The Latch of Room Six

I had been back in the old country for just under a season, still adjusting to the weight of the monsoon air and the way the hills swallowed the sun by four in the afternoon. My parents’ house in the eastern foothills had been in our family for three generations, a rambling structure of thick mud walls and creaking teak beams, always cool even in the hottest months. But at night, that coolness turned to a damp chill that clung to the skin, and I learned to move through the rooms with a certain dread. It wasn’t the dark that bothered me—I had lived in cities where the streetlights never let true darkness fall. Here, darkness was absolute, and the silence was too complete, as if the house itself was holding its breath.

My room was at the end of a long corridor that connected the main house to the old kitchen, now unused. Every evening, after my parents retired, I would sit in my room with the door ajar, a single lamp burning, and the rest of the house would settle into that peculiar stillness. But there was one thing that always set my teeth on edge: the latch on the window. It was a simple brass latch, old and tarnished, and no matter how many times I checked it, it would sometimes be unfastened in the morning, even though I always locked it before bed. I told myself it was the wind, or the house settling, but the window never faced the open—it overlooked a narrow alley that ran between our house and the neighbor’s wall, so wind was rare.

One night, a few weeks in, I woke to a sound I couldn’t place. It wasn’t a creak or a whisper, but a low, rhythmic scraping, like metal against stone, coming from the window. I lay frozen, my heart thumping, and listened. The scraping stopped. I told myself it was a rat, or a loose branch, but the sound returned, this time accompanied by a soft, clicking noise, as if something was trying to turn the latch from the outside. I didn’t dare move. The lamp was off, and I could barely make out the silhouette of the window against the grey light of the moon. Then I heard a voice, barely a breath, but articulate: ‘Let me in.’ The voice was old, and it carried a weight of loneliness that made my skin crawl. I pulled the blanket over my head and stayed there till dawn.

The next morning, I examined the window. The latch was unfastened, and on the sill, just outside, there was a small pile of yellowed petals, like from a marigold, but dry and brittle, as if they had been left there for years. I told my mother, and she gave me a strange, guarded look. She said, ‘That is just the wind, beta.’ But her eyes betrayed her. I knew she knew something.

The incident became a nightly ritual. Every night, I would lock the latch, and every morning, it would be open, with a few more petals added to the growing pile. I started keeping a stool against the window, but the voice grew bolder. It began to whisper my name, not in my mother tongue, but in a distorted version, as if someone had learned it from a distance. ‘Aarav… Aarav…’ It would call, and the scraping would intensify until I couldn’t bear it. I stopped sleeping in that room. I moved to my parents’ former bedroom, but the voice followed, now coming from the walls, from the ceiling. My parents, oblivious (or pretending to be), suggested I see a doctor. But I knew what I heard.

I decided to spend a night in the old cottage behind the house, the one that had been unoccupied since my grandmother’s death. It was a small, two-room structure with a single, heavy wooden door that had a latch of its own, an iron one, rusted but solid. That first night, I locked the main door, but there was also a smaller door that led to a pantry, and that one was secured with a simple bolt. I double-checked both, then lay down on a thin mattress, the smell of dust and old cloves filling my nostrils.

Around midnight, I heard the familiar scraping, but it was different—more resonant, as if it were coming from the very wood of the walls. I sat up, and in the faint light from the single barred window, I saw the reflection of a figure in the glass pane. It was a woman, dressed in a white sari, but her face was obscured by a tangle of dark hair, and her hands were pressed against the glass, fingers splayed. She didn’t move. She just stood there, as if waiting. I felt a coldness seep into my bones, and the voice came, now clear and distinct, echoing inside the cottage: ‘You have been avoiding me. But the latch will open.’

I looked at the door to the pantry. The bolt was shaking, as if something were jiggling it from the other side. The woman in the window began to smile, her lips twisting into an unnatural curve. ‘Let me in,’ she said, ‘and you will finally rest.’ But something in my gut snapped, and I rushed to the bolt, pressing it shut with all my strength. The shaking stopped, and the woman vanished. The cottage fell silent, but I could hear a faint, rhythmic breathing, coming from the pantry.

I never returned to that house after that night. I moved to Kathmandu within the week, and I have not spoken of this to anyone until now. But even here, in this rented flat, I sometimes find petals on my windowsill, and I have started to lock my doors with chains and even a padlock. The voice is quieter now, but it never truly leaves. Last week, I found a piece of paper slipped under my door. It was a drawing of the old cottage, with the pantry door slightly ajar, and written in a shaky hand were the words: ‘The latch is waiting.’ I have not slept a full night since. I am writing this not as a story, but as a warning: if you ever find a house with a window that opens on its own, leave. Leave before it learns your name.