The Loft Light

I was eight, my brother Eli was eleven, and we shared the attic room of our creaking farmhouse. The room had a single, bare bulb hanging from a frayed cord, and at night, the bulb would sway slightly, even when the windows were shut. I used to think it was the house breathing.

One night, after the house had settled into its usual groans, I heard a voice, close to my ear, as if someone were leaning over my bed. It was a woman’s voice, dry like old paper. It said, ‘One will not wake.’ I lay frozen, pulling the quilt up to my chin. Eli was already asleep, his breathing slow and even. Five minutes later, a scream tore through the darkness, raw and sharp, cutting the silence like a blade. It came from the floor below. I bolted out of bed and ran down the narrow stairs, my heart hammering. But the hallway was empty, the doors closed. The scream had seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.

Later, as I lay back in bed, the voice returned, softer now, almost a lullaby. ‘Sleep, little one, sleep.’ It was soothing, and despite the terror, my eyelids grew heavy, and I drifted off. In my dream, I saw a shadow push Eli at the top of the stairs. He tumbled down, landing at the bottom in a twisted heap, his leg bent at a wrong angle. I woke with a gasp.

The next day, Eli ‘fell’ down the stairs. The stairs were steep and worn, and it was easy to stumble. But when I ran to him, he was crying, and he said, ‘Something pushed me. I felt hands on my back.’ A chill ran through me.

Three months passed. We tried to forget, but the house felt tainted. My cat, Marmalade, would often sit in the attic room, staring at the corner where the wall met the ceiling. One evening, as I was reading, Marmalade’s ears flattened. A scream erupted from the hallway, followed by a desperate cry for help. The voice was my mother’s. I jumped up, but Marmalade yowled and shot under the bed. I turned to see where he had been looking, and there, hanging from the light fixture, was the body of a man. His face was white, his eyes bulging, and on the walls around him, scrawled in what looked like dark red paint, were the words: ‘Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.’

I ran out of the room, screaming for my mother. She was in the kitchen, and when I told her, she turned pale. She said she had heard nothing. But as we climbed the stairs, I felt a cold draft. When we reached the attic door, it was ajar, and the light was off. We found nothing. But on the ceiling, just above where the body had hung, there was a thin crack, and from it, a faint, dry whisper: ‘One will not wake.’