The Midden’s Persistent Gaze

The old farmhouse on Cinder Road had always felt watchful, but I chalked it up to the wind rattling the windows and the constant creak of settling timbers. My two cats, Marmalade and Soot, were my only companions here, and they had begun to fixate on a patch of wall in the pantry, just beside the cellar door. At first, I thought it was a mouse, but they would sit for hours, tails flicking, eyes unblinking, staring at the same spot. Then I noticed they did the same in the dining room, directly above the pantry, at the far wall where an old portrait of a stern-faced woman hung crooked.

Last Tuesday, I was at the oak table in the dining room, grading papers and sipping lukewarm tea, when the overhead bulb sputtered and died. The room plunged into a deep gray, the kind of darkness that presses in from all sides. As I reached for my phone to light the way, I felt a distinct coldness on my right forearm, like a damp cloth laid against my skin. It wasn’t the draft—that always came from the window behind me. This was localized, heavy, almost as if someone had placed a hand there. And I had the most unsettling certainty that this presence was watching the screen of my laptop, which still glowed with a true crime documentary, as if it were genuinely interested in the narrator’s voice.

The cold lingered for a full minute, during which Marmalade, who had been sitting on the floor, suddenly turned and hissed at the wall. Then it lifted, and the light flickered back on. I rubbed my arm, but there was no mark, no dampness. I told myself it was a chill from the metal chair arm, but I knew better.

A week later, I was in the bedroom, trying to read, when I heard a soft scratching from the ceiling, directly above the dining room. It sounded like claws on wood, but slow and deliberate. Then came a faint, rhythmic hum, like a low-frequency chant, barely audible. I tiptoed to the center of the room and pressed my ear to the cold ceiling. The hum grew clearer—it was a woman’s voice, singing a lullaby in a language I didn’t recognize. And I felt the same cold spot on my shoulder.

That night, I dreamed of the woman in the portrait. She was stepping out of the frame, her painted eyes now hollow, and she was pointing to the cellar door. In the dream, I followed her down the rickety stairs into a dirt-floored room. In the corner, there was a mound of old grain and bones—a midden, I think it’s called—and from that mound, something moved. The dream ended with the woman whispering, ‘You will sit with me.’

I woke with a start, and the cats were both at the foot of my bed, staring at the door, which was ajar. I distinctly remembered closing it. The next morning, I went to the portrait and saw that it had tilted slightly, as if straightened by unseen hands. I took it down and turned it over. On the backboard, scratched into the wood, was a date: 1897. And a name: Elsbeth. The same year the house was built, I realized.

Now, I no longer sit in the dining room. The cats refuse to enter it. But I can feel that cold spot on my arm even now, as I write this in the kitchen. And in the night, I hear that lullaby, coming from above, and then from below, as if whatever dwells in the midden has found its way between the walls. Last night, I found the cellar door open, and the midden mound had been disturbed, fresh soil scattered on the floor. I haven’t gone down to check. I’m afraid I’ll see a hollow in the dirt, shaped like a person, waiting for me to take their place.