The Loom in the Attic

I live in the outskirts of a small town in Ohio, in a house that my great-grandparents built in the 1920s. It’s a two-story wooden structure with a wraparound porch, a basement that smells of damp earth, and an attic that no one ever goes into. My family—my mother, father, younger sister, and I—share the space with three cats, a border collie, and a parakeet. The animals are all skittish, especially at night, but we’ve chalked it up to their nature.

A few weeks ago, I started feeling something wrong in the house. It wasn’t loud; it was a subtle pressure, like the air itself was heavier. I began sleeping with the radio on to fill the silence, but it didn’t help. I’d wake up at 3:00 AM with my heart racing, convinced someone was watching me from the doorway. I’d toss and turn, and eventually drift back to sleep, chalking it up to stress from my job.

Then, last Tuesday, it happened. I was curled on my side, facing the wall, the radio murmuring a late-night talk show. Just as I was on the edge of sleep, I felt a sharp tug on my hair, right at the base of my skull. It was like someone had grabbed a handful and yanked. I sat up, heart hammering, and flicked on the lamp. The room was empty. The cats were downstairs—I could hear them knocking something over. My door was closed. I lay back down, but I didn’t sleep the rest of the night.

I told my mother about it the next morning. She laughed and said I probably had a leg cramp. My sister, who’s fourteen, looked at me with wide eyes but said nothing. That night, I made sure to tie my hair up in a bun. Around 2:30 AM, I was dozing when I heard a low hum, like a distant electrical buzz, coming from the ceiling. It was rhythmic, almost like a lullaby. I froze. The hum grew louder, then cut off abruptly. I felt a chill, as if the window had been opened, but it was closed.

Determined to find a logical explanation, I decided to check the attic. It was stuffy and cramped, filled with old furniture, boxes of my great-grandmother’s clothes, and a large wooden loom in the corner. The loom was covered in a dusty sheet, but when I lifted it, I saw that the threads were tangled and slightly damp, as if recently used. I ran my fingers over the warp and felt a slight vibration, like the strings had been plucked just before I touched them. I quickly covered it and left, but the image stayed with me.

That night, I didn’t sleep. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the house creak. At 3:00 AM exactly, the radio suddenly switched frequencies, letting out a burst of static, then a woman’s voice, high and thin, humming a tune I didn’t recognize. I sat up, and the humming stopped. The radio returned to normal. My dog, who had been sleeping at the foot of my bed, started growling at the closed closet door. I got up, my legs shaking, and opened the closet. Inside, the air was cold, and I saw a faint outline of a figure, like a shadow but more solid, that vanished when I turned on the closet light.

I called my parents. They came, but they said I was dreaming. My sister refused to come near my room. The next day, I called a priest, but he just blessed the house and said it was a draft. I didn’t believe him. That afternoon, I went back to the attic and unearthed an old diary from a box labeled ‘Evelyn.’ It was my great-grandmother’s. She wrote about a child she lost, a little girl who died in the attic, and how she used to hum to her through the loom. The last entry, dated 1923, said: ‘She still weaves at night. Her fingers touch the air, and I hear her in the walls. I fear she will pull my hair when I sleep, and the loom will never be silent again.’

Now, I’ve moved my bed to the living room, and I keep the radio loud. But every night, at 3:00 AM, the hum starts, and I feel a gentle tug on my hair, as if a ghostly hand is reaching out from the attic to pull me closer to the loom. I’m afraid that one night, it will yank so hard that I’ll wake up in the attic, tangled in the threads, and the loom will start weaving my story into its pattern.