The Loom in the Parlor

My grandmother left me her Victorian house on the edge of a forgotten apple orchard in upstate New York. I adored the place—the gingerbread trim, the bay windows, the smell of old paper and lavender. But within a month, I began to feel that the house was not as empty as it seemed.

At first, it was small things. A draft that followed me down the hallway, though every window was sealed. The parlor, which faced north and never caught the sun, always felt like stepping into a cellar, no matter how many lamps I lit. And then there was the basement. I found a child’s wooden top, wound with red string, sitting on the bottom stair. I’d never seen it before. When I told my friend Marcus, he laughed, but his laugh died when he saw it. He said he felt a weight, like being watched. He left early, and I didn’t sleep well that night.

One evening, I was reading in the parlor, tucked into an armchair too large for the room. The house shifted and sighed, as old houses do. Then I heard a thump from the basement, followed by the rattle of the old furnace. I went to the door, but it was locked. When I turned back, the cold spot had moved—it pooled around the chair I’d just left. And in the mirror above the fireplace, I saw the silhouette of a child, just a flicker, gone when I looked directly.

That night, I lay in bed, the ceiling fan clicking overhead. I was nearly asleep when a pressure settled on my chest, like a heavy blanket, but denser. I couldn’t move. My arms were pinned, my breath shallow. The ceiling fan spun slower, then faster, and I swear I saw a dark shape crouched on the blades, grinning. I tried to scream, but no sound came. The pressure intensified, and the room began to turn as if I were on a turntable. When I finally forced my eyes open, the shape was gone, but the cold was there, and the faint scent of apples and dust.

I called a local historian, a woman named Edith who wrote books on disappearing towns. She listened quietly, then told me the house had been built by a man named Thaddeus Weaver, a weaver of wool and, according to local lore, of darker things. He had a son, Samuel, who died in the basement—falling down the stairs, they said. But some said the fall was no accident, that Thaddeus had used the boy’s bones in his loom to make a cloth that could trap souls, a shroud of sorts.

Edith gave me an old photograph: a thin-faced man with hollow eyes, and beside him, a boy with a red cap. The boy’s face was blurred. I stared at it as I drove home, and when I parked, the photo had changed—the boy had moved closer to the lens, and his smile was wider. I shoved it in my pocket, shaking.

Three nights ago, I woke to the sound of clicking, rhythmic, like a loom. The basement door was ajar. I descended with a lantern, my feet echoing on the wooden stairs. The air was thick with cold, so thick my breath fogged. In the corner, near the old coal chute, stood a tall black shape, roughly human, but with too-long arms. It was weaving something—a shimmering, gray cloth that seemed to writhe. And as I watched, the cloth formed a shape: a small boy, transparent, reaching for me.

I ran. I stumbled up the stairs, but the door slammed shut, and I was left in the dark. No, not pitch black—the cold spot was glowing, a sickly green. And over my shoulder, I heard a soft, childish giggle, and then a whisper: ‘You’ll keep me warm.’ I turned, and the shape was inches from my face, and I swung the lantern. It shattered, and the fire spread along the floorboards, but the shape didn’t retreat. It just watched. And then the front door burst open, and I fled into the night.

The house burned to the ground that night. The fire department said it was a faulty furnace. But when I sifted through the ashes, I found a single object: a child’s wooden top, wound with red string, not a scratch on it. And in the center, carved into the wood, was the name ‘Samuel.’ I threw it into the lake. But last night, I heard a spinning sound outside my motel window. And when I looked, the top was resting on the ledge, glowing faintly, and the cold had followed me. Because a shroud is never done being woven—it just needs new thread.