The Linseed Man

I grew up in a narrow terraced house in the northern mill town of Blackridge, where the cobbles always seemed wet and the sky hung like a dirty sheet. My guardian, Gran, was a fierce little woman with floury hands and a sharp tongue, but she could rock you to sleep with a hymn and a cup of milky tea. It was in that house, number 11 on Thistle Lane, that I first learned the dead don’t always leave.

My sister, Etta, was barely three when it started. She would sit in the corner of the back bedroom, her chubby fingers tracing patterns on the faded wallpaper, and chatter away as if she had a friend. Gran would ask who she was talking to, and Etta would say, with a matter-of-fact calm that made my skin prickle, ‘It’s the old man in the flat cap. He sits on the end of my bed and watches the rain.’ Gran’s face would go pale, and she’d mutter about ‘nonsense’ and drag Etta downstairs.

But I watched Gran’s hands tremble as she poured the tea. We all knew the house had a history——the previous owner, a reclusive seed merchant named Mr. Proctor, had died in the front room in the winter of ’63. They said he’d been found sitting in his armchair, a bag of linseed split at his feet, his eyes open and staring at the window. Some said he’d waited too long for someone to come back.

When I turned seven, I started sensing him. Not seeing him clearly, just a weight on the edge of my vision, a smell of damp wool and linseed oil. At night, I’d feel the mattress dip as if someone sat down, and I’d hear a low, rhythmic breathing that wasn’t mine. I told Gran, and she just tightened her lips and said, ‘Don’t you go filling your head with that, lad.’ But I saw her sprinkle salt along the windowsill of my room, and she started leaving a cup of milk outside my door at night——’For the mice,’ she said, but I knew better.

It was on a bitter November evening, with the fog rolling in off the canal, that things changed. Gran had gone to the corner shop for a pint of milk. I was alone in the kitchen, peeling potatoes, when I heard Gran’s voice, clear as a bell, from the back bedroom: ‘Come on, love, time to say goodnight to the old man.’

My blood went cold. I dropped the peeler and ran upstairs, taking the stairs two at a time. The door to the back bedroom was ajar, a sliver of gaslight spilling onto the landing. I pushed it open. There was no one there——just Etta’s empty bed, the sheets folded neatly. But the window was open, and a cold draft made the curtain shiver. And on the floor, scattered like seeds, were dozens of brown linseeds, forming a trail that led to the window.

From downstairs came a crash, a thud, and then silence. I ran down, my heart hammering. In the front room, the armchair was overturned, and Gran was on the floor, her eyes wide and staring at the ceiling. She was gasping for breath, clutching her chest. ‘He was here,’ she wheezed. ‘He said it was time to take the girl. Time to settle his debt.’

I called for an ambulance, but by the time they arrived, Gran was gone. The paramedics said it was a heart attack, but I knew better. The old man had come for payment. He had been waiting, as patient as a seed in winter, for a child of the house to join him.

I never saw Etta again. The police searched the canal, the moors, the old mill, but found nothing. I moved away, to the other side of the country, and tried to forget. But even now, when I close my eyes, I see the trail of linseeds, and I hear Gran’s last words. And some nights, I feel a weight on the end of my bed, and I smell damp wool and linseed oil. I never sleep with my back to the window, and I always keep a heap of linseeds on the nightstand——for when he comes back. Because he always comes back.