The Hollow Staircase

It was the first time in nearly a decade that I allowed myself to relive that night. The memory had been buried beneath years of noise, but the silence of my apartment, with its creaking pipes and the occasional groan of settling wood, reopened the wound.

I was six when my father, a fisherman, was taken by the sea. Not a violent storm, but a sudden squall that capsized his boat, leaving nothing but a shattered hull. For a six-year-old, the weight of that was a fog, a continuous gray that clung to everything. We lived in a small coastal village, our home a weathered two-story structure my grandfather had built, with the first floor of packed earth and the second of split bamboo. A narrow, rickety staircase, steep and unlit, led to our quarters above.

After the burial, our relatives and the women who worked in my grandparents’ fish drying yard came to the house. They sat in a loose circle in the main room, a space that was both kitchen and living area, the floorboards smooth from countless bare feet. My mother, her eyes red but steady, served bowls of clear broth and steamed rice. The women spoke in hushed, consoling tones at first, but gradually, as the kerosene lamp flickered and cast long shadows, laughter began to rise. It was the brittle, forced laughter of people trying to fill a void, and it worked. For a time, the room felt almost normal.

I sat on a low stool near the doorway, watching them. The laughter swelled, a discordant chorus, and just as it peaked, I heard it. From the staircase. A sound that was not part of the merriment: a slow, deliberate dragging. It was like something heavy being pulled down the steps, a rustle of cloth on splintered wood, punctuated by a faint, wet slapping. I turned to look, but the staircase was swallowed in darkness. The laughter continued, oblivious.

I tried to ignore it, telling myself it was a rat or the settling of the old house. But the sound was rhythmic, persistent, and it seemed to be accompanied by a faint, shushing whisper, like a hushing of air, or a voice telling someone to be quiet. The women were laughing, my mother was smiling, but that sound was there, beneath it all.

Then, one of the helpers, an older woman named Lita, paused mid-laugh. She tilted her head, her face going blank. ‘Did you hear that?’ she asked. The room fell silent. Everyone held their breath. I could hear the sea, a distant, constant murmur. And then, from the staircase, came a distinct, heavy thud. A single, heavy step.

My mother’s smile vanished. She looked at the dark mouth of the stairs. ‘It’s just the wind,’ she said, but her voice was thin. Lita shook her head, her eyes wide. ‘No, that was something else. Maybe a pig from the neighbor’s’? But we all knew the neighbor’s pig was tied up.

Another thud. And then another, faster. Something was coming down. The air grew cold, the lamp flame leaned as if blown by a passing presence, though no window was open. The women exchanged nervous glances, their earlier cheer turned to a tense huddle. My mother gathered me close, her hands trembling.

As the steps reached the bottom, the sound stopped. A shadow fell across the floorboards, cast by the lamplight, but it was impossibly long, stretching from the base of the stairs to the center of the room, where it flickered as if breathing. No one spoke. The shadow remained, a dark stain that defied the light.

Then, as abruptly as it had appeared, the shadow receded, gliding back up the stairs. We heard the receding, dragging sound, slow and heavy, until it faded into the upper floor. The room was still. No one dared to move for what felt like an eternity.

The women left shortly after, their cheerful façade shattered, their farewells quick and hushed. My mother bolted the door and kept the lamp burning all night. We sat in silence, listening. But nothing else disturbed the stillness.

The next morning, we found the staircase empty, but the top step was wet, as if something had been freshly dragged from the sea. My father’s fishing boots, which had been missing since the accident, were placed neatly at the top, the leather still damp with saltwater. They were empty.

Years later, when I asked my mother about that night, she would only shake her head and say, ‘It was the sea’s way of saying goodbye.’ But I knew better. The staircase never felt the same. It always seemed to hold a weight, a presence, waiting in the dark. Even now, in my own home, I avoid stairs. I live on the ground floor, in a flat with no upper level. But sometimes, late at night, I still hear that dragging sound, that heavy, wet slap, coming from somewhere deep within the walls, as if the house itself remembers what I have tried to forget.