The Light Under the Stairs

In the fall of 2014, I was heavy with my second child, and my partner, Elias, and I had moved into my grandmother’s old duplex on the outskirts of a town that had seen better days. The duplex was a single-story affair, but it had a strange layout: a long central hallway with rooms branching off, and at the very end, a narrow stairway that led to a basement we rarely used. The walls were thick, painted a dull green, and there were no windows in the hallway itself, so even during the day, it was dim.

We had set up our sleeping bags in the living room, which opened directly onto the hallway, because the master bedroom was being re-painted. The only light came from a small television we had balanced on a stack of books. It was past midnight, and the house was quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator from the kitchen. I was lying on my side, facing the hallway, while Elias slept beside me, his hand resting on my belly.

Suddenly, a small orb of light appeared at the bottom of the stairwell, just at the edge of the hallway. It was about the size of a golf ball, glowing with a soft, yellow-white luminescence. It moved back and forth along the baseboard, as if searching for something. I blinked, thinking it was a reflection from the TV, but the TV was playing a static-filled channel, and the orb didn’t move in sync with any light source. I nudged Elias, but he was in a deep sleep.

The orb began to move up the stairs, slowly, step by step, as if ascending with effort. I felt a chill despite the warmth of the room. My heartbeat quickened. I tried to rationalize it: maybe it was a firefly that had gotten in, but fireflies don’t glow that steadily, and they certainly don’t move with a purpose.

It reached the top of the stairs and disappeared into the darkness of the upstairs hallway. A moment later, I heard a faint creak, as if a floorboard had shifted under a weight. Then another creak, closer. I sat up, my hand on my belly, and stared into the dark hallway. The orb reappeared, now hovering at the top of the stairs, and it started to descend. It paused on the last step, then rolled off and onto the floor, coming to a stop just a few feet from me.

I reached out, my hand trembling, and the orb vanished. But in its place, I saw a faint outline of a child’s handprint on the carpet, as if pressed into the fibers, and just as quickly, it faded. I heard a whisper, like a child’s voice, saying, ‘Mama?’ in a high, thin tone.

I woke Elias, shaking him harder. He stirred and groggily asked what was wrong. I pointed to the bottom of the stairs, but there was nothing there. He said I was having a dream, but I knew I wasn’t. He tried to calm me, but as he spoke, I saw the light flicker behind him, and he went silent. He turned to see what I was looking at, and then his face went pale. He had seen it too.

The orb reappeared, and this time it began to move in a circle, faster and faster, until it was a blur. From the blur, a sound emerged, like a child’s laughter, but distorted and wrong. My grandfather, who had lived here before, had died in this house. My mother had always told me that his spirit lingered, but I never believed it. Now I did.

As the laughter grew louder, the lights in the room flickered, and the television shut off. The orb began to pulse, and with each pulse, the air got colder. I clutched Elias, and I felt a sharp kick from inside me, as if my unborn child could sense the presence. And then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the orb shot up the stairs and vanished, leaving us in total darkness.

We didn’t sleep that night. We moved our pallet to the kitchen, and we kept every light in the house on until dawn. But even as the sun rose, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had been left unfinished. And when I looked down the hallway, I saw that the basement door, which had been locked, was now ajar. And on the threshold, there was a single, small footprint in the dust, as if a child had stood there, watching us all night long.

We moved out the next week, and I never told my mother what we saw. But sometimes, when I’m alone in my new home, I catch a glimpse of a small, dancing light out of the corner of my eye, and I feel that same cold pressure on my hand, as if the child from that house still reaches out, asking to be acknowledged.