The Lattice of Unfinished Things

The first thing I noticed about the house on Maple Hollow Road was the ivy. It had overtaken the entire western wall, crawling over the windows in thick, gnarled ropes, as if the house were being slowly strangled. We’d moved there after my father’s transfer, landing in a place that felt more like a mausoleum than a home. I was thirteen, and my room was a converted attic at the top of the house, with a sloped ceiling that seemed to press down on me whenever I lay in bed.

My bed was positioned directly under the largest of three dormer windows, which faced the backyard and the dense, untended woods beyond. On the opposite Wall, an old secretary desk sat beneath a small, square window that looked out onto the side yard and, beyond that, the neighbors’ fence. The room was huge, but it felt hollow, every footstep echoing as if the floorboards had been stretched thin over a vast emptiness. I didn’t mind the size, though. It gave me space to set up my stereo and my shelf of paperback horror novels, which were my only companions.

The first sign that something was wrong came a week after we moved in. I woke up in the middle of the night, my mouth dry, my heart hammering for no reason. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw something at the foot of my bed. It was a shape, denser than the air around it, like a patch of shadow that had broken loose from the wall and was standing there, motionless. It was roughly human-shaped, but its edges were frayed, as if it were made of smoke. I blinked, and it was gone. I chalked it up to a sleep paralysis hallucination, though I hadn’t been awake long enough for that.

Weeks passed, and the shadow appeared more often. It would stand in different places: by the window, in the corner near the desk, sometimes at the foot of my bed, sometimes right beside me, leaning over, its featureless face inches from mine. I never felt threatened, exactly, but there was a deep, and cold sense of longing about it, as if it were waiting for something. I tried to ignore it, telling myself it was just my imagination, but a small part of me knew better. I started sleeping with the lights on, but the shadow only seemed to grow more solid in the electric glow.

One night, I woke to find it standing at the side of my bed, closer than ever. This time, it was not still. Its form was shifting, and I saw that it was holding something in its hand, an object that was even darker than itself. It extended its arm, offering it to me. I can’t explain why, but I reached out and took it. It was cold, and when I opened my hand, I saw it was a key, made of the same shadow-stuff, solid but weightless. The moment I closed my fingers around it, the shadow receded, pulling away from me and back into the wall, and the room was ordinary again.

I sat there for a long time, staring at the key. It didn’t feel like a hallucination; it felt real. Over the next few days, I became obsessed with the key, trying to find what it might open. The attic had a few doors: a linen closet, a bathroom, and a sealed wooden door at the end of the hallway that looked ancient. I tried the key in every lock, but none of them fit. And then, one afternoon, when the light was slanting through the windows in a certain way, I noticed a faint seam in the wallpaper, not far from my bed. I pressed my hand against it, and felt a coolness. I pulled the wallpaper back, and there was a small, recessed door, no more than two feet high, that I’d never noticed. The key fit perfectly.

The door opened into a dark crawlspace, barely tall enough to kneel in. It was musty, and I could see old trunks and boxes, but what caught my eye was the lattice. It was made of thin wooden slats, covering the entire back wall, with small squares. Through the gaps, I could see a faint light, like a room beyond. I crawled in, pushed aside a trunk, and put my eye to one of the lattice openings. What I saw made me gasp.

Beyond the lattice was an exact replica of my room, but it was empty. No furniture, no windows, no door. Just four bare walls and a floor. And standing in the center of that room was the shadow. It was looking at me, or at least, I felt its gaze. It raised its hand, and in that hand was another key. It mimicked my action, holding it up, as if offering it to me and then, slowly, it reached through the lattice. Its arm passed through the slats, and the key it held was identical to the one I now clutched. I knew, deep in my gut, that if I took that key, I would somehow switch places with it.

The shadow’s hand began to fade, and I realized the key was dissolving. I had a choice, and I knew I had to decide right then. But instead of fear, I felt a strange curiosity, a pull that was almost irresistible. I reached out and took the key. The moment my fingers brushed it, the shadow surged forward, and I felt myself being pulled through the lattice, my body dissolving into shadow as the shadow’s form solidified into mine. I was trapped in the bare room, and the shadow wore my face. It smiled, and for the first time, its features became clear: they were mine.

I slammed my weight against the lattice, but it was unyielding. I screamed, but my voice had become a whisper, as if it were muffled by layers of dust. The shadow, in my body, turned and walked out of the attic. I watched through the lattice as it descended the stairs, and I knew it was going to take my place in the world. I was left in a room that was not a room, with no way out, except for the key I still held, but it had faded to nothing. I was trapped, forever, on the other side of the lattice, watching my life play out through the cracks, hoping that someday, someone would find the door and give me a way back, but knowing, in that hollow, shadow-less space, that no one would ever think to look.