The Last Shutter

The house on Linden Avenue had been a bargain, and I’d learned why within a month of moving in. It wasn’t the creaking floors or the drafty windows; it was the persistent sense of being watched, a cold spot on the third stair from the top, and the faint, rhythmic thump-thump-thump that came from the attic at night, like a child jumping rope. I’d named her ‘Evelyn’ after the previous owner’s daughter, who, according to the town records, had died in 1962 at age eleven from a fall down the same stairs. The medium I’d contacted was a man named Harold Pemberton, a sharp-faced individual who charged an exorbitant fee but had a reputation for genuine contact. He insisted on a personal object belonging to the spirit—I had a battered rag doll with a missing button eye found in the attic—and a bottle of cheap red wine.

On a blustery Saturday, with my daughter, Chloe, staying at her father’s, Harold arrived. He set up a card table in the dining room, placed the doll in the center, and poured two glasses of wine. ‘The alcohol thins the veil,’ he said, his voice a low murmur. ‘We need to focus on Evelyn, nothing else.’ We sat across from each other, fingers touching the doll’s edges. I felt foolish, but the house had grown oppressive, and I wanted peace.

The room grew cold, and the candle on the sideboard flickered. Harold’s eyelids fluttered. ‘She’s here,’ he whispered. ‘She’s behind you.’ I spun in my chair, but saw only the shadows pooling in the corners. ‘Don’t move,’ Harold commanded. ‘She’s touching your hair.’ A chill ran down my scalp. ‘She wants to show you something.’ He reached out, his hand trembling, and placed it on mine. ‘The stairs,’ he intoned. ‘But it’s not what you think.’

That’s when I noticed the doll. Its button eyes seemed to glisten with a wetness that wasn’t there before. And then, from the kitchen, I heard the sound of a shutter—the old wooden shutter on the back window—banging open and shut, even though the wind was calm. Harold’s face went white. ‘She’s not Evelyn,’ he gasped. ‘She’s something else. Something that’s been here longer. She’s using the child’s shape.’ The banging grew frantic, and the doll began to tremble, its stitched mouth curling into a grimace. ‘Run,’ Harold shouted, and we bolted for the front door.

We stumbled onto the porch, and I turned to look back. Through the living room window, I saw a small figure—a girl in a white dress—standing at the top of the stairs. She wasn’t falling. She was watching. And above her, in the attic window, a dark shape moved, like a giant moth pressed against the glass. The shutter banged one last time, and then silence.

I sold the house at a loss a month later. But the new owners, a young couple, contacted me last week. They found a Polaroid in the attic floorboards. It shows a woman in her thirties, with a camera around her neck, standing on the stairs. Her face is blurred, but behind her, a faint outline of a girl holds a button-eyed doll. And in the background, the shutter is open, revealing a blackness that seems to swallow the light. I haven’t slept without the lamps on since. The house on Linden Avenue is gone from my life, but I know, with a certainty that chills me to the bone, that the last shutter never really closed. It’s just waiting for the next hand to open it.