The Last Visitor

The old farmhouse sat at the edge of a field that had not been plowed in forty years. I remember it well, the cracked plaster walls, the groan of the floorboards, the way the wind would whistle through the gaps in the window frames. My sister, Lily, was just a baby, and my parents, Tom and Sarah, did their best to make it a home, but there was something wrong with the place. I felt it the first night we arrived, a weight in my chest, a sense that we were not alone.

Every morning, as I shook off the dreams of the night, I would sit at the breakfast table and tell my mother about the man. He was always there, in the chair by the window, or on the edge of my bed. ‘He was here again,’ I’d say, my voice flat, uncaring. ‘He asked about you, Mother.’ She smiled, ruffled my hair, and said, ‘That’s nice, dear. Now eat your porridge.’ She thought it was an imaginary friend, a child’s fancy. But I knew he was real.

He came every night, and I grew used to his presence. He never spoke, just sat and watched, his silhouette a patch of shadow against the moonlit wall. I learned to ignore him, to close my eyes and wait for sleep. But on the night of the harvest moon, he spoke. His voice was like dry leaves scraping pavement, and it filled my head with a strange warmth. ‘The time is coming,’ he said. ‘You must be ready.’ I did not know what he meant, but I felt a change in the air, a trembling in the floorboards.

The next day, my mother picked me up from school as usual. The gravel crunched under the car’s tires, and the sky was a bruised purple. I told her about the man again, the words tumbling out before I could stop them. ‘He said the time is coming,’ I said, and for the first time, a flicker of unease crossed her face. ‘What time, dear?’ she asked, her voice tight. ‘He says he’s going to take me away,’ I replied, my voice a whisper. The car went silent. My mother gripped the steering wheel until her knuckles were white. When we got home, she told my father, and they argued in low, tense voices behind the closed door of their bedroom. I heard the words ‘strange,’ ‘doctor,’ and ‘leave.’ But in the end, they stayed.

That night, I was afraid for the first time. I clutched my blanket to my chin, my eyes fixed on the empty chair. The house settled around me, creaking and sighing, and the wind outside howled like a living thing. I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew, the man was standing over me, not sitting. His shape was wrong, too tall, too thin. ‘Tell them you saw a wolf,’ he said, his voice a rustle of dead leaves. ‘They will believe you.’ And then he was gone, and I was alone, my heart pounding in my chest.

The next morning, I found my father outside, his face pale as bone. ‘Have you seen Lily?’ he asked, his voice cracked. I shook my head. A search of the house turned up nothing, and my mother ran outside, screaming Lily’s name into the wind. A neighbor called the police, and soon the farm was swarming with officers in muddy boots. They asked me questions, their voices gentle but probing. ‘Did you see anything last night, son?’ one of them asked. I remembered the man’s words. ‘I saw a wolf,’ I said, and the officer nodded, writing in his notebook. They searched the field, the barn, the woods, but they found nothing. Lily was gone, swallowed by the night.

I stayed up that night, watching the chair, but the man did not come. The next night, he did, and the night after, and after. He would sit in silence, and I would sit in the bed, and we would watch each other. My parents grew haggard, their eyes hollow. They stopped asking about the man, and I stopped telling them. I knew they blamed me, in the quiet guilt of their looks, and I blamed myself too.

Years passed, and the man still came. He never spoke again, but I could feel his presence like a weight in the room. I grew up, left for the city, but I always felt a pull back to that farm. When my mother died, an old woman with a distracted smile, I returned for the funeral. I stood in the empty house, the floorboards weeping beneath my feet, and I looked at the chair. The man was there, as I knew he would be, his silhouette sharper than ever.

‘The time is here,’ he said, and this time, his voice was clear, like a bell. ‘You have questions.’ I did. ‘Why did you take her?’ I asked. He was silent for a long moment. ‘She was a payment,’ he said. ‘A debt from your family. But you, you are the one I was sent for. I am the last carrier, and it is time for you to take my place.’

I felt a coldness seep into my bones, a heaviness in my limbs. ‘No,’ I said, but the word was weak. He stood and crossed the room, his shape blooming like a stain in the air. His face was still hidden, but his hand was on my shoulder, and I could feel the weight of ages in his grip. ‘The night is long,’ he said, ‘and the field is empty. You will watch, as I watched. And when the next one comes, you will speak.’

I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out. The room spun, and I felt myself falling into a darkness that had always been there, waiting. When I woke, I was in the chair, and the house was quiet. I tried to move, but my body was not my own. I was a shadow, a sentinel, bound to the old farmhouse. And as the years stretched into decades, I sat and watched, waiting for a child with knowing eyes, a child who would speak of the man in the room, and carry on the vigil that had been mine.