The Last Visit

In the autumn of 2019, I was seeing a man named Leo. He was kind, attentive, and my daughter Lily adored him. We had been together for six months, and everything seemed perfect. But by early March, something shifted. The air around us grew thick with tension. We argued over trivial things: the way he folded laundry, his habit of humming off-key, the position of the salt shaker. It was as if every little thing he did grated on my nerves, and he felt the same about me. We both knew it was irrational, but we couldn’t stop. One evening, after a particularly vicious phone argument, I decided to end it. I called Leo and asked him to come over that Friday night to pick up the small collection of vintage records he had lent me. I planned to break up with him then.

Friday arrived. My sister came to take Lily for the weekend, and I rehearsed my speech in the living room, pacing over the creaking floorboard near the fireplace. At 7 p.m., the doorbell rang. I opened the door to find Leo standing there, his face pale, his eyes red-rimmed. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. He stepped inside, and I noticed he was holding a small wooden box, intricately carved with strange symbols. I had never seen it before. ‘What’s that?’ I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. He didn’t answer. Instead, he walked past me and set the box on the coffee table.

I started to speak, but he interrupted. ‘I found this in my attic,’ he said, his voice trembling. ‘It belonged to my great-grandmother. She was… a healer, they said. But I think she was something else.’ He opened the lid, and inside was a bundle of dried herbs, a small iron bell, and a yellowed piece of paper with handwriting on it. ‘I thought maybe we could use it. To fix us.’ I felt a chill run down my spine. ‘Leo, this is crazy. We’re done. Please just take your records and go.’ But he ignored me, pulling out the paper and reading aloud. The words were in a language I didn’t recognize, and as he spoke, the room seemed to grow colder.

The air thickened, and the shadows in the corners lengthened. The lights flickered. I heard a faint whispering, like many voices speaking at once, and they seemed to seep into my mind, filling me with a cold dread. I tried to tell Leo to stop, but my voice was gone. The whispering grew louder, and I felt something pressing against my thoughts, prying into my memories, my fears. I saw flashes of my childhood, my deepest insecurities, all laid bare. Then, as suddenly as it began, the noise stopped. Leo fell to his knees, gasping. The box was empty except for a fine ash.

I finally found my voice. ‘What did you do?’ I asked, my hands shaking. Leo looked up, and his eyes were different—darker, more intense. ‘I think I invited something in,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’ That night, we both stayed at my place, not out of reconciliation, but out of terror. We huddled on the couch, the lights on, not speaking, every creak and groan of the house making us jump. The whispers had stopped, but I felt a presence, a weight in the air, as if we were being watched.

The next day, I called my sister and told her to keep Lily away for a while. Leo and I tried to research what he had done, but the symbols and the writing were unfamiliar. We found nothing. Over the following weeks, things became worse. Leo would stare at me with an unnerving intensity, and sometimes his voice would come out wrong—too deep, or with a slight echo, as if another voice was speaking just behind his. He became possessive, insisting we stay together, saying the thing we had let in demanded it. I began to see things out of the corner of my eye: a woman in a black dress standing in the hallway, a hand reaching from under the bed.

One night, I woke to find Leo standing over my bed, holding a kitchen knife. ‘It says we have to be together forever,’ he said, his voice flat. I screamed and bolted, running to the bathroom and locking the door. I could hear him on the other side, whispering, not his voice but that chorus of voices, promising to take care of me, to never let me leave. I stayed in the bathroom until dawn, when the whispers faded and I heard Leo’s normal voice asking me to come out, saying he was sorry, that he didn’t know what had come over him.

I knew I had to get away, but I was terrified of what he might do. I called my mother, who lived across the country, and made plans to leave. But before I could, Leo disappeared. He left everything behind, including the wooden box. The police searched, but found no trace of him. I moved out the following week, staying with my sister until I found a new place. I thought I was free.

But the whispers never fully left. In my new apartment, I hear them sometimes, especially at night. And on certain days—like the first Friday of the month—I feel a cold breath on the back of my neck, and I catch a glimpse of a figure in the mirror that isn’t mine. I look in the mirror, and for a moment, I see Leo’s face, pale and gaunt, his lips moving soundlessly. I know now that what we let in isn’t finished with us. It just waits, patient, for the day when I open a door or speak a certain word. And I live in fear of that day.