The Last Ember in the Firebox

In the autumn of 1987, my family moved from the dry plains of Oklahoma to a decaying Victorian house in the small, fog-shrouded town of Blackwood, Maine. The house, known locally as the Ashworth Manor, had been abandoned for two decades, and the air inside was thick with the smell of old wood, dust, and something faintly sweet, like rotting flowers. My parents, ever the optimists, saw it as a fixer-upper with charm. I, a sullen twelve-year-old, saw it as a prison of creaking floorboards and drafty windows.

Our first week was uneventful, save for the constant chill that no amount of firewood could chase away. I spent most of my time exploring the vast, overgrown garden, trying to ignore the feeling that I was being watched from the upstairs windows. My father, a practical man, dismissed it as nerves. My mother, more sensitive, began to complain of a persistent headache and a sense of unease, especially near the old servant’s staircase at the back of the house.

One night, as I lay reading in my room, a draft extinguished my candle. The flame didn’t just go out; it died with a hiss, as if something had pinched it. I heard a soft, rhythmic tapping coming from the wall behind my headboard. It was a pattern – three taps, a pause, then two taps – like a child playing a game. I pressed my ear to the cold plaster and heard a faint, muffled voice, thin and reedy, like a voice from a distant radio. It was saying, ‘Let me in, let me in, let me in.’

I didn’t sleep that night. The next morning, I told my parents, but they chalked it up to the wind and an overactive imagination. My mother, however, had dark circles under her eyes and admitted she’d heard the same tapping from the kitchen ceiling. She tried to brush it off, but I saw her rubbing the back of her neck, a habit she had when she was scared.

A week later, my father decided to inspect the old furnace in the basement. It was a massive, coal-guzzling beast, crusted with rust and grime. As he was checking the pipes, he noticed a small, child-sized door set into the brick wall, hidden behind a pile of old newspapers. He pulled the newspapers aside and found a heavy iron latch, so corroded it took both hands to lever it open. Beyond the door was a narrow, dark chute that led upward, too small for an adult, but just wide enough for a child to crawl through.

That night, after my parents had gone to bed, I crept back to the basement with a flashlight. The iron door still hung open. I knelt down and peered into the darkness, expecting to see the underside of the floorboards. Instead, I saw a faint, orange glow, like a dying ember, at the end of the chute. And from that glow came the voice again, clearer now: ‘Please, I’m cold. Let me in.’

I should have closed the door and run. But something pulled at me, a mix of curiosity and a terrible pity. I crawled into the chute, my shoulders barely fitting, my heart hammering. The passage went on for what felt like an eternity, the glow growing brighter, the chill in the air turning to a penetrating cold that seemed to seep into my bones. At last, the chute opened into a small, circular room, no bigger than a closet. In the center, on a small stool, sat a boy about my age, but his skin was pale as ash, and his eyes were like black glass. He wore old-fashioned clothes, patched and dingy. In his lap, he held a tin can with a single ember glowing inside, casting his hollow face in flickering light.

‘You came,’ he said, his voice like the wind through dead leaves. ‘They left me down here. They said I was bad. They put me in this room and never came back. The fire is almost out. If it goes out, I’ll disappear.’

I reached out to touch him, but my hand passed through his shoulder, and I felt a cold so intense it numbed my fingers. He looked at me with those terrible eyes, and I realized with a sickening clarity that he was not alive, but he was not completely gone either. He was bound to this place, to the house, to the furnace, to the last ember of a fire that had been meant to die out decades ago.

‘I need you to get me out,’ he said. ‘Open the door at the top of the chute. Let me out into the house. I promise I won’t hurt anyone. I just want to see the sun again.’

The lie was plain on his face, but the ember in the can flickered, almost dying. And I knew that if I refused, he would be trapped forever, a child’s soul left to fade in the dark. But if I let him out, he would become something else, something hungry.

I heard my mother’s voice calling my name from far away, panicked. I backed out of the chute, my hands scraped and bleeding, my lungs burning. I slammed the iron door shut and threw the newspapers back over it. I never told anyone what I saw. But sometimes, at night, I still hear the tapping from the wall – three taps, pause, two taps – and a thin, reedy voice that whispers, ‘Let me in. Let me in. Let me in.’ And I lie awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering if I made the right choice, and whether the ember in that tin can will ever go out.