The Laughing Draft

My childhood bedroom was at the end of a long, narrow corridor in a house that had stood since 1687. The house itself was warm, filled with the smell of woodsmoke and baking bread. But my room, the one at the back, overlooking the old orchard, never felt right. It was as if the air itself was thicker there, waiting for something. I was five when I first noticed. I had a dream of a woman in a wide-brimmed hat, her face hidden in shadow, standing over my bed. She didn’t move, just watched, and I felt a cold, mocking presence, as if she were enjoying some private joke at my expense. I woke with a start, my heart hammering. That’s when I felt it: a grip on my ribcage, cold and sharp, like a hand trying to burrow into my skin. I shrieked and scrambled to the far side of the bed, and a raspy, guttural laugh echoed in my ear, so close it felt like the breath was on my neck. I bolted for the door, screaming for my mother. As she burst in, the ceiling lamp above my bed was still swinging violently, casting wild shadows that danced across the walls. I told her everything, but she just smiled reassuringly, ‘It’s just a nightmare, dear. The house is old, it creaks.’ She tucked me back in and left, but the lamp kept swaying for a long time after she closed the door.

I grew up in that room. The incidents continued, but they always followed a pattern. It never showed itself fully, never tried to harm me directly, but it delighted in my fear. It would move small objects, a hairbrush sliding across the dresser, a doll’s head turning to face me. It would whisper my name in a voice that wasn’t quite human, a voice that sounded like old leaves skittering across stone. Once, when I was ten, I saw a shadow move under the door from the hallway, even though no one was there. I learned to ignore it, to keep the light on at night, to sleep with my back to the wall. But the worst was the closet. It was a huge, walk-in closet that extended into a narrow passage leading to a spiral staircase down to the cellar. That passage always felt colder, darker. I never went in there after dark.

When I was sixteen, I decided I’d had enough. I was a junior in high school, and I thought I was brave. I planned to spend the night in the room, fully awake, to prove to myself it was just my imagination. I set up a video camera on a tripod, aiming at the bed, and I sat in a chair with a notebook, determined to write down every single oddity. At exactly 3:03 AM, the lamp began to sway. I watched, half-expecting it. Then I heard the laugh, low and rumbling, from inside the closet. I felt a draft, and the door to the closet creaked open an inch. I froze. The laugh grew louder, and I could swear it was coming from the passage beyond. Then, a voice, clearer than ever, spoke inside my head: ‘You think you’re so clever, but you’re just a child. I’ve been here for three hundred years. I know your family’s secrets.’ I didn’t wait. I grabbed the camera and bolted, tripping over the chair, and ran to my parents’ room. I showed them the footage, hoping for proof, but the footage only showed the lamp swaying, and then a gray static over the bed, and then my panicked exit. My mother looked worried, but my father said, ‘It’s just a draft, and your imagination. But maybe we should have that passage sealed.’

The next week, a contractor came and bricked up the closet passage, sealing off the spiral staircase. I thought it was over. But that night, I woke to the sound of scratching, coming from inside the wall behind my headboard. It was rhythmic, like fingernails dragging across plaster. And then, a muffled laugh, coming from inside the wall. The lamp began to sway again, even though the closet was sealed. I knew then that the presence wasn’t in the closet; it was in the room itself, maybe in the very wood and stone of the old house. I never used that room again. I moved to the guest room at the front of the house.

Years later, after my parents passed, I inherited the house. I’d been living abroad, and I returned to settle the estate. The room was still there, the walls still papered with the old floral pattern I remembered. I decided to have it renovated, to exorcise my demons once and for all. I hired a team to strip the wallpaper and paint. They found something in the walls: a bundle of old papers, tied with a ribbon, yellowed with age. They were letters, dated 1689, written by a woman named Margaret, who had lived in this very house. She wrote of her husband, a cruel man who had a habit of locking her in a small room at the back of the house for days on end, as punishment. She described hearing him laugh while she was trapped in the dark, the sound echoing in her ears. She wrote that she hoped her spirit would haunt him after he died, that she would make him feel as humiliated and mocked as she had felt. The last letter, dated 1690, was unfinished. It simply said, ‘I am going to make him hear my laugh every night, until he goes mad.’

I read the letters in the now-bare room, and as I finished, the lamp above my head began to sway, even though there was no electricity connected. A soft, feminine laugh filled the room, not mocking this time, but sad, relieved. I looked at the sealed closet wall, and I felt a strange kinship with this woman. I had lived with her for eighteen years, and I knew her pain. I whispered to the empty air, ‘I understand you.’ The laugh seemed to soften, and then it faded. The lamp stopped swaying. The room felt still, peaceful, for the first time in my memory. I left the letters on the floor, and I closed the door. I never felt the presence again. But sometimes, I think I hear that laugh, but it’s no longer directed at me. It’s as if she’s finally found someone else to torment.