someone were jumping up and down in the attic. I looked online and found a local history forum. There, I read about a family who lived on Cinder Lane in the ’80s. Their daughter, Amelia, had disappeared without a trace. The police searched the house, but the attic held a secret: a false wall, hidden behind the insulation, with a tiny hollow space just large enough for a child. They found her bones inside, wedged into a corner, as if she had crawled in and couldn’t get out. The father was never charged, but he was the one who found her—and he was the one who showed the realtor the house, years later, saying it was ‘safe now.’

We left two weeks later, abandoning our furniture and our memories. The last thing I saw as we drove away was the attic window, and in it, a small silhouette with dark braids. She raised a hand to wave. I didn’t wave back. I just closed my eyes and let the image burn into my mind, knowing that no matter where we moved, she would find us. Because the hollow space above wasn’t just in the attic—it was in my head, echoing with a child’s giggle and a whisper that never stopped asking, ‘Will you play with me?’