The Loom in the Walls

It wasn’t the sort of thing that makes headlines, but it’s stuck with me for a decade now. I’m not asking you to believe me; I just need to get it out before it festers any longer. Maybe someone out there can make sense of it. If you’re the next animal psychic, you could ask my cat, but I doubt even she could tell you what really happened. I’ve had her for five years, and I can usually read her moods—content, irritated, curious—but that night, she was a stranger wearing my pet’s skin.

We were at my neighbor Denise’s house for a housewarming party. Her new place was an old Victorian that had been split into apartments. The walls were thick, and the floorboards creaked in a rhythm like a slow heartbeat. My cat, Soot, is not exactly a social butterfly; she usually hides under the couch when there’s more than two people. But Denise had a way with animals, and Soot had taken a shine to her during our visits. That night, I managed to coax her out from her carrier, and after a few nervous loops around the living room, she settled on a sheepskin rug near the radiator, grooming her paws as if she owned the place.

There were five of us: Denise, our friends Marcus and Lena, me, and Soot. We were deep into a conversation about the landlord’s questionable taste in paint colors when Soot’s ears flattened. Not the usual ‘I heard a noise’ flatten, but a full press against her skull. Her tail lashed once, twice, then went rigid. She stood up, not in the lazy way she usually does, but a stiff, mechanical rise, like a puppet on strings. A low growl started in her throat, something I had never heard from her before—a sound that seemed too big for her small body.

The growl escalated into a bark, but not a cat’s hiss or yowl—a sharp, guttural bark that made all of us freeze. Denise’s smile evaporated. ‘Greta, is she okay?’ she asked. I shook my head, not knowing what to say. Soot’s hackles were up, her back arched, and she fixed her gaze on a corner of the room where the wall met the ceiling. There was nothing there, just old wallpaper with a pattern of faded roses.

But Soot didn’t see nothing. She saw something that made her tremble, her claws scraping the floorboards. Then she did something that still gives me chills: she began to back away, but it was like she was fighting an invisible force. Her body moved forward against her will, as if something was dragging her by the scruff. She let out a yelp, a sound of pure terror, and then she went silent, her eyes rolling back until only the whites showed.

We all jumped up. Marcus tried to grab her, but she yowled and slashed at him, drawing blood. Lena backed against the wall, whispering, ‘What the hell?’ Denise rushed to the window, peering out into the dark garden. ‘There’s someone out there,’ she said, her voice shaky. But when we looked, there was nothing but shadows.

Then, just as suddenly as it started, Soot stopped. She blinked, looked around as if she had no memory of the last minute, and trotted back to her rug. She curled up, licking her paw, and soon fell asleep. We spent the rest of the night in uneasy silence, exchanging glances, none of us willing to say what we were thinking.

Later, as I was packing up to leave, Denise pulled me aside. ‘The previous tenant,’ she whispered, ‘she had a cat. It went missing a week before she moved out. They say the walls have a loom in them—like something weaving.’ I laughed it off, but I couldn’t shake the image of Soot’s eyes, blank and white.

Two weeks after, Denise called me. She was crying. She said the landlord had given her a box of things the previous tenant had left. Among them was an old tape recorder. She played it for me over the phone. On it, a woman’s voice, shaky and distant, said: ‘Charlie, stop staring at the loom in the walls. It’s not real. It’s not real.’ Then a thumping sound, and the tape went silent.

Soot has never acted like that again. She’s her usual aloof self, purring and chasing sunbeams. But sometimes, in the middle of the night, I wake up to find her staring at the corner of my bedroom ceiling, her tail twitching, and I don’t dare look. I don’t want to see what she sees.